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Comment by goodoldneon | Hacker News Reader

Wonder if this is the reason: https://x.com/garageklub/status/1779571445930324456

> Wonder if this is the reason: https://x.com/garageklub/status/1779571445930324456

What's the big deal? They could just fix a problem like that with software. Just patch in an emergency acceleration shutdown button in a sub-menu on the touchscreen (e.g. hit truck, "Controls", select a new "disable jammed accelerator", click confirm).

I assume you’re joking :)

For what it’s worth, at least some Tesla models turn off acceleration when the brake is pressed more than a little bit.

Tesla fans should go to the Olympics and compete in mental gymnastics

Ok, but please don't post flamebait or snark HN. We've had orders of magnitude too many of these, and this is one of the most tedious topics.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I've never driven an EV but I'm curious about this statement. When would continuing to accelerate ever be the desired behaviour when pressing both pedals at the same time?

I don't think it would be. I read parent post as "when pressed enough to trigger the switch, the brake pedal has priority and disables acceleration." There may be a tiny amount of pressure that you can put on the brake pedal before it detects the press.

In normal driving (EV or ICE), no.

There's some corner cases where using both can be beneficial (like heel-toe downshifts with manual gearboxes, or changing the way torque is steered on AWD), but they're generally pretty far removed from the way that driving is usually taught or performed.

Even the classic parking brake hill start in a manual car involves braking and applying engine torque at the same time, despite the fact that the brake pedal isn’t being pressed.

But starting on a hill in a conventional automatic with a torque converter also involves either rolling back a bit or pressing the accelerator a bit before releasing the brake.

>But starting on a hill in a conventional automatic with a torque converter also involves either rolling back a bit or pressing the accelerator a bit before releasing the brake.

Felt deeply in San Francisco. I think newer cars rollback less than older cars. Either way, it is unnerving when driving in Lombard street.

You can't pay me enough to drive in SFO in a stick shift.

Many modern stick shifts have "hill hold"[1] that keeps the car still until the clutch makes contact. Still, would need good throttle/clutch control not to stall after that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill-holder

It's handy to have brakes and acceleration when you want to spin the tires (2wd).

Sometimes necessary for tricky hill starts, I won't fully remove the brake until I feel the accelerator moving the car forward, but that should fit within the GP's 'little bit'. EVs should be easier on hill starts because there's potential for less latency between input and power delivery, but I dunno; I don't care for driving east across downtown Seattle regardless of if I'm in an all gas or a PHEV.

"Hill start" buttons have been standard on ICE cars for some time now.

Hell, my 1987 Toyota pickup had one. You could put it in 1st gear, let the clutch out and then turn the key to start, if you were on a very steep hill. Comes in handy offroad.

My 2017 Chrysler Pacifica doesn't have a hill start button (nor does it just do it, afaik, which I've had with some rentals), so I'm not so sure it's standard on ICE cars for some time.

My 2014 PHEV does have a button, but I don't use it, because when I'm in the situation that needs it, there's usually cars behind me, and that's not a good time to test and see how it works.

Fair enough. I should have used the word "common" instead of "standard."

Starting on a hill is the common case, for me anyway.

I also imagine that two-foot drivers would prefer for the effect of pressing the brake to be smooth, and having the slightest touch instantly reduce motor torque to zero could be jarring.

It can be pretty useful in offroading to hold a medium-high amount of throttle and use the brakes to modulate as they're more responsive, but it's hard to picture a cybertruck doing that kind of offroading. Not to mention it's only necessary due to the throttle/drivetrain response curve - that might be entirely negated if the low speed throttle response in the EV is decent enough for crawling.

It's the most straightforward way to get your brake lights to come on without actually slowing down.

I've done it a few times to make people following too closely back off of my rear bumper.

From what I’ve heard of the CT behavior, there is software limited acceleration speed when the brake pedal is engage, but acceleration isn't disabled.

