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Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

nytimes.com

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Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#191

Post by ddnb »

eertami wrote: post #158
ghaff wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it’s just because I’m used to physical keys but the reflex seems different. I’ve caught myself forgetting to turn off rentals that don’t have a physical key. But I’m open to chalking it up to different habits.

By forget you mean you opened the door and instantly realised your mistake because of the alarm it triggered?

Wait, you can't open your door with keyless cars? What about in winter when your car is running to heat up and you get out to clear your windscreen?

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#192

Post by spacenick88 »

samcheng wrote: post #112

Tesla handles this quite well. You stop driving, then open the door. This puts the car in park and engages the parking brake. Other stuff happens like the door handles present and the stereo volume turns down. Then when you close the door (if nobody is detected in the driver's seat) the car shuts off, much to the chagrin of any children sitting in the back seat listening to the music. As you walk away, the car locks…

And even then the worst that can happen from leaving an electric car turned on in your garage is your battery getting drained. Even keeping the lights on this will likely take days when fully charged.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#193

Post by ironash »

Angostura wrote: post #180

Not mentioned in the article, but I imagine that this could be exacerbated by the fuel-saving 'auto engine off' behaviour of newer cars... you arrive home, engage the brake and the engine turns off automatically. ... only to automatically restart 15 minutes later when the engine sensors detect the oil temp is dropping.

This happened to me with a hire car. I parked the car and pressed the button to stop the engine. The engine cut out so I got out of the car, locking the vehicle with the remote as I walked away. After some time I was contacted by the security team of the company I was visiting to tell me the engine was running on my vehicle. The auto engine off had kicked in as i pressed the engine stop button, but because the engine had stopped I didn't hold the button for long enough to actually switch the engine off. When I locked the car the turn indicators flashed with a non-standard pattern to warn that the lock had failed (because the engine was not off) but because it was a hire car I did not recognise it. When I drove the car home the same thing happened at the end of the journey but this time I was expecting it and switched the car off properly.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#194

Post by ygra »

kss238 wrote: post #162
justin66 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume implicit to this statement, is that some heuristic algorithm needs to be created to turn the car off. If you say so. I'm pretty sure just turning the car off if there's nobody sitting in any of the seats and the key is not in the car would be a good start.

Have you never turned your car on before you left to heat up the passenger compartment?

Uhm, apart from the fact that it's actually forbidden, no. Idle takes ages to warm up the engine, it's better to just start driving.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#195

Post by gambiting »

Angostura wrote: post #180

Not mentioned in the article, but I imagine that this could be exacerbated by the fuel-saving 'auto engine off' behaviour of newer cars... you arrive home, engage the brake and the engine turns off automatically. ... only to automatically restart 15 minutes later when the engine sensors detect the oil temp is dropping.

My car has the start-stop technology and the engine always starts up when I put it in park if the system switched it off when I stopped on my driveway. It will also start again if you open the doors while in drive.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#196

Post by sokoloff »

dx034 wrote: post #183
rpcope1 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of deaths is only going to get higher until the cars are built to turn the engine off under the right conditions. I assume implicit to this statement, is that some heuristic algorithm needs to be created to turn the car off. This seems like a grossly over-complicated (and failure prone) solution in comparison to just using a key for the ignition instead. If you can do something easily with a strictly mec…

Why not just start an alarm 10 seconds after the key is out of range? Or automatically shut off the engine if the key has been out of range for more than 5 minutes. That still prevents accidents while driving (there were cases where children threw keys out of the window) but should be safe otherwise. And programming that timer shouldn't be a lot of work. The detection already exists anyway.

The cars need to work when the key battery is dead. My LEAF has an inductive charger near the start button that allows you to "charge" the key just enough to do the security exchange and then start it.

It's quite possible, even likely, that more than 2 people per year would die from environmental exposure if we programmed cars to not work if the key battery dies (as a proxy for "key out of range"). (Drive out to a deserted location, shut down, enjoy the day, get back in to find a dead car key battery. You want to be able to get home rather than stay at the trailhead.)

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#197

Post by beachy »

hanbura wrote: post #171
otherme33 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Key not in the car" should be condition enough. I'm having a hard time thinking of a scenario where you NEED to have the key away from the car while the engine is running.

That would lead to far more accidents where people leave kids or animals alone in a car in direct sunlight, assuming the AC will keep them cool. But as they step away from the vehicle, the engine and AC turn off, leaving anyone in the car to die from heat stroke. Those people don't need to take the car key with them, but with a keyless car you don't think about the key (that's the entire point of keyless cars). The k…

AC could fail for many reasons. Leaving a child in a car where they were dependant on AC for their life would be criminally negligent.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#198

Post by serpix »

ironash wrote: post #193
Angostura wrote: post #180

Not mentioned in the article, but I imagine that this could be exacerbated by the fuel-saving 'auto engine off' behaviour of newer cars... you arrive home, engage the brake and the engine turns off automatically. ... only to automatically restart 15 minutes later when the engine sensors detect the oil temp is dropping.

This happened to me with a hire car. I parked the car and pressed the button to stop the engine. The engine cut out so I got out of the car, locking the vehicle with the remote as I walked away. After some time I was contacted by the security team of the company I was visiting to tell me the engine was running on my vehicle. The auto engine off had kicked in as i pressed the engine stop button, but because the engine…

Did the dashboard display and lights go out and did it not emit a tone when you opened the door?

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#199

Post by brandonsometig »

spacenick88 wrote: post #192
samcheng wrote: post #112

Tesla handles this quite well. You stop driving, then open the door. This puts the car in park and engages the parking brake. Other stuff happens like the door handles present and the stereo volume turns down. Then when you close the door (if nobody is detected in the driver's seat) the car shuts off, much to the chagrin of any children sitting in the back seat listening to the music. As you walk away, the car locks…

And even then the worst that can happen from leaving an electric car turned on in your garage is your battery getting drained. Even keeping the lights on this will likely take days when fully charged.

Electric cars don't really have a 'running' state. The motors are either engaged or they are off.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#200

Post by ironash »

serpix wrote: post #198
ironash wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to me with a hire car. I parked the car and pressed the button to stop the engine. The engine cut out so I got out of the car, locking the vehicle with the remote as I walked away. After some time I was contacted by the security team of the company I was visiting to tell me the engine was running on my vehicle. The auto engine off had kicked in as i pressed the engine stop button, but because the engine…

Did the dashboard display and lights go out and did it not emit a tone when you opened the door?

There was no tone when I opened the door, not that I heard anyway (it was a 2017 Citroen C4). The dashboard may have stayed lit but as it was a hire car I had no idea what the normal behaviour should have been. I had two passengers who also did not notice anything out of the ordinary when we left the car. A colleague had the same thing happen in a C4 but he was still in the car when the engine restarted.
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