The Tesla Cyberquad for kids has been recalled for not meeting safety standards | Hacker News Reader

The Tesla Cyberquad for kids has been recalled for not meeting safety standards

theverge.com

59 pointsTomte93 comments

> According to the CPSC, it failed to meet federal standards for mechanical suspension and maximum tire pressure on ATVs for kids and doesn’t have a “CPSC-approved ATV action plan” meant to dictate things like “rider training, dissemination of safety information, age recommendations, and other safety measures.”

> The good news is that there aren’t any known instances of someone being seriously injured while using the Cyberquad for kids, though Radio Flyer did apparently receive one report of it tipping over when an adult and child were riding it at the same time, resulting in a bruised shoulder.

So it didn't have the required level of suspension stiffness and tire pressure (too hard or too soft, who knows), and it wasn't half covered in those yellow warning stickers.

I had no idea this existed, but seems like a fun product. 10mph does seem quite fast, which is probably the main cause of the problems. I doubt this would have been an issue had it been limited to 6mph like the other ones Radio Flyer makes

>Radio Flyer has received one report of an incident where the single-rider Cyberquad tipped over when driven by an eight-year-old child and a 36-year-old adult female, resulting in a bruised left shoulder to the adult female.

Sometimes you really need to stop and think if your best interests are being considered. So far, it's as dangerous as a bicycle and probably 2x the fun.

This seems to be "recalled for not having the right safety paperwork and certifications" rather than "recalled for being actually unsafe".

One can never write laws and regulations that both keep everything safe, while at the same time not banning things that aren't dangerous.

A good compromise is to instead publish 'guidelines' for manufacturers. If a manufacturer followed the relevant guidelines, and the product still injured someone, then any damages payable by the company would be much reduced. Conversely, if a manufacturer decides to have the suspension so soft that it violates the guidelines and injures someone, then any damages claim is dramatically increased.

That approach lets companies stray outside the guidelines when they have a lot of confidence that their design is safe.

As a business owner, I understand the spirit of this, but as a parent/customer, does this mean I'd have to rely on my own research to find out that toys have certain safety standards?

Then that's a no – I'd rather put the onus on the business because that's the cost of doing business.

And just to clarify, even though I'm a business owner, I firmly believe that all the headaches absolutely should be the burden of the businesses and not the customers.

If the system works as intended, you might even want to buy products that don't meet the guidelines. That means the business owner has got a design that they believe is substantially safer than the guidelines allow - hence why they made the business decision to not stick to the guidelines and use their own design instead.

Obviously this falls down when the business owner believes they'll never have to pay out (eg. overseas amazon sellers, or businesses that plan to claim bankruptcy as soon as the first claim comes in). I think required liability insurance should cover those cases - where the 'excess' of the policy is the total value of the company. The insurance company will likely insist the guidelines are followed too, since they don't want to take on an unknown risk...

Not sure I'm following that. So a business owner comes up with a brilliant idea that doesn't meet the guidelines but which they believe is substantially safer, the parent buys that design based on "it's super safe" promises, and it kills the child. Maybe the business owner just thought they were super smart, but they weren't.

And the resolution is a liability policy for the total value of the company, presumably when things were going well and not post-death?

I'm not worried about business owners who know they have a terrible product and are betting on not paying out. I'm worried about the ones who think they've got a great product but don't.

"I think required liability insurance should cover those cases - where the 'excess' of the policy is the total value of the company."

So if my choke hazard toy company is valued at zero dollars, I get a zero dollar insurance policy and the market makes everything work out when kids starting choking to death?

Caveat emptor doesn't scale, which is why we have baseline safety standards and domain experts.

Nobody is qualified to make those judgements on all their purchases, much less the time. That homemade yogurt you bought at the farmer's market? Wouldn't you like to know that its bacterial count was monitored. And drugs? The FDA regulates the printing on the bottle labels to try to reduce accidents. How many companies are going to think up things like that?

