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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

#261

Post by sokoloff »

dx034 wrote: post #220
sokoloff wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

An alarm would still be fine though? Maybe with an option to deactivate it. I'd want to know when the key gets removed from the car, not having any notification appears wrong.

Mine gives an alarm when you take the key out of the car already. "key not detected" or some such.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#262

Post by ataturk »

schiffern wrote: post #240

>Toyota models, including Lexus, have figured in almost half of the carbon monoxide fatalities and injuries identified by The Times. Toyota says its keyless ignition system “meets or exceeds all relevant federal safety standards.” That's quite significant, and I wonder why that is? I have a hypothesis: Personally I've had problems with Toyotas (specifically, Prius GenIII and Camry XV50) where trying to shut off the c…

BMW: Pull up and park, press stop button. Get out, lock door, and walk away. Easy. The car puts itself into park, etc. The only problem is when I get into other cars that don't do this.

I honestly don't like the all-electronic shifters. I feel like the car could end up in state in which shifter inputs get ignored and then I would be unable to shift into neutral or otherwise stop the transfer of power to the wheels. I also happen to think that intelligence agencies know how to assassinate people by taking over their cars and causing runaway conditions that the driver is unable to negate.

A mechanical kill switch like on a motorcylce would be a great feature, as long as non-assisted brakes and steering would still function.

I know that modern aircraft separate all these linkages electronically now, but I also know that modern aircraft have triple redundancy and that cars don't.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#263

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #175
otherme33 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Darwin award implies people "eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner". I don't think that doing what you were doing for years without any danger is now considered idiocy. It's like in 40 years a toaster or an oven keeps running if you don't disable it through your "home controlling mental device" and burn your house to the ground while you are sleeping. Oh, and you cannot opt-out of the "mental…

I'm surprised this is even allowed, in the UK it is illegal to leave a car unoccupied on a public road with the engine running. Obviously we're talking about private garages in this case, but the technical ability to have the car running with nobody in it seems to run counter to the spirit of the law.

Where I live, the temperature regularly goes well below 0F every winter. If I start my car and get into it right away, it will be at least 10 minutes before it becomes noticeably warmer.

In colder climates (e.g., further North in this State), people may leave diesel vehicles idling for hours while at work, etc., because it can be so difficult to restart them outdoors in the cold.

There's a reason people start their cars and leave them running for a while.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#264

Post by kaybe »

Angostura wrote: post #253
kaybe wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just occurs to me that this is probably only an issue with automatic cars since any shift car will just have the engine die immediately if you start it with the shift pedal unpressed.

No. (I drive a manual shift car in the UK). If you stop the car, put it into neutral and press the foot brake, the engine will stop if conditions are correct.

I have been taught to always put the first gear in when parking the car, that's where that idea comes from. If you leave it in neutral, I am indeed wrong.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#265

Post by throwaway5752 »

x0x0 wrote: post #108
throwaway5752 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree with you. It's an enormous convenience in poor weather, with very minor risks that are easily mitigated (I can't believe there is anyone that doesn't have a CO detector and smoke detector at least on every floor, it should be illegal not to have them) and they can be very easily insulated. I have had both and I'd never have a place without a garage or carport.

This forum has a lot of Californians, who either never have or at least no longer regularly feel 30F. Let alone -20F. Also, as of 2011-ish, CO detectors are required by law in CA if you have an attached garage, a fireplace, or gas heat.

I'd also trade it for open space on my lot (since usually the attached garage has less driveway & structure footprint). But your point is well taken.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#266

Post by y4mi »

NeutronStar wrote: post #250
y4mi wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while also depleting the battery's lifespan. sounds like a perfect opportunity to get careless car owners to destroy their own property for a company's revenue. especially hilarious if the car owner doesn't use an expensive UPS between the grid and the car. I'm sure the next lightning storm isn't too far off - and some of the plugged in cars won't survive it. I'm not against EV though. There'll however be a lot of gr…

Look at the batteries lifespan, it's like 25 years. Go look at data before spewing nonsense.

li-ion battery lifespans are generally calculated in power cycles. They don't really age with years...

Generally, power cells have about 300-500 power cycles until there is a significant drop in performance. This is one of the major faults of EV that is often quoted, as some parts of the batteries aren't recycled. So, you're essentially trading the co2 pollution to toxic waste.

maybe you should check the facts before you spout nonsense yourself?

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#267

Post by hangonhn »

beamatronic wrote: post #102
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…

>> never run a car inside the garage with the door closed Are you implying this is not common knowledge?

It's interesting to see what some people consider "common" knowledge. Or maybe how common "common" is.

I grew up in Florida's coastal area where houses are built on stilts (this is to spare the house in case of hurricanes and flooding). People live upstairs and the downstairs areas are largely empty. The empty space underneath the house is where people park their cars. This means when I was growing up and learning how to drive garages aren't a thing. No one told me about running a car in a garage. Later on, all the places I lived in did not have garages either. It's only in the last few years that I actually had a garage.

Did I know about running cars in a garage is a bad idea? I had a vague notion from pop culture and stories of people gassing themselves as a form of suicide (hello "Office Space"!). I had no idea how long is "too long".

More over, I've been parking my car inside the garage and then shutting the car off as my garage door comes down or slightly after (I sort of have to because the car's built-in garage door opener doesn't work when the car is off). I did this for a couple of years and nothing has happened. This lulled me into a false sense of security.

Maybe this is a more ingrained into the majority of people's heads because they grew up with garages but that's never the case where I grew up.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#268

Post by hangonhn »

refurb wrote: post #222
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…

I would say you took a pretty big risk running a car for 5 minutes in a closed space. I've started a car briefly in a closed garage, but we're talking for maybe 10-15 seconds (post oil-change in the winter). Even then I started to wonder if I was taking too big a risk. 5 minutes is a long time!

Yeah I didn't know better and was lulled into a false sense of security. For a couple of years, I always started my car first and opened the garage door and always shut the car off after the door came down. Why? Because my car's built-in garage door opener doesn't work with the car off. This hasn't been an issue for a long time and after a while I figured "a few minutes is okay". Also, I didn't grow up in a place with garages (coastal part of Florida) Gas heating is really not a thing there either (again because Florida). So CO poisoning wasn't a thing I learned to worry about. So the combination of ignorance and "it was okay if I ran the car inside for 15 seconds so it must be okay if I ran it a little longer".

Dumb for sure but thankfully I did know enough about gas water heaters and gas stoves to have CO detectors installed throughout my house.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#269

Post by hangonhn »

jordache wrote: post #248
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…

5 min? that's a long time to run a car for in an enclosed space

Yeah it was pretty dumb but I grew up in the coastal parts of Florida. People there don't usually have enclosed garages and gas heating really isn't a thing. CO poisoning isn't something I really learned about growing up. I only knew of it via pop culture (i.e. "Office Space").

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#270

Post by mrguyorama »

schiffern wrote: post #240

>Toyota models, including Lexus, have figured in almost half of the carbon monoxide fatalities and injuries identified by The Times. Toyota says its keyless ignition system “meets or exceeds all relevant federal safety standards.” That's quite significant, and I wonder why that is? I have a hypothesis: Personally I've had problems with Toyotas (specifically, Prius GenIII and Camry XV50) where trying to shut off the c…

Are you saying it's impossible to shut off the car while not in park? I find that odd, and will certainly have to try it on my mother's Toyota when I get the chance
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