Oh man, as someone who has driven a tesla in the rain where the automatic wipers didn't work and I had to frantically dig through touch screen menus on the highway, this sounds all too real.

There's still a physical button for the wipers. On the Cybertruck it's on the steering wheel. When you press it to wipe (generally used for spray-washing the windshield), the entire menu pops up where you can choose the speed, frequency, etc.

Mine also has a physical button, but it only triggers a single wipe. My workflow is usually press physical button, then touch the manual setting on the touchscreen to continuously operate.

You don't need to touch the screen after that. The left scroll wheel can navigate through the menu.

I discovered this by chance. And it seems to be subtly mentioned in the manual.

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-A5C33F3....

Wipers in on the stick or a dedicated button if a stickless version. Why not use that? It also brings up the selector on the screen if it the automation doesn't kick in after the manual trigger.

My auto-wipers on my 2018 M3 never seem to work at all. I always have to manually set it.

You can also hit right button and say “windshield wipers Speed 2” or similar.

But yeah it’s weird to have to do that as half the time Auto doesn’t pick the “right” speed in the rain. Either too fast or too slow.

Hah. Perfect.

When my 6,500 pound cybertruck starts unexpectedly accelerating at a rate that can reach 100MPH in ~7 seconds, the very first thing I am going to be doing is scanning the dashboard for an abort button that has never been there before.

So this is a chintzy clip on pedal cover that serves to give an aesthetic illusion that the pedal is made of stainless steel?

The Cybertruck is doomed. I'll be surprised if it still being made in 3 years.

One of the great tragedies of the power of modern logistics - and technology, frankly - is that it's ever-easier to disguise low-quality items behind a veneer of shiny chrome.

Did anyone actually believe that any part of the Cybertruck was high quality?

From my POV outside of the Musk cult of personality it was painfully obvious that the thing was a dud from day one.

The promise of the truck was as is typical more 'rugged' than 'high quality'. I never considered myself part of the target market, so my reaction was more 'bold choice, lets see if this pans out' unironically.

The price tag implied a high quality, but I think consumers have become aware that high price tags aren't indicative of quality.

At this stage of EV development, the high price (hopefully) implies a lot of high-quality batteries.

Wrapped in a rusty foil coffin with this level of engineering

Every Tesla I've sat in feels like it should cost $20,000. Like a Fiat.

I've owned a Fiat and a Tesla. The Fiat was better put together.

For the unfortunate times where I need to use a Lyft, and it also happens to be a Tesla, I am ALWAYS shocked at how cheap the whole vehicle feels. They're also some of the roughest feeling rides I've ever had, I can feel every bump on the road.

(Additionally I always have to play the fun "how do I open this door from the outside again?" game. But maybe my driver was right and it's "really obvious." ...)

Well the surface oxides are the finest oxides of any vehicle, possibly behind Datsun.

Software is likely vastly better than with any other auto company

Really? Because as was recently brought to popular attention, the software requires the car doors to stay closed to update itself, which in my view is some real Windows 95-level engineering. Not impressed.

Well that’s not true- I frequently access the Tesla while it’s doing an update.

Well, greater quantity (both static and flow rate), but greater quality is less clear.

The only car I've had software that worked at all in, and I've owned a Tesla, was a Citroen. And that was because it had no software worth mentioning other than a BT receiver.

I don't agree with all their UX/UI decisions, but I will grant you that Tesla has better -aesthetics- than most of the auto manufacturers.

That doesn't correlate to inherent software quality, though.

Yeah, the mental state of someone who bought one had a high quality.

Cars in the US are highly scrutinized by reviewers and enthusiasts, and they're highly regulated.

It's been basically impossible to disguise poor quality in cars here for a long time, so the failure of shiny chrome is the least of the Cybertruck's problems.

Maybe in very recent cars but man the lack of government standards allows the absolute worst cars to be driven on the road because a lot of manufacturers (mainly American and Korean) have had on and off decades of pretty bad low quality cars. Cars that would fail inspection in Japan or Germany are perfectly fine here and as a result the overall fleet is on the crappier side.