I suggest checking out "Unsafe at Any Speed" and (nauseatingly and heart-breakingly) "The Jungle" if you want to know what it was like before safety regulations went into place (and those two books were responsible, for car safety and food safety respectively)

As a parent you are responsible for the toys your children play with full stop. Relying on someone else to care as much as you do will not work out.

I'm responsible for disassembling electrical parts to make sure they are grounded correctly? For auditing the supply chain of the paint they use to make sure it doesn't have lead? etc etc? This shit makes no sense lol. Yeah if you get a kid a vehicle don't be surprised when they wreck it, that's kind of on you. But "you are responsible for the toys your children play with full stop" can't possibly be unless you're going for the full libertarian dreamland.

That's an uncharitable take on what's actually at stake here. We're not discussing all safety standards. We're talking about recalls for not having warning stickers and paperwork in order (and possibly improperly tuned suspension and tire pressure, which I think is valid to complain about).

Deriding paperwork is a bit annoying because the CPSC determines the safety at least partly through the paperwork. I kind of agree that the warning stickers have gotten a bit out-of hand, but upon digging many of those sorts of things are actually instigated by in-house legal counsel rather than any external regulations.

You may be able to blame someone in a court of law, but you'll know deep down you were responsible so that will be of little comfort.

That's a silly attitude. There are consumer safety standards for good reasons. You shouldn't have to investigate say helmet manufacturers to make sure they aren't made with dangerous substances or will fail without protecting you.

You don't really have to take a trip down to the factory to inspect a children's toy. Lead test strips are cheap, otherwise take it into your hand and check it out. Is it fit for purpose? This works both ways, my kid would get to ride around on the cool Tesla car while your kid sits on the sidelines following the rules.

I'm not saying that the laws are a bad idea, just expecting anyone to be competent in life is a bad assumption to make.

Do lead strips detect cadmium, mercury, beryllium and arsenic? What about poisonous organic compounds? Should I invest in a full-on chemistry lab? If I buy a toy and destroy it in testing, can I buy another one for the boy to play with and trust that it'll be made of the same stuff?

You should do whatever you deem necessary to fullfil your responsibility to care for your child and ensure that they are safe. I personally don't go that far, nor do the authorities.

https://www.cpsc.gov/Regulations-Laws--Standards/Statutes/Th...

Actually, there are national regulations requiring that products made for toys must be tested in the manner I have described. No, "the authorities" don't do the testing, but they do define standards, certify laboratories, and require toymakers to get their products tested. Is it all 100% trustworthy or failsafe? Of course not. But I don't buy my kid sketchy shit from overseas because taking all of that responsibility upon myself is frankly ludicrous: I suck at chemistry and I trust a professional way more than my own abilities.

The manufacturers are the ones shipping the toys to the lab, all they have to do is not cut corners on a few examples then they can use the cheaper, more vibrant lead paints on the remainder.

People really hate personal responsibility like this but it's really how the world works. If you need to be sure about something, be it the wholesomeness of a product or that someone won't kick your door in at night, you need to take care of that yourself.

Sure, bub. Nobody hates personal responsibility, but your tinfoil hat sure is unsightly.

I am willing to bet a reasonable amount of money that you don't check:

- the blueprints of every building you walk into

- the toxicology reports of the varnish that was on the beds of the hotel you stayed in.

- that the plastic used in your food takeout container won't leak into food when heated.

- the mix of lead in the gasoline you put in your car

and so on and so forth. To what end do we hand waving away "it's your responsibility" – the ONLY people that benefit here are businesses. What's the point? Who is even asking for this?

Make safety regulations standards (hopefully multiple ones, so there is competition) OPT IN.

This works for food safety or kids toys.

If you make a thing or provide a service, you get the option of picking a certification. Let's say you sell food. You can pick a highly regulated and strict food certification, and that may be a selling feature for some customers, but it probably has a cost. Or you can pick zero regulation and no cost and rely on selling your product based on low price and product.

