Live data from Hacker News

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

telegraph.co.uk

71–80 of 82 posts

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

#71
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?

Teslas have a number of features designed to prevent this situation from happening.

Below a threshold, the car's power will reduce as battery capacity decreases.

The car will also warn you several times with a modal over the entire display telling you that you're approaching zero capacity.

If you're following a route on the navigation system, it will show you a banner just above the turn by turn instructions indicating whether you need to charge or drive below a set average speed in order to reach the destination.

Additionally, there is a small reserve within the battery that allows you to stretch your remaining capacity just a bit.

The issue here (and I blame Tesla more than the driver) is that showing remaining battery capacity in miles is horrifically inaccurate, just like it is with petrol-fueled vehicles.

Percent state of charge is always the most accurate measure to go on, just like it is on phones.

I also wish Tesla would allow drivers to disable percent remaining until a threshold is reached (like 20%) to reduce capacity anxiety.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't be as emergency stops can be performed at any point in time - usually when there's an emergency. Obviously it's important that following drivers have left enough space so that they can react in time, but that's down to their driving skill (or lack of, if they're too close). I'd consider that autonomous vehicles should apply the brakes if they find themselves in an uncertain situation as reducing speed is…

Maximum braking on an empty highway is still quite dangerous. The problem about “yeah well they should have left space” or “they should have responded perfectly to a car that’s suddenly braking” is that it’s not realistic to the real world. It’s not a least-surprise event.

I'm not sure about the laws there, but in Austria for example it's also illegal to suddenly break without reason.

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

#74
post #35

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…

Other vehicles don't work this way. That's why it seems to be a strange design choice.

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

#75
post #19
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...

wonder if the pendulum will shift back to mechanical components being cheaper than the electrical alternatives with the ever increasing demand for electrical components.

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

#76

They have a separate 12V battery that I imagine runs things like the handbrake, steering lock etc. Just like any other modern car. Probably some electrical failure in the 12V system.

Nitpicking: Modern Tesla Model 3 have 16V batteries (and subsequently also 16V "sigarette igniter" connection instead of 12V)

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

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What liability arises from removing a vehicle blocking a public road for hours?

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

#78
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most electronic handbrakes just push out a cam against the rotor. Most designs have a way to back the cam out with a wrench or tool. However sometimes access can be ridiculous I believe BMW's release requires you digging around in the rear seating area for a socket to put a allen-key like shaft into to ultimately back it out. Some vehicles you'd have to jack up a corner to ultimately back it out. It can vary widely f…

If the power failed on most vehicles with electronic parking brakes while you were driving, you wouldn’t have the parking brake applied. And it would remain that way. As there wouldn’t be any power to rotate the mechanism into the applied position.

No, but a situation that happened right outside my home is someone too busy looking at their phone bashed their BMW 3-series into the curb and utility pole, and then decided to put the automatic transmission in park before they got out of the vehicle.

And when they got back in, they were unable to remove it from park and put it in neutral.

The previous model you would’ve apparently been able to remove some center console trim on the transmission tunnel and insert the key into a covered keyhole to release the parking pawl. On this newer generation? Jack the car up, get underneath, remove an access panel, and then use a wrench to back out the parking pawl. What a pain in the ass.

Normal turbocharged 4-popper, not a hybrid or a BEV. Once it was put in park after a crash, car decided it was game over.

It was ultimately dragged up onto a flatbed, probably partially flatspotting the tires in the process. The guy sent by AAA had no intention (or the equipment) to safely jack up the car on a busy street to remove the pawl, and probably didn’t even want to even if he knew what to do.

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

#80

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.…

Some of us have been Elon-sceptical for rather longer than that.
Post reply on HN