I don't think most states in the us even have vehicle inspections. Certainly not all do.

> Cars in the US are highly scrutinized by reviewers and enthusiasts, and they're highly regulated.

lol, very good

I can honestly say I don't think I've paid much attention to what the pedals in any car I've driven look like.

Someone interested in a $100k+ car potentially likes cars enough to be interested. A lot of people are A-B'ers. A lot arent.

> Someone interested in a $100k+ car potentially likes cars enough to be interested

Potentially, but I think the big factor for most people who buy $100k cars is wealth and status-seeking, not interest in conponent details.

Nearly every modern car is some sort of cover over the actual pedal. This is just an extremely poor design

On a lot of lower-cost cars the accelerator is a single piece of injection-molded plastic.

Don't most of them still have a rubber cover on top of that injection-molded plastic?

I guess that depends on the exact trim/price level we're talking about but it's certainly not uncommon: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ywkAAOSwDqljZQzH/s-l1600.jpg

Bullshit. 2017 RX 450h f sport, fully aluminum pedal, no cover. MSRP was also lower for it, even accounting for inflation, compared to the cybertruck.

Downvoters need to explain why they are downvoting my post pointing out that a cheaper Lexus doesn't have this issue.

I don't think you are being downvoted for "pointing out that a cheaper Lexus doesn't have this issue." The downvote is likely for being rude about it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

While I didn't spell this out, luxury sports models are just about the one exception to the rule. Lexus is a luxury brand and that is a sports model.

Most vehicles are not luxury or sports models so my statement is still accurate.

---

EDIT: Looking up replacement parts, Toyota and Lexus uses a "stud" style pedal that's bolted into the accelerator at the floor. In this case a "cover" isn't really applicable.

Many vehicle use a style similar to Ford's: https://parts.ford.com/shop/en/us/engine/other-engine-parts/...

This is essentially a metal arm with a small cover attached to it.

EDIT 2: Just grabbing a bit of ancedata to support my internal data.

* GM uses a pedal with a plate in the Escalade: https://www.gmpartsdirect.com/oem-parts/gm-accelerator-pedal... I also know I've had this style on many other GM vehicles I and my family have owned.

* Hyundai use the arm with a cover: https://www.partshyundai.com/oem-parts/hyundai-sport-pedals-...

* BMW uses a floor based pedal with a cover: https://www.bimmerworld.com/BMW-Interior/BMW-Pedals/Accelera...

* Mercedes uses a similar floor based pedal with cover: https://www.bimmerworld.com/BMW-Interior/BMW-Pedals/Accelera...

* Chrysler uses an arm with a cover on many vehicles: https://store.mopar.com/oem-parts/mopar-pedal-kit-82211154ab

* Honda uses an arm with a cover on many vehicles: https://www.hondapartsnow.com/genuine/honda~pedal~set~sport~...

In fact, I think you might have the only manufacturer that actually doesn't use a cover. Likely in response to their pedal scandal as older Toyota models use an arm with a cover.

Because Lexus had to justify the F-Sport package which added zero performance improvements, so they bolted on some shiny metal.

The 2017 RX (and even the latest RX) is about a decade behind in technology compared to Tesla & the German manufacturers. When you invest very little into R&D, you can afford to add shiny metal bits.

It’s doomed because of the material choice of their pedals? Come on now, don’t be dramatic

The cars are terribly manufactured, there are many videos of them falling completely, sometimes right off the lot.

They don't meet their reported towing spec, they haul about as much as a cargo bike, they can't off-road.

The only reason to own one is to participate in the culture war. That sort of thing tends to cycle quickly.

Yeah this. Total shit. I had a Model S P100D and the doors didn't even shut or line up properly. If you can't get the basics right then there's going to be a lot of problems hiding away that you can't see and serious procedural and process problems.

On mine I had unintended braking randomly in the middle of the motorway. I think that's less fucked than unintended acceleration at least. Maybe not for the guy behind me.