The regulating bodies (if there is competition) have an incentive to maintain the standard, more than the current you must comply or else single standard system.

Sounds like a great idea!

I look forward to the return of people getting stabbed by Lawn Darts and kids choking on the toy inside their Kinder Egg.

Lawn Darts were legitimately dangerous, but I think the reason Kinder Eggs are illegal in the US is that US law says you can't sell "candy that has embedded in it a toy or trinket". The intent of the law was to stop things like in the 1950s where toys were literally embedded in the food, which obviously isn't the case with Kinder Eggs. And it obviously isn't really a safety issue as places like Europe that have far stricter safety laws than the US have no problem with Kinder Eggs.

The unfortunate problem with that is that some executives believe that “increasing shareholder value” is their heavenly mandate. Numerous examples have shown us that it can be financially “prudent” to make unsafe products and eat the occasional lawsuit when it kills somebody.

Or, it lets companies decide if they pay their lawyers enough money, they can get away with cheap unsafe designs.

Doing it this way will devolve into Goodhart's law where target metrics are no longer predictive of safety. Better to test the safety itself than design guidelines to skirt around.

Or companies might just roll the dice. If it doesn't kill anyone, you've made a lot of money. If it kills everyone that touches it, you're shutting down the company (and start a new one).

If you're selling a motorized vehicle to children, you should probably follow all the laws even if they don't seem that critical to your bottom line

Elmo is so rich, he doesn't care. This recall doesn't matter to him one iota.

Did you even read the article? This was a Radio Flyer product that Tesla effectively licensed its brand out to.

Don't assume people have not read the article.

It's usually a safe assumption.

I didn't assume, I asked if he'd read it.

Are we calling him elmo now or is that just a typo? Pretty funny typo if nothing else. I hope it sticks

Don't know if it's an autocorrect or the new nickname for the guy haha

A more accurate title would be: Radio Flyer's Tesla Cyberquad for kids has been recalled....

It wasn't designed or made by Tesla. This would be like saying "Chevy Jeep for kids recalled" instead of "Power wheel's Chevy Jeep model recalled".

The goal here of flagging Tesla up front seems entirely obvious, and to be expected of vindictive modern media in a panic over the loss of their monopolistic control over media discourse.

Publicly traded company with a board is "monopolistic," but "owned by one rich guy with an agenda and possible mental instability" is better?

* FCA Jeep, or Chrysler Jeep if you must.

While I agree the headline is poor and could be better (your alternative is better) this was made at the request of Tesla and sold on teslamotors.com, it's not disingenuous to call it Tesla's.

Side note, anyone who likes Gen Z humor should take a read through the CPSC's twitter account.

For example: https://nitter.1d4.us/USCPSC/status/1585307603558486034#m (random nitter instance because the main one has an SSL error).

USCPSC's social media is run by a millennial https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephgalbo/

Looks like the motor is a standard "500W" (of course it's not, it's being overdriven) brushed DC motor and this has a 288Wh Li-Ion battery.

Given that this is being recalled for documentation and regulation issues and not some inherent mechanical defect.....

They give you a 1900$ refund and 50$ to "dispose" of it and send back the old motor controller.

Spend $15 of that 50$ on a "brushed dc motor controller" on AliExpress. Well of course anyone doing it is going to actually spend $25 instead to upgrade it to 1kW riight??? Heh.

Sounds like a good... nope I mean great deal to me. Anyone who goes to the lengths to obtain a replacement motor controller (likely of higher wattage) probably has a clue and will have good fun doing it. Too bad there's no field weakening on a brushed DC motor, but you can also get a 1.8kW dc-dc converter for 20 bucks....

