“Not everybody lives in California”: Tesla Model 3's frozen door handles
qz.com
qz.com
I lived in Fairbanks for a while, and I found that lots of things don’t work well when it’s -40, especially cars. I had to plug in the block heater at least a few hours in advance of starting, and then idle for at least 15 minutes before driving. A block heater and battery blanket were necessary but sometimes not sufficient. My gas mileage was reduced by about half. There were lots of cars with mechanical problems that only crop up in those conditions. Some had doors, windows, or gas doors that would freeze. Relays and (starter!) solenoids would get stuck. A few had heater cores that would would ice and stop working so the heat and window defrost were not usable. Some displays won’t work when they are cold. The manufacturers say they test for this stuff, but it was obviously not fully addressed.
Don’t assume your ICE car is going to work well when it’s that cold. Nothing works right when it’s that cold. When we use things in an environment that differs greatly form that in which they were engineered and tested are bound to surprise us. Even my bike didn’t work right up there. The grease in the headset and wheel bearings got really viscous and stiff, the cables and shifters were balky, and the breaks felt funny.
I actually managed to bike commute pretty often as a student, partly because it was more reliable then driving. My ski jacket was made plastic so it got really stiff and crumpley feeling like cardboard. When I got to school my phone screen didn’t work, and my laptop wouldn’t turn on until it warmed up, but the bike at least never made me late, which is more than I could say for any car.
My ICE car handled the polar vortex just fine. Although any marginal parts are vastly more likely to fail, I imagine a lot of batteries were replaced.
Winter driving can be some of the most difficult and dangerous conditions to drive in for a human. It's already bad enough after the first big snow when experienced fair-weather drivers have to re-acquaint themselves with winter conditions, but if they're driving skills atrophy in good weather due to self-driving car use, it will be even worse.
I remember driving in New Hampshire in the 80's as an undergraduate, thinking to myself, "They drive like it's winter all year!" If people only drove when it was winter, perhaps they'd drive like I drive now in middle age: to minimize the chance of collision. (As opposed to how I drove like a butthead in my 20's.) No assuming the turn signal is true. No assuming oncoming traffic will brake for you when you merge. (Unless you simply have no choice.) No merging turns unless you have first actually seen the oncoming traffic.
On the whole, US drivers are too aggressive, and make too many assumptions. If people could model the behavior of autonomous vehicles, maybe they'd drive more rationally. (I'm Asian, and many would call my driving "Asian driving." I just don't think it's the smart or rational tradeoff to risk any more than you have to in the way of car damage, injury, or death just to get someplace a few minutes faster. Really, that strikes me as just plain stupid.)
They are decidedly not of the stereotype that you are claiming for asian drivers - careful and slow. I stay far away from them if possible. They don't have any idea about driving in a safe manner.
But like I said stereotypes fail but I had to comment on yours.
I guess some people would say I drive like an old person in Florida, or like someone from Ballard in Washington.
36 year old me: "Wow, look at all these jackbutts.. driving is stressful. Good thing I'm not in a hurry."
So no, its not auto-driving cars that make winter-driving skills atrophy. Its summer that does that.
My point was that summer already makes winter driving skills atrophy, but self-driving cars will make general driving skills atrophy at the same time, so the problem would be magnified.
What exactly will autonomous vehicles use to guide them in bad snow storms?
The high concentration of tech in one particular part of only a minority of countries will almost certainly lead to more of these occurrences.
The concentration of production and mostly homogenous workforce involved in the process will undercut basic discovery processes that would expose these sort of design in the design process, not when the products ship out to customers.
Methanol depresses the freezing point of water at low concentration. Adding ~10% methanol to gasoline was a classic for deicing fuel lines.
But it does contain some water, and detergent. So straight methanol works better.
Just don't drink it. And it's very biodegradable.