Numerous Tesla owners have said they’ve been stuck inside their EVs after the cars suddenly lost power.
YouTuber Tom Exton claimed that his Tesla Model Y ordered him to pull over before it suddenly lost power and left him unable to exit.
Exton followed the instructions for the manual release to open the door, but he said this “somehow broke the driver’s window.”
The ability to open a car door mechanically, from both inside and outside, should always be obvious, without having to find any instructions.
Yeah, how is this not illegal? This seems really dangerous in the event of a crash.
Airplanes don’t have mechanical connections to their control surfaces anymore. They use triple or quadruple redundant fly by wire systems. But they’re that safe because of the FAA, not just out of the goodness of their heart. We need car regulation bodies to be closer to the FAA in stringency.
IMO the biggest difference between standards in flying and driving is the training and requirements toward operators. Imagine having a DUI being a strong indicator that you’ll never drive again, or basic driver training taking 50 driven hours, in addition to stringent theoretical tests.
Or people needing to check their cars for safe operation every time they start it, and omitting it being a crime.
Or a significant percentage of the population being just medically disqualified from driving, especially over 60 years of age.
It would be a different world for sure.
I’ve always been strongly of the opinion that driving is a privilege, not a right and you have to prove you can properly handle the vehicle to strict standards. These vehicles kill and injure so many people every year because of awful driving and awareness.
Now public transit on the other hand, should be a right.
Who cares if it’s legal…… the Muskinator thinks it’s ‘cool’ 😎
It’s no different than a steering wheel and brakes. It doesn’t matter if there’s some advanced electronics augmenting (or even controlling) those systems: there need to be a bomb-proof mechanical linkage as a backup.
Tesla doesn’t use steer by wire, but some other car company do. It’s actually really nice for having a high steering ratio at low speeds and a low one at high speeds to be more precise.
Plus breaks have been break by wire for years now without mechanical connection.
Do the brakes brake by wire, or break by wire?
They give a feedback to a sensor which communicates over electrical wires to the brakes.
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“Brake by wire” doesn’t mean there isn’t a mechanical linkage, just that the “primary” means of of transmitting brake pressure is electrical.
There isn’t a single road legal car for sale (yet) that doesn’t have a backup hydraulic or other mechanical system – the brakes must work if there’s a catastrophic electrical failure.
I can’t find which, but some vehicles seem to not have mechanical backup.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-by-wire#:~:text=Ford%2C General Motors%2C and most,Motors Electric and hybrid models.
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/11/4/994
https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/981109/
EHBs are fairly common, but they don’t preclude the use of a backup master cylinder system. A pure EHB has been a “goal” for a long time since eliminating the master cylinder and linkages would simplify design and manufacturing cost. So far nobody has been able to convince regulators or their legal team they can sell a car without one, though.
Pure electrical throttles have been the standard for a while now.
Brake by wire isn’t really very common afaik. Mercedes hat EBC at some point but stopped using that system. It also had the downside that the SBC unit had to be replaced every so often to guarantee a working brake system.
From the wiki:
Seems pretty common to me.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-by-wire#:~:text=Ford%2C General Motors%2C and most,Motors Electric and hybrid models.
The question now is what the other quote was talking about, seems a bit unclear to me. I omitted the electronic parking brake in the quote.
EDIT: As of now I could find references to a total of 6 car models implementing brake-by-wire, two of which are already discontinued: Toyota Prius, Lexus RX 400h, Mercedes E and SL(both discontinued), Alfa Romeo Giulia and the Chevrolet C8 Corvette.
Again, considering the current amount of models on the market, that’s far from common
The Chevy Volt, for instance, has brake-by-wire, but I don’t think they advertise it as such. Most regenerative braking systems require brake by wire to function effectively, because you need to use the regen at higher speeds and physical brake at lower speeds, but only want the user to have one brake pedal.
I don’t see why critical controls like that – if you even want to make them automatic – can’t have manual and automatic modes coupled.
If you lose power steering, you can still steer a vehicle, though you’re going to have to use a lot more muscle.
Tesla’s retract the door handle for better aerodynamics. So you can’t open it mechanically from the outside without the handle to hold. I don’t know how the inside works. Plus they don’t have mechanical keys, so the lock is already electronically controlled.
Maybe instead of engineering stupidly complex electronic door handles they could just, I don’t know, design a simple mechanical door handle that is also aerodynamic? These gimmick “features” automakers keep insisting on add pointless mechanical complexity, pointless areas of failure that are expensive to repair, and aren’t even something many consumers care about, or in many cases are overly complex hassles they actively don’t want.
I’d be interested to see how much actual power savings you get from a more aerodynamic door handle anyway, but it seems that this could be handled by a simple locking flip down cover over a recessed handle if the savings is actually non-negligible.
A flip down cover may be an option, but I’d worry about ice build up. How do you make sure you can always open the cover? If you add a mechanical assist, your back to your original problem.
I think it’s likely the vibe and aesthetics though that caused Tesla to go with their super sleek ones over some sort of cover.
You add drag any time there’s a divit in the panels. There’s lots of vortexes and disruption that happens just because of how your hand is shaped and where it needs to go.
There might be a better way to do it, but the other car companies haven’t done anything yet that I’ve seen to drastically reduce the drag from the handles.
Customers want range and saving money. If it does that without extra hassle, it makes sense. But that’s still up in the air. Especially with Tesla’s anti right to repair making things more difficult all around.
It’s also completely possible to make entirely mechanical non-electronic flush car door handles. They’re less of a shiny gimmick than the electronic ones, and less convenient than many standard handle types, but are entirely possible to do. You could also hypothetically do a version that is both electronic and manually operable with the same components, entirely negating the stupidity of an electronic door opener with an entirely separate mechanical backup, provided you are willing to sacrifice frameless windows.
I doubt that door handle contribites anything measurable to the aerodynamics of the car. The truth is that musk thinks it looks cool regardless of how annoying it is if anything goes wrong.
I found a 12% figure. Aerodynamics are a primary driver of range, which is a major ev selling point. A 12% drag decrease is huge, because you can carry less battery which means you can have a smaller motor, lighter frame, leading to even more range. So it would be very important if that is true.
You can still have protrutionless handles without making them electronically retractable. Just have a spring-loaded metal flap that you push in with your hand
You’ll still get the icing issues, where you need to be able to get in even with a thick layer of ice over the handle. But that does sound like a really good solution otherwise.
I find it hard to believe that 4 door handles (being made flush with the door), reduces drag by 12% . Are there other articles you can share?
That’s a plausible claim. If you find it hard to believe, maybe you should go back to the wind tunnel.
That’s just what Google came up with, sorry. I don’t have time to research more right now. I do know a rear view mirror on an f350 has more drag than an entire Tesla, so aerodynamics are not always intuitive.
i agree. and this isnt just a tesla thing. plenty of other manufacturers are going this route, tesla might be the worst though especially the 3/y rear seat release. when the i8 was released i watched a video on youtube where a salesman and a tech were showing the car off. the tech mentioned that in training they kept breaking the emergency release inside the car. if a tech cant get out in training then how the fuck is anyone supposed to use it in a real emergency?
I imagine firemen/EMS/Cops are going to get annoyed with all the motorized door handles and just start breaking windows when ever they’re responding to something.
Absolutely. If your car is on fire, you shouldn’t be digging around looking for a latch, you should be pulling that handle and exiting in seconds. This design is going to kill people.