I can’t believe a $1,800 atv uses a dc motor, a replacement brushless motor and foc controller would make a great upgrade

To be fair, this was built by a toy company, who also makes things to the likes of Power Wheels toys or whatnot. It was never intended to go particularly fast or be particularly powerful, and most of the cost was probably from the fact that Tesla had input on the design.

I cannot be sure what kind of motor is actually used in it but the "crappy brushed escooter from 2000s with lead acid batteries" style of motor is far too obvious to ignore in the videos I've seen of this.

Has anyone tried one and found it to be unexpectedly dangerous (or safe?)

Not sure what the "federal standards for mechanical suspension" would be, but I bet the maximum tire pressure thing is a release valve if you overfill it (kids might not know how dangerous an exploding tire could be) - and the last one means they didn't write enough manuals that everyone ignores anyway.

I would bet in both the suspension and tire non-compliances are labeling. That's mostly what federal vehicle regulations deal with.

I would say it's a massive failure of the Tesla compliance team to miss that, but I suspect Elon likes to leave that role unfilled.

Article says all tesla did was consult on the appearance, everything else was done by a toy company. Would be funny if Elon told them to take the labels off

I'm not sure how anecdotal evidence for something failing (or not) changes this.

Even if 1 in every 1000 of a model of car (0.1%) is expected to experience a flaw, that could be more than enough to issue a recall. But that means that you and your closest 100 friends aren't likely to have experienced it.

Still, some of the engineers here might be able to provide additional insight into the design.

What he's asking is some sense of whether these are merely statutory violations or whether they are so far off the statutes they are dangerous.

Sometimes straying from the statutes results in something considerably safer, or perhaps just better without being more dangerous. You see this sometimes with medical devices that don't qualify legally to be medical devices, but are far more popular. Think wheelchairs or hearing aids in particular.

The article is brief and only mentions them being out of spec and under documented. It doesn't say anything about failures.

If I had to guess I'd suspect that "mechanical suspension" means there's a pinch-point (or it hasn't been properly proven there isn't), the tire thing means you could overinflated the tire and it could pop/blow up, and the "not enough documentation of the hazards" thing is just the silly paper and stickers everyone ignores anyway.

The first two I'd probably grant; I'm surprised that Radio Flyer didn't just modify an existing design that already had those (or they did and exposed something that wasn't exposed before).

Failing to follow regulations IS a failure. Regulations serve two purposes: 1) ensure compliance with best practices, and 2) demonstrate attention to detail. Failing a labeling requirement is like failing the classic Van Halen brown M&M test: it's not dangerous in itself, but it indicates a lack of diligence that people should assume is pervasive in the product.

> Failing to follow regulations IS a failure.

It's not a mechanical failure, which is clearly what was being talked about. This is why the above poster was asking if anyone had anyone with experience with the actual atv. That it is out of spec is not something anyone here is disputing.

> The article is brief and only mentions them being out of spec and under documented. It doesn't say anything about failures.

Agreed. And I also agree that I'd like to know more details (although asking for anecdotal evidence still doesn't provide that...)

> Think wheelchairs or hearing aids in particular.

I'm (luckily) unfamiliar with this. Can you provide details?

Move fast and break kids

ATVs are pretty dangerous to start with, especially for kids.

it's interesting that that they only want the controller, it'd be sweet to find a "broken' one for cheep that could be fitted with a new esc, but knowing this thing's target audience i doubt many will get the recall

These cars are worth more than $1,900 on the 2nd hand market...

Anyone who sends theirs back for a full refund is losing out.

And the company might be banking on that fact, knowing that they're going to get very few returns...

Actually, they're paying a full refund for sending in the motor controller. I've half a mind to buy one; replacing the motor controller sounds like a fun afternoon.

Replacing the body panels sounds considerably less fun, but the thing is fugly as a cybertruck, which is a reason that I'm not getting one.

elon is absolutely addicted to hurting people with his products!

Why would you subject your children to anything that is even remotely related with Elon Musk?

