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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

#201

Post by code_duck »

jessaustin wrote: post #69
hangonhn wrote: post #48

I had a pretty scary run in with CO from my car once and it had nothing to do with the keyless fob. My car with gasoline direct injection had two bad injectors fail while I was driving home. It went into limp mode. When I got home I inserted the OBD2 scanner to diagnose the issue in the garage. Because it was in limp mode, the engine was running rich and I guess producing a lot of CO in my garage. In the roughly 5 mi…

Attached garages are really a terrible misfeature, which will be emblematic for future generations (as they already are for those overseas) of our poor taste and judgement. No matter how ugly the house, it would be a lot more pleasant without the garage. In addition to the dangers cited here, garages make houses less effective at their primary purposes: controlling the movement of air, moisture, and heat. The garage…

Garages are fantastic when you own a car, but I agree it’s nicer to have them as a separate structure.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#202

Post by TorKlingberg »

pg_bot wrote: post #25

I'd rather see people install CO detectors within their homes as it is a more general solution to this problem. CO poisoning can occur with any fuel burning appliance in your home. It would be better to cover all sources instead of each one individually.

A lot of homes don't have any fuel burning appliances. It varies between countries and places.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#203

Post by jakobegger »

ygra wrote: post #194
kss238 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you live in a cold climate, you often have to let your car idle for a few minutes to heat it up, or your windows will be all foggy and you don’t see a thing.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#204

Post by lordnacho »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #135
lordnacho wrote: post #133

Is it not normal for a keyless car to beep like crazy when you leave the car with the key inside? My car does this. As soon as it detects the key is not inside the car it will beep and remind you the car is on. The other problem this solves is that you don't want to be driving somewhere without the key either, eg when you're dropping off your wife and she happens to have the key.

Same, and exactly; the car should just shut down when it detects the key is not inside the car. Could someone just get in and drive off? I'm fairly sure this might be true for older models though.

> the car should just shut down when it detects the key is not inside the car.

Well, you can't have the car shutting off if the key is suddenly not detected. The battery might be low, or the key gets dropped behind some metal. But it does mean that after you've turned it off you are stuck there.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#205

Post by 205guy »

Another issue negated by electric cars. No burning fossil fuels, no carbon monoxide in my garage.

Ironic that the only mention of EVs in this thread was about how Teslas turn themselves off and lock automatically. It's like everyone is complaining about having to do wiring at colos and some techs getting accidentally electrocuted, while I spin up another instance on AWS.

BTW, my two Nissan Leaf EVs have the a keyless fob thing, and like the ICE cars, they beep if you leave with the car on. It seems like manufacturers just can't come up with a sensible and intuitive way for the keyless fob and car state to interact. Maybe the idea of putting a physical key into the ignition was a better paradigm.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#206

Post by FeepingCreature »

tadfisher wrote: post #65
hangonhn wrote: post #48

I had a pretty scary run in with CO from my car once and it had nothing to do with the keyless fob. My car with gasoline direct injection had two bad injectors fail while I was driving home. It went into limp mode. When I got home I inserted the OBD2 scanner to diagnose the issue in the garage. Because it was in limp mode, the engine was running rich and I guess producing a lot of CO in my garage. In the roughly 5 mi…

Yep, that's my rule even with properly-running engines: The car won't start until the garage door is open. If I could hack up some sort of ignition interlock such that an Arduino or Pi could broadcast a killswitch signal while the garage door is closed, I could more effectively enforce that rule.

CO sensor outside the car to force a shutoff?

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#208

Post by dralley »

13of40 wrote: post #75
hangonhn wrote: post #48

I had a pretty scary run in with CO from my car once and it had nothing to do with the keyless fob. My car with gasoline direct injection had two bad injectors fail while I was driving home. It went into limp mode. When I got home I inserted the OBD2 scanner to diagnose the issue in the garage. Because it was in limp mode, the engine was running rich and I guess producing a lot of CO in my garage. In the roughly 5 mi…

Huh - how about a CO detector on the air intake of the engine that shuts it off if the concentration is too high.

Ever seen a video of people having to drive through a wildfire to escape?

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#209

Post by wycy »

Lexus is noted in the article as being one of the problematic cars, but mine beeps fairly insistently if you get out of the car with the keys with the ignition still on. I get that people are mentally on autopilot sometimes--I certainly am often--but I feel like what it does already should be enough to snap you out of it.

The line has to be drawn somewhere. I think it's unreasonable to count on computers to warn and protect us about every possible mistake people might make.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#210

Post by yial »

It’s horrible that people have lost their lives... but I don’t see this as an issue with the car. I actually think it calls for having more CO detectors in homes (along with fire alarms ).

I have a key less ignition car, and if I leave it running... I want it to stay running. With or without the key. However, the audible alert seems like it would be valuable. What about having the Fob vibrate periodically when outside the car and the car is running ?

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