Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos

telegraph.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 82 posts

Re: Tesla breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos

#31

Post by misnome »

adql wrote: post #19
misnome wrote: post #6

Running out of fuel is something it’s obviously “easy” to do with other cars. But I’m surprised that the electronics have _no_ power redundancy, there isn’t a manual release for the parking break, and running out of power causes the parking break to fail-closed?

Safety-wise it's better option. Breaking vs just rolling without working brakes. And I really do not like trend of making brakes drive-by-wire instead of mechanical just to (presumably) save few pennies...

Is it? What if it runs out of power at 70mph in the middle of a motorway? I’d have thought sudden breaking would have been the most dangerous thing to do

Re: Tesla breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos

#33

Post by whalesalad »

hw wrote: post #2

Cars break down all the time but at least they can be moved to the side of the road. Are Teslas not able to be moved once they run out of juice? They’re heavy and even with a few folks pushing from the back, is it able to disengage the parking brake?

California CHP would have pushed it off the road with the bull bar.

Re: Tesla breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos

#34

Post by adamsb6 »

valdiorn wrote: post #16
misnome wrote: post #6

Running out of fuel is something it’s obviously “easy” to do with other cars. But I’m surprised that the electronics have _no_ power redundancy, there isn’t a manual release for the parking break, and running out of power causes the parking break to fail-closed?

indeed - I would have thought a separate battery to run the cabin and safety features would be a good idea. I would only have to be 1/100th the size of the motor batteries.

This is the way it works, the high voltage battery is used for the motors and to feed the 12 volt battery which feeds cabin electronics.

I’m guessing by extremely unfortunate luck both batteries failed at the same time.

Re: Tesla breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos

#35

Post by krisoft »

kube-system wrote: post #18
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the fine article: > The handbrakes of electric cars, and some other modern cars, are controlled electronically, unlike those of traditional petrol and diesel cars, which are mechanical. This means that the handbrake often locks when the power fails and the car cannot be pushed or towed. This sounds like a major oversight by Tesla as there should be some override in case a vehicle breaks down in a dangerous posit…

That is an unhelpful quote. Yes, some cars have electronic parking brakes. It is quite common on new cars today. But they typically require being affirmatively commanded to change between their applied and unapplied states. Nothing about the general existence of electronic parking brakes explains why this particular vehicle would have one engaged mid-turn.

> Nothing about the general existence of electronic parking brakes explains why this particular vehicle would have one engaged mid-turn.

Did you notice the part that it run out of battery mid-turn? It seems that the brakes are designed to fail safe in case of a battery failure. I see how someone could argue for that as a design choice. The fact that there is no way to emergency release them without power is more questionable.

Re: Tesla breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos

#38

Post by flutas »

NickM wrote: post #25
joenathanone wrote: post #7

"The Tesla Model 3 Performance is a four-wheel-drive electric car with a starting cost of £57,000 and a battery life of 41 hours." From the article, I had no idea battery life was measured in hours, I don't even know how that would work for a car.

I had no idea battery life was measured in hours It’s not. I know a lot about EVs and I’ve owned a Tesla myself for years, and I don’t know what they’re talking about.

Yeah, no clue either. It doesn't line up with the kWh value of the packs either (82kWh iirc)

Re: Tesla breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos

#39

Post by zaroth »

It’s amazing that this is considered “news”. My ex owned a Volvo S40 that had an electric wheel lock that failed in a way that required the car to be dragged onto a flatbed. Car refused to unlock the wheel or switch into neutral gear when the key was inserted.

Failures cause cars to be stuck all the time. The issue here was the failed response, not the failed car.

Doubly embarrassing that HN thinks this is front page worthy. It’s pure unintellectual click/rage-bait. Oh no, look what those gosh darn Teslas are doing now!

The human fear of new technology is the only remarkable thing about this story. That, and perhaps, the fact that some place in the UK couldn’t find a tow truck with a winch for 9 hours to clear a busy highway.

Re: Tesla breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos

#40

Post by chronicsonic »

ourmandave wrote: post #23
floathub wrote: post #11

9 hours? Nobody had an extension cord?

Or, as someone else mentioned, a towing service with a flatbed and a winch.

I assume the roads were blocked by traffic, we have narrow A roads in Britain.
Post reply on HN