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Comment by KingMachiavelli | Hacker News Reader

Brake fluid is one of the last somewhat frequent maintenance items. It looks like newer Tesla's have all electric breaks so technically there's very little reason you would need a mechanic since replacing the air filter is easy (at least compared to brake fluid changes).

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All electric brakes? Do you mean that there is no mechanical / hydraulic link between the pedal and the pads?

What happens when the power fails?

-I guess the brakes need power to be disengaged against a spring force; this is quite common on electric motors in industrial use.

So, power fails? It stops. Quickly.

I mean it's common in air brakes used in commercial trucks as well. If air pressure is lost the brakes close: That's the failure condition.

Done likely because these vehicles are larger and hydraulic brake fluid runs the risk of boiling (air compresses unlike fluid) and/or catching fire.

As for brake fluid and fires, I had a neighbor's Ford Explorer (more like Exploder?) catch fire while parked and it burned down to the chassis due to this: https://www.cozen.com/admin/files/publications/Motor_Vehicle...

Also because running hydraulic brake lines to trailers is impractical.

Is it though? I grew up on a farm and we have had implements with detachable hydraulics.

Okay, less practical. Imagine trains had hydraulic brakes. Just another thing to go wrong.

It’s probably similar to how planes have red and at links.

Planes have what? I think that your text-to-speech understood you improperly, but I cannot figure out what it was.

My guess is “red and at” -> “redundant”

We need a text-to-speech-mishaps-translator.

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