Tesla Model S locks up in the middle of a highway

Of course you call 911. You also call the number on the blue and white "REPORT EMERGENCY OR PROBLEM" sign that's at every US crossing and read them the crossing number on that sign. Usually it connects to the train dispatcher who controls that track, has the controls to turn signals red, and has a radio link to the locomotives. Call that number, tell them there's a car stuck on the tracks at crossing 123 456, and trains will be stopped.

DOT actually says to call that number before calling 911. The 911 dispatcher will eventually call the railroad, but there may be confusion and delay as to where the problem is. (Cops use street names and addresses, railroads use routes and milepost numbers.)

Those blue and white signs are kind of low key. Maybe too low key. It's not obvious that the blue and white sign gets you to the person who actually controls the trains.

If stuck on a crossing, get out of the vehicle, get well clear of the crossing, like 50-100 feet, and call. Then, once the train dispatcher tells you they have rail traffic stopped, efforts to extract the vehicle can begin.

You can always secure a manual car or a car with a parking pawl by shifting into gear or P, so I assume it's more okay to leave them in the free-rolling state if they die completely.

But you can't do the same in a Tesla which doesn't have a parking pawl, so I assume someone made the decision that a forever-locked-up Tesla is safer than a forever-free-rolling Tesla.

I also agree that should be an even-more-emergency mechanism (like a valve on the brake circuit) you could operate manually to disable the emergency lock-up, but in the case of a Tesla fiddling with that hypothetical valve would also disable your brakes completely sooo. Dunno. The car just doesn't have enough hardware.

I'm curious about how you got out of that one :) Handbrake?

What? The regular brakes are still hydraulic, the pedal will always work. Or did you mean that there's no way to KEEP the car stopped without someone standing on the pedal all the time? That's true, but you can always gently rest the car against the curb or road barriers or something.

That's one way to brick an automatic car.

Practically every single car has a freely rolling mode the operator can easily select, despite being, according to you, "very dangerous".

For an EV like a Tesla neutral would be just not energizing the motor and letting it turn freely. There are hydraulic brakes on the car, are there not? These should always be available, even when non-boosted it's just a matter of standing on the pedal. Most vehicles in addition to this have a mechanical "emergency" or "parking" brake for actuating the rear calipers mechanically. There's nothing about a Tesla precluding the same manual brake methods practically every car has had since before I was born, which are the primary ways you stop the car from rolling when in neutral. At least this way you're always able to roll a vehicle when needed, even if it's inoperable for whatever reason.

Teslas are just annoying.

Perfectly rational as the default action perhaps, but Tesla should still provide a way to manually override that behavior. We have the technology.

It's the same thing I would do if I had an underpowered and heavily laden car or truck and came to a big hill that the car could only get up at 40 mph - change lanes towards the shoulder so that people with more powerful cars can overtake.

It has a bunch of safety benefits too, like knowing people always will be passing you on only one side, making driving more predictable, and hence safer.

It's not a multimedia issue (infotainment). There's a separate driving computer with sufficient redundancy functionality. It's likely a problem with 12V power if the critical functionality freezes.

You can even reboot the infotainment system (the main screen) when driving and the car drivers perfectly fine.