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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

#321

Post by travisp »

Sami_Lehtinen wrote: post #169
zacharycohn wrote: post #5

"We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wall…

Yeah that's crazy. Because in the old Beetle I got, you had to be careful not to push your feet through the floor to the street. So why would car need to be protected from such extreme underbelly damage, it's not normal in any circumstances.

Road debris causing damage, to the underbelly or elsewhere is not uncommon (heck, drivers even have to worry about road debris going through the windshield and impaling them, let alone dangerous damage through the underbelly). I would not have wanted to drive your old Beetle in some parts of the United States, particularly not speeding on a highway.

Here's an article about road debris in a normal car (not even your Beetle, where it would have easily killed you): "a sizeable chunk of angle iron that actually tore through the bottom of the vehicle, found lodged in a portion of the backseat." (https://www.westerndirect.ca/learning-centre/insurance-news-...)

The reason the car "needs" to be protected from such damage is the media attention, not because it's unusually unsafe.

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

#322

Post by fiter »

danbruc wrote: post #206
pc86 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just to give a sense of the orders of magnitude: 1,600,000 29,000

While I agree with the general point this comparison is not fair - if you sell more cars, more cars may be affected.

If you sell more cars, you should be able to invest more in engineering reliability. The cost should be spread out over many more vehicles. This all goes out the window depending on margins, priorities, and presumably other factors, but for the sake of argument: I'd say both numbers on their own aren't fair.

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

#323

Post by koenigdavidmj »

bashinator wrote: post #297
ImprovedSilence wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the saying: "people like to say that speed kills, but really it's a very sudden lack of speed that kills." I think that might be a Clarksonism...

Also, "No-one ever died from falling. They die from stopping falling."

Also, 'nobody ever died on a motorcycle'.

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

#324

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

Crito wrote: post #319
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to NHTSA, there was not a technical problem: In February 2011 the findings of a 10-month-long study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), aimed to identify the main cause of sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus models. The study was requested by the US Congress and "enlisted NASA engineers with expertise in ar…

Toyota cars did not fail safe in the event that both the accelerator and the brakes were pressed. Combined with the floor mats, this could create dangerous situations where drivers were unable to stop their cars using the brakes (the standard objections that they should have turned their cars off or shifted out of gear still have some validity of course) The two sibling comments to my above comment address other pote…

It is as simple as the second most popular theory makes it out to be.

Holder is wrong. This shouldn't be surprising.

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

#326

Post by vajrabum »

Fomite wrote: post #303
exelius wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people still think of the Tesla Roadster, not the Model S. The Roadster is definitely a sports car, but the Model S is like a BMW 5-series... Yeah, it's fast, but the people who can afford one are generally old/mature enough to know not to drive recklessly on public roads.

...you don't know the same middle aged and affluent people I do.

I know 280 though and Tesla S drivers although they often like to drive fast are generally courteous.

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

#327

Post by brownbat »

zacharycohn wrote: post #5

"We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wall…

Ha, maybe the most dangerous thing about Tesla cars is that they are so safe that the occupant will feel invincible.

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

#328

Post by sukuriant »

aunty_helen wrote: post #314
rkalla wrote: post #300

This is what you get when a company/group/effort/community is lead by a "benevolent dictator" - someone with an absolutely pure vision of what they want their output to look like and the autonomy and strength to make it so no matter what. I love this... I actually love that it probably pissed off Musk to no end the amount of attention the fires got and out of spite he went totally over the top and added ballistic pla…

It will be interesting to see how this approach changes when the money is a bit tighter ie the model c. You can't just go and add titanium reinforcing to a 30k$ car whenever something bad happens. I think something to moderate Musk's thin skin wouldn't be a bad thing but I certainly agree that the absolute power to do what ever he wants coupled to his technical depth has and will continue to see him changing the tran…

It won't be as low to the ground most likely, so that won't be as much of a problem is my guess. If you've seen a Tesla, they're very low to the ground

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

#329

Post by morbius »

rkalla wrote: post #300

This is what you get when a company/group/effort/community is lead by a "benevolent dictator" - someone with an absolutely pure vision of what they want their output to look like and the autonomy and strength to make it so no matter what. I love this... I actually love that it probably pissed off Musk to no end the amount of attention the fires got and out of spite he went totally over the top and added ballistic pla…

I agree completely, but I'm not so sure I like the idea of OTA updates... for an embedded system.

I mean, I can understand GP computing devices, but this is a bit concerning. Not just for security reasons, but because it dramatically decreases the control you have over the vehicle.

Maybe I'm beating up a dead horse here, but I'd much rather take my car into the shop and have it updated than have a packet sent out over LTE.

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

#330

Post by brownbat »

sliverstorm wrote: post #232
thenewbtg wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it bad for the car? Are Tesla's accepting OTA updates while driving, and updating firmware while the vehicle is moving? If so then you're right, they've made a terribly unsafe decision. But if you have to stop the vehicle, put it in park or off, before it actually updates the software, then a bricked car isn't exactly dangerous, just a massive inconvenience and a source of incredible frustration.

Yea, I would be pretty livid if one morning my car is just dead for no good reason. You might object that a dead battery can cause that. But I take constant preventative measures, can tell when a battery is starting to go, and I can fix a dead battery .

And in 2030 we'll look back and think, yeah, OTA updates are how cars became a subscription service.
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