new book Tesla Files - just reviewed on a podcast i heard [ e:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002gr0k ]
Investigative journalist Sönke Iwersen describes his years-long investigation into Tesla, aided by a whistleblower, exposing serious safety concerns over the company’s cars
www.theguardian.com
description of model3 door handle design in that articles brief audio excerpt - had never heard that on pre highland models in an emergency situation, door handle to escape rear is obscure
I’d like to listen to the whole thing, whilst I agree the secondary mechanical release is obscure if unfamiliar (same applies to the front to a lesser degree), it’s also not the primary method of opening the door and I note that electronic door release are being seen or other brands now and they also have obscure mechanical overrides.. This tells me that the data and regulatory technical reviews have accepted the risk acceptability for that design and it deemed still fit for purpose.
I’d still rather have mechanical latches as the primary method, but you soon forget about it when you live with the car, I actually find mechanical door pulls feel a bit weird and old fashioned.
Listening to the BBC podcast, on the surface it sounds all exciting, but actually all it's saying is Tesla, a car manufacturer gets thousands of complaints.. it doesn't say if they are investigated, what the root causes are and what regulatory responses there are to all that... I'd love to see the data and see if they have been naughty or this is just a fairly normal case of 'cars are dangerous, manufacturers have to deal with the fact many deaths are avoidable but still have cars on the market and a regulatory framework that allows people to die'.
FYI, With adaptive cruise control that has a stop/go feature I imagine many cases of 'my car suddenly lurched forward' are simply forgetting adaptive cruise is on and you are in a queue of traffic etc, get to the head of the queue and it suddenly shoots off.. I've had two people in work complaining about their new EVs that have done similar (none Tesla, both have stop/go adaptive cruise), as they have also complained of phantom/sudden braking.. usually (like my ID.3) it's picking up speed limits from slip roads on motorways, or side roads etc.. Even my Mustang (adaptive cruise with forward collision system) will jam on needlessly in some fairly trivial circumstances..
Tesla have been investigated many times for their autopilot by several regulatory bodies, and made tweaks.. everyone focuses on Tesla, which is fine, but my ID.3 used to just switch off autopilot with zero warning which even with hands on wheel ready to take over can be disconcerting and having driven a fair few MEB cars with travel assist, they all do that occasionally.. In my Model Y it flashes/beeps to alert you before it can't handle things, but ultimately it does get in situations it can't deal with..
I'm not admonishing Tesla, I think it's popular to pick on them these days, but the reality is, issues happen, what matters is what the regulatory bodies are aware of and accepting, if this exposes that, great.. if it exposes some true hiding of data from regulatory bodies, that's great too..
i've just sent octopus and email to see what they will say.