I now don't own a car. It was the most money I've lost in one go and the worst vehicle I've ever driven.

Was this back when they had radar? Unintended braking is/was a common issue for all manufacturers - my Prius would randomly slam on the brakes whenever I went underneath a bridge.

Yes it was. Probably signal aliasing. I drove a dumbcar after (shitty bottom end Citroen) which exhibited no problems! :)

That's not at all what was said. It's fair to assume that this is one additioanal issue we've seen with the Cybertruck, and when you add all those things up, you realize the Cybertruck is doomed.

Why do you think this person meant that this single deficiency is the reason it's doomed? Have you thought that way in the past about things?

If the pedal, one of the 4 primary ways of controlling the 3 ton vehicle, is this egregiously faulty, then where else has Telsa skimped on vital QA in the design?

The culture that leads to cheap glue holding on a piece that can jam the pedal down likely cut corners in 100 other places.

No it's doomed because it's a classic Elon Musk product: it was rushed into production, build quality is low and the aesthetics, which are unrefined and overwhelming, are used to mask an overall shoddy product that overpromised and underdelivered. The pedals are just one example of it. The body panel gaps and poor off-road performance are others.

Most companies wish they could release products as "doomed" as Elon's.

On a US$ 60-100k product it's absolutely a slap on the face, no questions, there's absolutely no reason to cheap out on a fastener for the pedal trim.

Also puts in question what is actually happening on Tesla's engineering org, one just needs to have a moderate amount of reasoning power to think about the scenario "what happens in case this piece gets loose?" on a critical feature of a car, not even an engineering-related study nor a big brain, it's just a reasonable thought to have, so how could this piece pass all the engineering process review?

Personally I think it should be, according to traditional (pre-y2k) values.

But in a society of the spectacle, people find their meaning in relation to the larger show. Just listen to the satisfaction in the voice of the video above: He feels good because he was able to rectify the situation. He was also able to relate to a larger audience because of it. The Tesla's failure gave him meaning.

Now other people will want to be like him and buy a cybertruck and find and fix issues and demonstrate them to a global audience...

I dunno. But my impression is that thing is way too expensive to buy as a hacker toy.

"Among the many commentaries on Debord's demise, one scholar noted: "Guy Debord did not kill himself. He was murdered by the thoughtlessness and selfishness of so-called scholars (primarily trendy lit-criters) who colonized his brilliant ideas and transformed his radical politics into an academic status symbol not worth the pulp it's printed on…""

What's happening in their engineering org is obvious: pressure is being applied to trim every unnecessary cost, even tiny ones, to maximize profit margin. And this pressure is clearly coming from the top. We've seen evidence of this from a number of high-profile changes that can't have escaped the notice of executive management: (1) the elimination of the radome, (2) the removal of sonar for parking, (3) the removal of turn signal and shifter stalks. What's different in this case is that now these penny-ante cost savings have reached safety-critical components.

I'd argue that physical stalks for windshield wipers and turn signals are also safety-critical.

> (3) the removal of turn signal and shifter stalks.

I remember reading about the removal of the turn-signal stalk, (moving it to buttons on the steering wheel itself) and IMO it's just bonkers.

How the heck is someone already in some squiggly turns or a roundabout supposed to identify and touch the correct spot without taking their eyes off the twisting road or compromising their grip on the wheel that wants to return to the neutral position?

We've heard for years that this is also the case at all US auto manufacturers. That they're run by accountants, not enthusiasts.

Most accountants understand the financial implications of selling products with egregious safety issues.

indeed:

“.. should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.”

>(1) the elimination of the radome, (2) the removal of sonar for parking, (3) the removal of turn signal and shifter stalks

Alternative explanation of this is if they have a vision to move users to a self driving future, it makes sense to start slowly transitioning users by eliminating things that don't make sense in that paradigm. If you can save some cost then its a bonus. (Their cars supposedly get ~30% margins so idk if cost was even really a primary rather than a secondary consideration).