When this thread inevitably fills up with Tesla fans, I have a serious question: Is it particularly difficult to turn off the high beam in Tesla cars? I keep wondering why so many Teslas keep blinding me on dark roads.

From my limited experience, I imagine there is a touch screen interface to do so. =p

You dont have to use touch screen for that, you can switch between automatic and manual modes for headlights using just one of the stalks on the sides of the steering wheel.

FSD beta requires auto-highbeam to be enabled otherwise it will not engage.

Not even just FSD anymore. Latest updates are forcing anyone using autopilot. You can override by turning high beams off but you have to do it every time you reengage autopilot - at least until they fix that loophole.

Auto-brights are enabled by default when you engage FSD, but you can manually set it to only use regular headlights by flicking the left stalk.

I think a lot of people just use auto high-beams on their Teslas, but it seems to be very hit-or-miss if it actually works properly or not.

It's a feature, not a bug. The worse Tesla auto-high beams are, the harder it becomes to drive as a human. The harder it becomes to drive as a human, the greater the demand for autonomous cars. The greater the demand for autonomous cars, the greater the sales of Teslas.

A lot of AI adoption is based on this sort of thing.

I think you'd have to already be totally invested in Tesla to actually believe they'll get full autonomous driving working any time soon. So, blinding everybody is sort of preaching to the choir, right?

Because Elon insists on everything being controlled by machine learning. Hence why rain sensing and headlight both have the most complicated software in the industry and the worst performance. I say this as some who likes their model 3 but damn does the software have some warts.

This is my experience with almost all the newer SUVs that are oncoming at night. I wonder if it has to do with how low or high the oncoming traffic is.

Driving any kind of sedan at night is basically torture now.

Tesla has an "Auto high-beams" feature which attempts to detect traffic and dip the lights when it does. I find that it reacts much slower than I normally would to oncoming traffic, so I don't use this feature.

If the car is in autopilot, it requires the auto high beams to be on, but using autopilot at night is not something I would be comfortable with.

Interesting, thanks. I think I've noticed it most when being followed by a Tesla on dark motorways and being blinded by the reflection in my mirrors. Maybe the auto high-beam just doesn't care about cars in front. I was starting to think Teslas just had an abnormally high proportion of arsehole drivers like BMW.

There is still a manual high beam, which is what I use. Same interface as any other car.

If you buy a pre-2021 Tesla with a round steering wheel, it can mostly function as a normal car.

It's probably the auto-high-beams, which is one of the sub-par driver aid implementations on Teslas currently (along with auto wipers, and 'smart driver safety features' that regularly get alarmed --and shock the driver with loud alarm noises-- during totally safe driving.)

I haven't paid too much attention, but I believe auto-high-beams are turned on when you use autopilot, and then need specifically turning off. I do find that when auto beams are turned on, the car is less inclined to respond to me when I try to operate the lights manually.

It's not a feature exclusive to Teslas. I have a 2022 Hyundai and it has a similar feature for the high beams, but obviously nothing like autopilot. It operates when the lights are set to "auto" and disables when they are set to "manual." The feature seems to work very well even in foggy conditions.

As others are saying - their auto high beam lights are not great (and never been, after years and years of trying to solve that with vision, instead of simple sensor like everyone else).

But also, their auto-leveling can be subpar (https://tesla-info.com/tips/headlight-alignment.php). So you maybe blinded by low beam lights that are mis leveled.

I'm very high up in my car (a Toyota Vellfire) so unlikely to be the auto-levelling, but I guess it could be very out of whack.

Headlights are an arms race.

I used to be able to safely drive my 1982 Jeep CJ5 at night with its 5 3/4" sealed-beam 55W halogen 5006 headlights. Once my eyes adjusted, I could safely see far enough ahead to drive at 55 mph and - experimentally verified - stop in time for deer standing in the road, even with a wobbly vehicle and without ABS). Then HIDs and came out, and people with sealed-beam and replaceable bulb halogens started putting in painful blue-tinted bulbs. I upgraded to replaceable bulbs with high-brightness 65W H4 bulbs, but didn't go blue because I'd never look like a new, fancy HID vehicle and I didn't want to blind other drivers. Now my 65W bulbs are the least bright lights on the road, and I don't drive the Jeep at night because it's just not safe.

