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

telegraph.co.uk

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

#51

Post by eastbound »

saberience wrote: post #29

Why is this even news? How often does “any” car break down across the UK or USA or Europe and cause a traffic jam? I’ll answer this question, because the media hates Elon Musk and deeply desires that Tesla fails. Despite Tesla pushing forward the “green agenda” and hence liberal left movement more than any other single company or person. I have a feeling the New York Times, Guardian etc, would be drinking champagne i…

Good point, I remember the smear campaign against a french car manufacturer for its cruise control (“I couldn’t stop it anymore, it went 200km/h through the toll booth” and 2-3 similar), when clearly it must have been competitors hyping or mounting an incident.

But Musk was popular in late-2021. It’s when he became the world’s first individual fortune in early-2022 that he started to be described as a stupid person. Why?

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

#52

Post by krisoft »

eqvinox wrote: post #8
cj wrote: post #3

Does roadside assistance (AAA, etc) not offer some kind of "I ran out of gas" service for electric cars? Edit: As of 2022, AAA actually does have emergency mobile charging. But of course, only in select cities. https://newsroom.aaa.com/2022/12/electrifying-aaa-member-ben...

They do (I've seen photos of assistance service cars with a bunch of batteries tacked on in the back), but it's a very new thing and not very common yet. Also the assistance service cars are mostly petrol based still, but even for electric ones I've been told it's non-trivial to wire the existing batteries out (… safety mechanisms and whatnot), making extra battery packs the go-to.

> making extra battery packs the go-to

I mean we are not talking about charging the vehicle to full. You only need like a hand portable battery to jump start the low voltage system.

The procedure is described in the owner's manual: "In the unlikely event that Model 3 loses electrical power, you cannot access the touchscreen and are therefore unable to release the parking brake without first jump starting (see Jump Starting)."[1]

And the jump starting procedure is described here: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_au/GUID-3567D5F...

1: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_au/GUID-3DFFB07...

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

#53

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

saberience wrote: post #29

Why is this even news? How often does “any” car break down across the UK or USA or Europe and cause a traffic jam? I’ll answer this question, because the media hates Elon Musk and deeply desires that Tesla fails. Despite Tesla pushing forward the “green agenda” and hence liberal left movement more than any other single company or person. I have a feeling the New York Times, Guardian etc, would be drinking champagne i…

Why do you think this is being politicised?

The Telegraph is often referred to as The Torygraph due to its fandom of the Conservative Party and is generally right wing biased. As I'm not a fan of it, I had a look for other sources and found The Sun (also right wing) and The Daily Mail (infamously right wing and often referred to as The Daily Heil due to their support of Hitler and Nazism before WWII).

Personally, I'm a lefty cyclist and so tend to notice a lot of car related stories where they end up being driven into houses, shops, walls, schools etc. and the UK press doesn't seem biased against Teslas in my view though that might well be different if they were allowed to be driven "autonomously" over here.

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

#54

Post by pulvinar »

krisoft wrote: post #35
kube-system wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ques…

Sorry, but it doesn't make sense why a Tesla would apply the parking brake when the big battery dies, since the separate 12V battery would power the brake mechanism. If that 12V also happened to die at the same moment (highly unlikely), the parking brake would have been stuck in the released position, not applied.

And 9 hours? They could have called one of those tow trucks who haul away an illegally parked vehicle in a matter of seconds.

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

#55

Post by gnfargbl »

Waterluvian wrote: post #46
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be some discrepancy as the article mentions that it ran out of power, but the owner, Mr Grigg, 57, said that the vehicle had failed despite having shown that it had several miles of charge remaining. And yes, I'm surprised that an important component doesn't have a manual override. Imagine if the vehicle blocked access to a hospital or a busy bridge or tunnel.

Fire Department would just drag it away without thinking twice. I’m kind of amazed people tolerated this for so many hours. Traffic stoppage costs can really add up.

In New York, sure. In Salisbury? I'm not even sure the fire engines are equipped for that kind of activity, and I'm almost certain the fire service isn't prepared for the liability.

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

#56

Post by orwin »

zaroth wrote: post #39

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…

It's not 2010. Back in the days this type of error (as well as speed regulator not disengaging...) happened often in low-quality cars. Nowadays, it seems like even 'luxury' cars are low-quality, and Tesla, for better or for worse, started the trend.

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

#57

Post by seanmcdirmid »

simondotau wrote: post #28
adql wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The Tesla Model 3 brakes are hydraulic and the pedal is still mechanically connected to the master cylinder. It’s the parking brake which is electronically actuated, as it is with nearly all modern ICE cars.

Isn’t the 12V battery responsible for that? It sounds like the driver lost that somehow, not the main battery.

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

#58

Post by seanmcdirmid »

imtringued wrote: post #45
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?

Running of electricity is incredibly difficult on an EV. Also, in what way does a parking brake or a transmission prevent towing? You lift the car onto the tow truck bed like any other tow job. It doesn't take nine hours to hire one that can do the job.

They might not have had such flat bed tow trucks. They aren’t super common outside d cities.

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

#59

Post by seanmcdirmid »

eastbound wrote: post #47
cle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can be towed, but it is correct that certain electrical failures can prevent the brakes from being released. I know because this happened to me. The tow company sent a flat bed truck and used a winch to pull the car onto the platform. It’s pretty annoying from a design perspective but it also seems like something that any competent tow company should be able to handle easily.

Aren’t breaks disabled once the winch pulls on the hook point?

EVs can’t be towed with a winch style tow truck, at least without frying them. A flat bed tow truck is required (also recommended for many newer ICEs).
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