Posted on 04/18/2021 10:32:23 AM PDT by DFG
Two men died after a Tesla 'on autopilot with no one driving' crashed into a tree in Houston before starting a huge fire that took 32,000 gallons of water to extinguish.
The fully-electric 2019 Tesla Model S slammed into the tree in Carlton Woods at around 11.25pm on Saturday night before bursting into flames with the passengers still inside.
Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said an investigation had found that 'no one was driving' when the accident happened, with one man sitting in the passenger seat at the front and the second sitting in the back.
Officials told KPRC 2 that the $80,000 vehicle was moving at high speed when it failed to negotiate a cul-de-sac turn, ran off the road and crashed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Until one of those cars hits you.
If they were wearing masks, the deaths will be attributed to Covid.
And they want battery operated aircraft? No thanks.
This is culling the heard of stupid people. On guy in the passenger seat, one in the rear seat and no one in the drivers seat? And their thinking they’re perfectly safe as they haul azz down the road? And they both end up burning to death?
Amazing.
Hmmm.
Maybe use something other than water on a lithium fire?
I bought a car recently that has all the collision avoidance, lane change, blah blah blah, and I bloody hate it.
Sure, you can turn most of it off, but...it is only for that driving session. Next time you start up the car, it all comes back on again.
I particularly dislike the collision avoidance. I usually keep good distance, but sometimes...such as when the car in front of you taking a right or left turn (especially a right turn, and they just poke and poke and poke, so you go around them to the left) the damned thing jacks on the brakes.
I have given up, and just press the accelerator through it while it is jamming on the brakes.
There is one single feature I do like though-and that is the adaptive cruise control. I like cruise control, but rarely used it because traffic is often too congested on the highway and it is a pain because you end up having to manually adjust it up and down, which defeats the purpose.
With the adaptive, you set your speed at about 5-10 above the ambient speed, and just get behind someone who is going closer to the speed you like, adjust how far back you want to be, and it works great.
I never take my eyes off the road or car in front of my, and my foot is always poised near the brake, but on long journeys in congested traffic, it works great.
But having a car drive while you read a book or sleep...insanity. Only a blithering idiot would do that.
What? They both doing in the back seat!!??
Why are they suddenly calling it “auto-pilot” when they have been calling it “self-driving”? Because they want to force us into “self-driving” and they don’t want to tarnish the name “self-driving”?
“i dont even like cruise control.”
I love my 12 year old truck so I just keep driving it. Bought the wife a new Honda SUV, and the blasted cruise control won’t let you get with in 15 car lengths of cars ahead. If someone passes me and pulls into my lane, it slows the car down even though the other car is pulling away.
Had to turn the lane mitigation thing off too, we drive too many narrow windy roads and it likes to shake the wheel if you get too close to the stripes in the middle or the edge. I always fade to the right when an oncoming vehicle is about to pass, which sets it off.
I don’t know if they didn’t hit it with foam. Only so much foam can be carried by these fire vehicles. Maybe they exhausted all their foam and then just kept water on it. I dunno.
I clicked your freep name. I knew right away you weren’t from Texas
We’ve got big long roads out here.
Cruise control and cold A/C. Must have options.
You’re smart. Cruise control has killed lots of people. I never use it!
They probably had nothing else, there aren’t enough EVs on the streets yet for fire departments to be spending money on foam and foam dispensers.
Lithium and water equals....lithium hydroxide + hydrogen gas + heat. Heat ignites hydrogen = fire. Very difficult to put out. Water just catalyzes reaction. See youtube videos for reaction of lithium and water.
One of pitfalls of lithium batteries.
I don't want a "smart car" that mows down my fellow citizens because some woke affluent Big Media jackwad from MIT can't properly assemble a balanced dataset.
And people wonder why so many citizens don't trust the "jab".
“i dont even like cruise control so I must be pretty old.”
The first time I had the systems on I thought there was something wrong with the car was pulling to the left as the highway curved left. I got used to it slowing down when a car in front was going slower, but I was really surprised when it hit the brakes when the car in front was slowing down. So it does make long journeys less tiresome, but do I trust my life to it? No way.
At least they didn’t hurt anyone else. This time.
Working on their Night Moves?
So I guess all the fire departments will need to buy airport style fire trucks which use nothing but foam. That should only cost the tax payers zillions. And this happening in a big city and no foam for 4 hours?
Seems a bit odd.
No, one in front passenger and one in back. I read the local news story and it sounds like the owner was showing off the feature with a zip around his neighborhood to the other guy. That street in a residential 25-30 mph typical.
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