I suppose that I could get an LED ring and new high-brightness LED bulbs with a fan on the back, but I'm already higher than the trunk of smaller cars and I don't want to be "that guy" who I often see behind me with the lifted truck inches from my bumper when I'm not driving the jeep.

At least it's a little safer than the people who don't understand their auto headlights and drive in the rain with only the DRLs illuminated and no running lights visible from the back. Bulbs are cheap, and they last forever these days, there's no reason to drive with them turned off.

> and I don't drive the Jeep at night because it's just not safe.

I rarely drive at night anymore for the same reason. When I have to, I try to do so with a freshly cleaned windshield, that helps a decent bit. Another trick is to watch the outside line of the lane/road so you're not looking into the oncoming headlights as much. But I do agree that headlights seem to have gotten brighter and brighter. And many aren't adjusted at the proper angles, either. But also, my eyes probably aren't as good as they were in decades past.

What gets me is how so many stock trucks and SUVs have their headlights so high up. I can deal with the occasional "that guy" because most people just don't go through the trouble of raising their vehicle, but when popular stock vehicles start out so high, I'm basically always blinded.

My headlights were shooting straight out when I picked it up (Oct 2020 Y) and I needed to lower the angle myself in a settings menu to not be blinding to oncoming cars.

Maybe this is a more common thing that people need to adjust...

Tesla might be worse, but I had a modern Rav4 that people mistook the low beams for high beams all the time and would flash or turn on their high beams. It also had the auto-dimming feature, which didn't react as early as I would as a human. Seems to be the way of modern cars, brighter beams, more automation.

The problem is that US legislation was like 50 years old up until beginning of this year [0], but even the update was bonkers because the US made their own regulation instead of simply copying what worked in other countries... [1].

[0] https://www.popsci.com/technology/infrastructure-bill-car-he...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/business/us-approves-smar...

Thanks for posting this! With the mornings being darker I'm really noticing this. On the way to work today I played a game of looking at the types of oncoming cars with high beams on. In a 30 minute commute, it was 14 Teslas, two giant pickups (couldn't tell make), one lowered Subaru, one Jeep.

I was wondering "is it the drivers, the UI, or the cars?". Maybe if we all start flashing brights at them it will drive service appointments and some kind of fix?

I sincerely wish that problem was limited to Teslas.

The worst offenders are pickup trucks that get a 6" lift without readjusting their lights. They end up with everyone around flashing their brights at them, and instead of getting the hint, they just flash their brights right back. Plus a lot of drivers think they need to have their fog lights on just so everyone knows they are bigger or something...

To make matters worse, stock lights tend to be way brighter than necessary, especially for taller vehicles. It's at the point now where 1/10 mornings I end up flipping my rear view and putting a hand in front of my driver's side mirror just so I can see in front of me.

I've had a few instances where an SUV or pickup is stopped behind me at an intersection, lighting up the interior of my car to the point that all my windows become mirrors; and I just have to sit there until they turn their lights all the way off, just so I can see the road in front of me.

We are long overdue for some regulation in headlight brightness/angle regulation. It's become one of the most significant safety risks we have driving, and it should be trivial to fix.

Depends which car you have.

For 99% of Teslas, you just push on the left stalk to toggle the high beams just like most other cars. For the <1% that drive a Model S Plaid that has a yoke and no stalks, yes, it's hard. You have to go through the touch screen.

That said, Teslas do have auto high beams. But yeah, it doesn't work well at all. The problem is that as of a recent update a couple months ago, if you're driving on Autopilot, auto high beams is forced on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com