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She put the Tesla in reverse by mistake and backed into a pond.
by bigyikes 3y ago
She put the Tesla in reverse by mistake and backed into a pond.
- ghaff 3y agoThe Tesla part seems pretty incidental to this unless their gear controls are unusually confusing and easy to misuse. My Honda controls are not the conventional automatic shift--although Reverse is very clearly differentiated from Drive and it would be hard to press one rather than the other absent just a real mental error.
- gnicholas 3y agoI thought the bigger issue was the inability to escape the vehicle once it was underwater. I don’t know the extent to which (1) heavier EVs sink faster than similar-class ICE vehicles, (2) EVs generally are hard to get out of because windows lack manual controls compared to ICE vehicles, or (3) Teslas are particularly lacking in escape mechanisms. Seems like the lesson is to have a window hammer and to break the window before the vehicle fills with water.
- rkagerer 3y agoMy dad keeps a hammer in his Tesla to break a window in case he's trapped in without the windows working.
- dangus 3y agoThe electronic door poppers should be illegal. They’re so clearly a safety hazard with no cost or function/ease of use upside. Other brands that aren’t Tesla don’t go to such great lengths to hide the emergency releases, too.
- leohonexus 3y agoModel X's laminated glass is near impossible to break underwater according to the article. Instead of a window hammer, in the US you could probably use a handgun to shatter the glass instead. The Cybertruck though uses "bulletproof glass", so you can't even shoot your way to escape - it'll just make a hole to make the car sink faster.
- gnicholas 3y ago> That is terribly difficult underwater and can be even more so when trying to bash through tempered glass or sturdier laminated glass, which most car companies use today. Those are the two types of glass that Tesla may have used in its 2020 Model X, according to company documents. Laminated glass, in particular, is lauded for its safety qualities, such as preventing a driver from being ejected during a crash; however it is nearly impossible to break underwater, according to testing done by the American Automobile Association. So it sounds like it's a mixed bag from a safety perspective — you're less likely to be ejected, but more likely to drown. It's not crazy to choose this type of design if ejections are much more likely. However, it seems like any car sold with this glass should come with a warning and perhaps an included safety tool to escape. I wonder if the AAA testing utilized window hammers or just regular brute force.
- ghaff 3y agoAn accessible window hammer is probably not the worst thing to carry. On the other hand, there's a bunch of safety and maintenance gear you could load in your car that most people will never need and it's not clear how much of that makes sense unless you routinely travel to remote locations outside of cell phone service.
- gnicholas 3y agoGiven how discombobulating it would be to drive into a lake, it would probably make sense to have a window hammer on both sides, or watch a youtube video or two about ways to break out of cars without window hammers. This would be less necessary if you're in a vehicle with mechanical door pulls, where window egress would not be as crucial.
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoI wonder which EVs these are? My Ioniq 5 has standard door and window controls. The doors still open when the 12V is disconnected. Maybe I should be glad I have a plebeian Hyundai.
- tbrownaw 3y ago> (2) EVs generally are hard to get out of because windows lack manual controls compared to ICE vehicles My '07 ICE vehicle has non-manual windows. I thought basically everything except the very very cheapest did these days.
- petee 3y agoI assumed it meant computer controlled, versus a switch directly powering the window motor
- gnicholas 3y agoTrue, this should refer to door/window controls. My '07 ICE and '14 PHEV both have electric window controls but also have manual door pulls. My understanding is that it's not hard to open a door with a manual door pull after the water pressure equilibrates, assuming the door wasn't badly damaged in the crash.
- ghaff 3y agoI haven't had a window crank on decidely non-luxury vehicles since the early 90s at the latest.
- jamesy0ung 3y agoThe doors on the Tesla have a flap below the button to open the door. If you pull it backwards, it manually opens the door. If I backed into a pond, I'd pull the flap and get out before the car sinks. EDIT: looks like this only applies to the newer models. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/model-x-emergency-open-driver-door.272863/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/model-x-emergency-op... It isn't very easy on an older model x
- lunakid 3y agoAs soon as the car door gets (partly) underwater (i.e. not too many seconds), even a sliding door could be incredibly difficult to open if it also had to be pushed outward first. Breaking the glass (or somehow still managing to slide the window) could be more realistic options, barring lucky cases of sinking unusually slowly.
- orangepanda 3y agoAs someone who's never been inside a tesla - I would not be surprised if Reverse is a touchscreen control. Probably next to a windshield wipers icon.
- matthew28845 3y agoIt is on the newer ones. You swipe up on a touch control to go into drive, down to go into reverse. It's a horrible design that shouldn't be legal.
- rqtwteye 3y agoThat’s terrible. You should never have to use a touchscreen for basic driving functionality.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoI'm glad I have an old Model S!
- rsynnott 3y agoWait, is that _real_? That’s ridiculous.
- irwinr 3y agoIt's worse than that actually. The newer Tesla's actually include a "beta feature" to guess which way you want to go. The idea is you should never have to use the touchscreen: When you put your foot on the brake the car automatically selects F or R based on what the sensors see. Like in a parking lot if you parked nose in, it would see another car or wall in front of you, so it would assume you want to go in reverse. It's labeled beta and disabled by default, but lots of Tesla features are labeled beta and still get used a ton.
- tbrownaw 3y ago> The Tesla part seems pretty incidental to this unless their gear controls are unusually confusing and easy to misuse. Don't EVs usually accelerate faster from a stop? That could also make it harder to react in time if she expected to be going forward onto a road.
- browningstreet 3y agoStalks or not? Actually, I think it’s a significant omission as to whether or not her Tesla X had the old stalks, or the new “screen only” gear configuration (well, there are buttons overhead for gearing but they’re not intended as the primary selector). I have a Tesla Y with stalks. I’ve test drove the new controls and personally would never buy a Tesla (or any other brand) with the new controls. I don’t buy MKBHD’s assertion that you get used to them. The article says the family had 3 Teslas. Again, no mention of whether there was a mix of controls among those cars or if they all had one or the other set of stalks (or not). But the family doesn’t blame the car.
- lostlogin 3y agoThe person who wrote the article may have been paid by the word. It would be interesting to read a publication which paid staff to convey the message efficiently.
- Triphibian 3y agoIt would but the incentives of the Internet (SEO, clickbait, etc.) broke the "inverted pyramid" philosophy in journalism.