Posted on 06/23/2024 7:36:45 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
There's a new trend in the automotive industry to replace physical parts with electrically-actuated systems. The most obvious example is the electrical door release system. All Teslas have such a system, which ensures that the frameless windows are lowered before the door opens. However, when the 12-volt battery dies, the same systems can pose a significant danger, especially when people must quickly evacuate the vehicle.
Tesla offers a backup emergency release that works without power, but many owners are unaware of how to use it. Sometimes, the release string is hidden behind the door panel and is not always easy to reach in an emergency. This has caused problems more than once when the car's low-voltage (12-volt) battery died.
When the low-voltage battery approaches the end of its lifecycle, the car is expected to warn drivers to schedule a service center appointment. Sometimes, the battery just dies without warning. When this happens, the vehicle's auxiliary systems remain without power, even though the high-voltage battery has enough charge.
A Scottsdale grandmother learned this the hard way on Wednesday as she loaded her 20-month-old granddaughter into her car seat. She closed the rear door and went to get in the driver's seat, but she couldn't open the door. The 12-volt battery was dead, and she was locked outside. She had no option but to call 911.
Intriguingly, the firefighters didn't know that you could "jumpstart" a Tesla with an external battery that allows you to open the doors. Instead, they used an axe to break a window.
Other brands provide a physical key hidden in the key fob that can be used to manually open the door. However, Tesla only relies on a system that is unknown to most owners and first responders.
(Excerpt) Read more at autoevolution.com ...
“Arizona toddler rescued after getting trapped in a Tesla with a dead battery”
PATHETIC. You have a 1000 POUND plus battery and cannot even keep enough charge in it to open a car door.
And a toddler will be able to unstrap herself form the car seat, locate the string, and have sufficient strength to pull it.
I smell a Musky stench!
Objective 1. Rescue the child. Period. Don’t care about other methods. Break glass, cut door off. Whatever.
“…I don’t know. Can you use your axe to break in?”
“With pleasure! Look away, please…”
Electric vehicles are both crony capitalism and malinvestment.
They would never make it in the market without government mandates and subsidies.
The system never warned the grandmother that the auxiliary battery was dying (if she even understood the consequences of that).
There's no transfer of the charge from the main batteries to the 12v auxiliary battery in case of an emergency.
There's no way to manually unlock the doors from the outside in case of an emergency.
That toddler would have been in real trouble in an isolate area where there was no one to respond fast enough to break the glass in 100 degree weather - all because these ignorant engineers (and the ignorant quality control team members) have no understanding of the history of safety devices in cars and that the drive to make everything a gadget puts people at risk.
While normally ascribed to aviation safety, a Tombstone Mentality is "a pervasive attitude of ignoring design defects until people have died because of them" and any engineer who paid attention in a real education program would have learned about it. More and more engineers are restarting their understanding of automobile safety in the early 1900s and learning as they go, at the expense of their victims.
Transportation, agriculture , defense and energy are also heavily subsidized.
Objective 2 is to strap the engineering team who designed the door locking system into cars in 100 degree heat until they figure out a solution like every other car out there.
The mentally defective engineer’s solution is to issue drivers a key ring with a spring loaded window punch, without caring if grandma knows how to use it.
The Tesla smart cars aren’t smart enough? Maybe adding a little bit of AI would make them smarter?
Or perhaps the failure in intelligence occurred with the engineers? And beyond the engineers, the QA people also failed? What about the sales end, who should have been able to explain the emergency systems of the car.
Failures all over the place. We’re not getting that smarted with the smart tech.
There must be an app for that.
“Intriguingly, the firefighters didn’t know that you could “jumpstart” a Tesla with an external battery that allows you to open the doors. Instead, they used an axe to break a window.”
Yeah. I mean who DOESN’T know there’s a secret hidden port that you can plug into the battery you carried with you for some odd reason?
And also, sounds like this guy has never been around firemen. They couldn’t care less how much damage they do, they just want the fastest result, especially with a baby’s life on the line.
And yes, they did enjoy using that fire axe on the window.
On the macroeconomic or public goods level, yes.
There’s no need for government mandates or subsidies in the electric vehicle market, which is not a function of the government anyway.
Strapping the engineers into their own cars could move to objective 3.
Were most Tesla engineers who designed this H1Bs, or were they smart westerners?
Maybe they knew. They probably just wanted to take the opportunity to hit the Tesla with an axe (don't get me wrong, I like Elon Musk - and appreciate what he's done at Twitter - and E-vehicles have a place for some uses. But the proliferation of these Teslas, particularly in the Bay Area, seems insane to me).
I would have taken a door off with the Jaws of Life tools. Grandma doesn't want that car anymore and if the insurance company balks at paying her out fully to get a non-Tesla, I'd remind them not-so-gently that they were almost paying out for a death in the car.
First responders did the right thing.
They lost me at "string".
Safety is paid for with the blood of those who came before.
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