Demonstrating Cybertruck's dangerous lack of pinch sensors | Hacker News Reader

Demonstrating Cybertruck's dangerous lack of pinch sensors

threads.net

33 pointsdavidbarker43 comments

Don't have an opinion on this, going with "not great, but not terrible".

The Rivian video show impressive tech however. The interior seemed tolerable for a post 2015 car, but now i know the tech is really good. Not a car guy, and i doubt it would be legal in Europe, but if i had to buy an electric, i'd go for the Rivian.

Also, quick aside: threads seems to be an good place for micro-blogging, the video service is responsive and you can see comment without being logged, which, huge win.

There is no doubt the Cybertruck is a joke in regard to safety in many areas. But, looking at the videos a little I am not sure how some of the things shown are different from any other car.

Specifically where he slams the door shut, no sensor is going to help there. For the automated hood closing I do think it is valid criticism that it should have some form of sensor.

The last video (which you might not see due to Threads' silly UI) does show the automatic boot door on another car not doing this.

Definitely not sure what the door slamming video is supposed to show. I'm not keen on trying it with my own car and fingers to compare.

Interestingly, "@snippy_tinman" in the replies (which you can actually fecking see in Threads) says this is a Federal requirement[1]:

> While closing, the power-operated window, partition, or roof panel shall stop and reverse direction either before contacting a test rod with properties described in S8.2 or S8.3, or before exerting a squeezing force of 100 newtons

I'm not sure if a boot/tailgate counts as a "partition" though

[1] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.118

Most cars don't have sharp edges there and there is rubber. I'm pretty sure I've seen a kid get the fingers shut in a door, and it was just a matter of opening it, no injury and certainly no amputation.

If ypu are really unlucky, I have seen broken fingers. Amputations shouldn't happen so outside of serious accidents, and even then they should be extremely rare.

As a kid I once got a door slammed shut on my fingers on the inside (hinge area) of the door of a now ~40 year old car.

It hurt like hell then and for a few hours after, but I guess my fingers at ~7 years old were still slim enough to come out without any permanent injury. There was some rubber padding even on a car that old (I'm thinking the purpose is making the door watertight though).

The Tesla doors look like my fingers would have had no chance. How do we go backwards from something we got right four decades ago? Especially the self-closing hatch which seems to exert a scary amount of force in an area were people will be prone to place their hands.

>How do we go backwards from something we got right four decades ago?

Simple. By treating car developement like SV SW development, thereby not giving a damn about the past decades of automotive know-how and lessons learned, as that's considered boring and uncool crust, and only focusing on developing new unrealistic and shiny features ("hey look at this snake charger that's coming in 6 months, isn't that cool") that look good on social media to boost sales and stocks prices.

And it works for Tesla because most Tesla and newer car customers in general, don't check stuff like panel gaps, chassis cracks, door seals, panels being attached properly, etc as that's been a solved problem for decades in the auto industry that nobody thinks about anymore would be an issue today, so consumers just focus on looks and shiny new gadgets when buing a new car rather than what makes a car a car.

but apparently the snake charger or the quick battery change infrastructure or the robotaxis... never came to fruition.

So Elon just lied? /s

Even the event where they demonstrated the battery swap was so fake, I guess people weren't as aware of how brazen he was to not question it at the time. Couldn't set up a camera to show your own demo at a staged event? But it got them some taxpayer dollars so mission accomplished https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY

He did had monetary incentives to be biased. /s

Which is why I have no intention of ever buying a car from Tesla. I don't want to be the victim of the collective lessons learned we've learned over the past 100 years that Tesla blithely ignores because they believe they're the smartest people in the room.

A similar thing happened to me almost 45 years ago now, and my fingernail went black and fell off (it grew back, I barely 5 years old at the time). To this day, I find black nails on women disgusting.

On the contrary, I (mistakenly) slammed a door from my (now 12-year old) Alfa Romeo to the hand of a relative who was holding on the B-pillar, and it barely touched her hand at all.

>How do we go backwards from something we got right four decades ago?

Elon works from first principles, so it's going take a while.

> Specifically where he slams the door shut,

I watched the video after reading your comment, expecting him to use a lot of force, but it really did not look like the word "slam" is warranted at all, and the cleanliness of the cut was pretty shocking

Clean cuts are easier to sew on again. And they make for prettier scars.

To me it looks like he is closing the door with more force than you would normally do. Which is why I used the word "slam".

In similar situations with other cars I have seen broken fingers as well. Anyway, as I said safety is a joke in many regards of the Cybertruck, this specific example stood out to me as just being a slightly worse example compared to the rest.

But these are carrots, not fingers. Carrots naturally break clean.

That's a good point

Kyle doesn't have a large enough staff to use fingers for door testing.

> I am not sure how some of the things shown are different from any other car.

Did you actually watch the hour long source video that was linked to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxpv3X53WN0)? There's a ton of examples on both the cybertruck and a rivian. You can clearly see how it's different from another car.

I can chop carrots and fingers with every door of my car and of my home (and of anybody's else homes) and with any drawer. We undergo a lot of training not to harm ourselves with those things since we were little.

The problems are with doors we don't control and can trap ourselves before we can escape their chopping surfaces.

This is not the only problem. Notice how the guy struggles to push the button on Tesla and put the carrot in place to chop. No one would do that. However, it’s very easy to miss if someone else’s carrots are in dangerous places.

I think the worst part is the lack of handles. Sensor doesn't recognize door closed because smeared with blood or jammed, can't open back up because internal latch reports not closed all the way. Call the fire department to come unjam the door on the screaming child.

TIL: Pinch sensors on car doors, hoods, and trunk lids are a thing.

Due to the Facebook container, I got trapped between a Threads signup page and zero back button. Can we have a [threads] suffix? :)

it says threads.net in grey

Pinched? :)

Exactly. I need this experience rubberised.

Maybe don't put your finger there.

Seatbelts and airbags are pointless. Just don't crash. Simple.

No seriously. Someone else crashes into you, but are people coming around slamming your hands in the trunk? Shit analogy.

Remember these rules are meant to protect you from others, not your self...

Companies have an obligation to sell safe products. There are even laws in place for that. Not doing so can even become pretty expensive in the US I am told.

We've become so coddled as a society that we now worry more about safety than progress. What would you prefer: a car that spends all its energy making sure everyone nearby is "safe", or a car that can drive on top of the water like a boat?

Scare quote aside, I prefer the first one. It sounds way more cool and like "progress" than a boat.

Since a car obviously is a car and not a boat, the safer car, obviously.

And regarding process, amphibious cars already existed in the 70s. Not sure if that is still within Musks SF fantasy timeline or not.

Also, Flying Cars!

Some people have become so entitled as individuals that they think they can put their "progress" above the safety of the people around them.

Tell me you're a project manager without telling me you're a project manager.

And then people wonder why stuff like the 737 Max happen. Hint, it is not just MBAs and bean counters...

What is the actual "progress" here, except for the stock prices of a company?

There is no reason the choices are mutually exclusive besides the fact that you want them to be.

So no self caused accidents should ever happen I guess ?

Do you know about kids ?

Fortunately these kind of accidents never happen, so nothing to see here. /s

I'm going to put this next to "you're holding it wrong" and "don't put it in a tight pocket".

If only someone had told my seven year old self to not grab the B-pillar while getting out of the car - though luckily that wasn't a cybertruck, so the person who slammed the door on my fingers did no lasting damage.

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