Tesla Model S Plaid caught fire while driver was at the wheel, says fire chief

Post by userbinator » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #32

guhidalg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you press the button, the window rolls down slightly before the door latch is opened. This prevents you from putting stress on the window when you push the door to open it. When you use the handle, the door latch opens and the window rolls down slightly and there’s a larger period of time where you can push the door and put stress on the window. So the danger with using the handle is that you _might_ damage the…

The 2020 Dodge Challenger had the same problem due to a similar door design. They solved it by causing the mechanical action of the door open lever to also roll down the window slightly, and electronically rolled up the window when the door was closed.

Post by endtime » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:36 AM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #38

ogjunkyard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a lot of the decisions Tesla's been making lately, I'm not sure I'm going to buy another either. I'm mainly speaking of: - The butterfly steering wheel. - The removal of radar for Autopilot (I'd like to have multiple systems for this, not just cameras/vision). - The removal of steering column stalks (and using the sensors to figure out which direction you want to go). - The door open mechanism changing from hand…

Radar based cruise control, like what my Toyota has, is pretty inaccurate. The shape of a vehicle affects how close the system estimates it to be. Its size too. Maybe that's just one badly implemented system. But my eyes don't judge a vehicle's distance differently because of its size or shape. Usually :-) If you have two different systems for judging distance, you still need to decide which one is correct. Maybe if…

Post by alasdair_ » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:41 AM UTC

s5300 wrote: post #13

stretchwithme wrote: post #5

I'm not sure I'd buy a car without a single mechanical interior door handle. Sure, there might be a mechanical backup to the electronic door handle. But will I remember to use it in an emergency?

Whatever you do - if you don't already have one, buy a combined window breaker/seatbelt cutter for all of your cars and Velcro it to the side of your chair/bottom of side of center console/wherever you think would be best to have it. Seriously.

Post by iamtheworstdev » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:49 AM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #44

stretchwithme wrote: post #5

I'm not sure I'd buy a car without a single mechanical interior door handle. Sure, there might be a mechanical backup to the electronic door handle. But will I remember to use it in an emergency?

I recently pulled over to help a Model S driver with a flat. Every doorhandle on the car had a thin zip-tie looped under it because the "present" mechanisms no longer functioned. One had to tug the zip tie to manually force the handle out of its flush position before being able to grasp it. Quality. The poor guy was stuck in the summer desert heat, waiting for a tow with a flat in a ~5000lb luxury sedan too heavy to…

Post by new_realist » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 4:07 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #21

vardump wrote: post #3

Better to wait for the official investigation. For whatever reason, speculation is pretty rampant whenever it comes to Tesla accidents.

Every time something like this happens, people point out that gas powered cars catch fire much more often than electric ones. Quote: "That’s five fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars." So why don't I want to own an electric car? Because my assumption is that the typical electric car fire happens while it is being charged, whereas the typical gas-powe…