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Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

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Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#91

Post by symmetricsaurus »

veidr wrote: post #71
symmetricsaurus wrote: post #21

"With a track record of zero deaths or serious, permanent injuries since our vehicles went into production six years ago, there is no safer car on the road than a Tesla." I don't doubt that the Tesla Model S is a very safe car as tests have shown. With that said, how many deaths and serious injuries would have been expected considering the same number of miles driven with normal cars? Are Teslas actually substantiall…

Yes, they actually are in the 99th percentile of safety among all cars ever tested in the USA (per the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). So it's not just that most ppl 2 po'.

What I actually want to know is if you had the same number of other average cars driving the same distance as the Teslas, how many people could you expect to be killed in these cars.

Here is my crude estimation. If we consider that there are 3.2 * 10^-4 people killed in traffic per car per year[1] and that there are 20000 Tesla Model S on the road[2], then we get that there should have been about 6 deaths.

Now most of the Teslas have not been on the road for a whole year probably so I'm not sure how valid this estimation is.

This seems to be some indication that zero deaths is very low for this number of cars but to be sure I think one would need to make a more detailed estimate. Doing some statistical analysis would also be good.

[1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=traffic+deaths+per+car... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#92

Post by blisterpeanuts »

squigs25 wrote: post #63

It's really difficult to emphasize how excessive this is. As a mechanical engineer, I knew just by reading the title that this is really excessive, because the titanium alloy used is definitely a marketing stunt. Titanium has unbelievable tensile strength for its weight, but there's no good reason to make an "underbody shield" out of titanium except for publicity. It would make way more sense to use steel (and maybe…

But titanium is less dense than steel, hence preferred when weight is important. For an electric car, weight is paramount, I would think.

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#93

Post by nailer »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #79
doe88 wrote: post #8

Why would Elon choose to post on Medium and not on the blog of Tesla? It would definitively bring more credence to post it on their official website. Until reading near the end I wasn't sure it was a Tesla employee/official or a third party story (and I use the term story here and not article on purpose because usually on Medium it is more stories than facts ).

Until reading near the end I wasn't sure it was a Tesla employee/official or a third party story But, it says "By Elon Musk" in a large font slap bang in the middle of the screen just under the title of the piece when you open the page. I really think this might be down to your powers of observation rather than any oversight on their part.

Medium is famous for internet drama, and more recently parody articles about Medium and internet drama.

If I read something 'by Elon Musk' on Medium I normally:

- Assume it's not Elon Musk, but rather someone who hates Elon Musk

- Start reading it in an Elon-Musk-Bond-Villain persona

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#94

Post by olssy »

Did anyone else notice a screw coming detached from the titanium underbody shield after the impact of the three ball tow hitch, you can also see the shield bend on the impact of the concrete block and the hole where the screw was. It would be kind of ironic if this actually made the car less safe.

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#95

Post by blisterpeanuts »

arikrak wrote: post #90

Nice move on their part. I think while the Tesla may be less fire-prone than other cars, Musk exaggerates it: "The odds of fire in a Model S, at roughly 1 in 8,000 vehicles, are five times lower than those of an average gasoline car..." What matters is the miles driven by cars, not the number of cars on the roads. It seems likely that other cars are driven longer distances, and Tesla cars are probably used by many ow…

Exaggeration, perhaps, but the majority of collisions occur on local roads rather than on highways, and as you say, the Tesla is more likely to be used locally than on long highway trips, hence more exposed to drunks running stop signs and so forth.

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#96

Post by maguay »

iancarroll wrote: post #61
crusso wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize that the suspension isn't unique to Tesla, but over-the-air software updates seem to be. It irks me to no end that I'm told that my Infiniti can't be updated to even work properly with my iPhone, much less the fact that they want to charge for gps map updates that are essentially free from Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.

I'm pretty sure map data is expensive and those companies license it.

They license it and give it away with several hundred dollar gadgets. Seems surprising that an auto manufacturer wouldn't do the same with their tens-or-hundreds-of-thousand dollars products.

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#97

Post by fooqux »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #78
loceng wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly why. They're gently poking fun that Tesla vehicles are extremely safe, especially compared to fires - and then sticking it to critics further by actually announcing improvements to further reduce the already very low numbers of fire and further increase the already highest rating ever for a safety check for a vehicle. Well done Tesla and Elon.

And yet, I can't help but feel they're being very, very defensive over it. I can't blame them, of course, given how something trivial like a car fire (trivial given the average frequency of them) is turned into a national news event. At the same time, Tesla's attention to quality and perfection and what-have-you will end up in them being heavily scrutinised. It's not that different from Apple in that respect; random…

>It's not that different from Apple in that respect; random mp3 player breaks, no problem. iPod breaks and the torches and pitchforks come into view.

Considering that a "random mp3 player" costs $6 on Amazon and that an Apple iPod costs over $200, I'd say people are totally justified to get upset. They spent the extra money expecting a product whose quality matched its price.

I'd say this is true of cars as well. When your used Ford Escort breaks down, you're hardly going to be surprised. When your exceedingly expensive Tesla breaks down and/or catches fire, you're going to be a tad upset.

That said, I'd say people lose all rights to be upset when they are the cause of the malfunction. You can't be too upset at a broken iPod after you drop it down a flight of stairs, and you can't be too upset at your Tesla catching fire after you ran it into a tree at 110 MPH. (I'm not saying the Tesla driver was upset mind you- I think all the Tesla hate is just coming from frightened car manufactures and the media.)

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#98

Post by graylights »

mbrameld wrote: post #65
cma wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it sounds like it was written in Slashdot passive aggressive style: rather than just directly saying it was an extreme scenario, they used list of somewhat-hyperbolic-but-way-more-so-if-you-know-the-jargon descriptors of each element of the crash.

I think Tesla is probably exasperated that a couple Model S cars catching fire is international news while cars from other manufacturers catch fire every day and it's barely even worthy of the local news.

"The very definition of news is something that hardly ever happens. If an incident is in the news, we shouldn't worry about it. It's when something is so common that its no longer news – car crashes, domestic violence – that we should worry."

    -Bruce Schneier

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#99

Post by owurkan »

MPetitt wrote: post #85
lkmz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget that Tesla recently issued a recall for 29,000 charging adapters because they would overheat and catch on fire. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/automobiles/citing-chargin...

And lets not forget how astonishing that is in light of what many other car manufacturers[0] do when they find issues that effect millions of their cars in a much more dangerous way. The fact that even with that issue, their safety numbers are through the roof and their number of incidents are way under the national average, and they still willingly and transparently issues a recall, I count that as nothing but a plu…

Let's not forget it was a special kind of recall, one where no vehicles were being physically recalled by Tesla.

Re: Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

#100

Post by threeseed »

MPetitt wrote: post #85
lkmz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget that Tesla recently issued a recall for 29,000 charging adapters because they would overheat and catch on fire. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/automobiles/citing-chargin...

And lets not forget how astonishing that is in light of what many other car manufacturers[0] do when they find issues that effect millions of their cars in a much more dangerous way. The fact that even with that issue, their safety numbers are through the roof and their number of incidents are way under the national average, and they still willingly and transparently issues a recall, I count that as nothing but a plu…

Did you actually read that article ? Toyota recalled cars and paid damages. Which is exactly what Tesla would have done.

And you're being disingenuous by comparing a single Tesla incident to the entirety of the automobile industry's history.

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