A break peddle in very important while it’s needed. It is needed.

Having radar allows you to do neat tricks like bounce the signal off of the bottom of the car in front of you, meaning your car can detect slowdowns and collisions way ahead of what direct vision can do.

LiDAR similarly augments camera vision to beyond-human capacity.

"You won't need that if the thing that might never exist one day exists, so we're taking it away now" is a truly _deranged_ design philosophy.

Why? Thats is SV tech company 101. When Apple does it they call it "courage".

It hits a little different with a $100,000 road missile vs a phone.

Those close up photos are pretty revealing. Not just the cover, but everything around it looks cheaply done.

Presumably whoever thought that accelerator pedals shouldn't be very carefully designed to avoid jamming full throttle, because no car has ever had an unintended acceleration problem, is presumably now part of the 10%.

TBH that's what all parts of modern, mass-production vehicles look like if they're not expected to be user-facing.

the pedals are literally the user interface of the car tho

my prius isn't made of chrome but the plastic and rubber is made to hold up to a decade of abuse

i guess with self driving cars the expectation is you don't need to bother with the gas pedal as much.

See, this is where the problem is.

> the gas pedal

Tesla is electric, so they got confused about how to build a gas pedal.

That is insane. especially in a car where you can't really just rip on the ebrake or throw the engine into neutral with a gear stick. It's terrifying to think these massive trucks are all around kids and families.

You don't need to do any of that. You just hit the brake, which overrides acceleration. For this particular problem, drive-by-wire is superior to those mechanical controls.

the mechanical override would be to shift into neutral

my gripe with touchscreens is they're no good in an emergency, you want an interface that reacts well to being grabbed :)

does the cybertruck even have a proper "off" button or does it just read your mind to anticipate when you want to put it in standby mode? :p

Assuming the controls are the same as the Model 3, you can use the lever on the steering column to shift into neutral. It's not a mechanical solution, but it is doable without using the touchscreen.

Edit: just out of curiosity I went to look at photos of the Cybertruck interior. No levers on the steering column. WTF. That alone would be a deal breaker for me.

holy shit I thought I was kidding but this thing doesn't have an off button, from pg 72 in the owners manual (note that shifting into park is also a touchscreen button that displays when stopped)[0]:

When you finish driving and shift into Park, simply exit the vehicle. When you leave Cybertruck with your phone key, it powers off automatically, turning off the touchscreen.

Cybertruck also powers off automatically after being in Park for 30 minutes, even if you are sitting in the driver's seat.

Although usually not needed, you can power off Cybertruck while sitting in the driver's seat, provided the vehicle is not moving. Touch Controls > Safety > Power Off. Cybertruck automatically powers back on after a short period if you press the brake pedal or touch the touchscreen.

[0] https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/cybertruck/en_us/Owners_M...

Oh man, the cybertruck is a deeply unserious vehicle.

Oh, it’s serious all right. Seriously dangerous.

I'm going to wait for it to render in higher resolution.

probably has some serious margins

If so, isn’t that the same issue Toyota dealt with [0] 15 years ago?

Toyota’s recall didn’t include it, but we had a ‘92 Camry whose accelerator pedal would stick. Possibly a one off, but effectively the same result.

0 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932011_Toyota_veh...

Since Musk is a "first principles" guy, Tesla is "speedrunning" what the industry discovered years ago.

So has there never been an instance where sudden unintended acceleration was proven to be from an electrical/electronic system malfunction?

Reading the title, I thought that at long last electrical SUA had been demonstrated.

I don't recall reading such, but I can tell you from experience that there was absolutely some sort of physical sensor, electrical, or software problem. I was sitting stopped at a red light with my foot square on the brake when the engine on our 2009 Corolla started revving hard. The brake held, and I was able to pop it into neutral and safely turn the car off and on again. Then it was fine.

It did it to me at least one more time in a similar situation. I am very glad not to have been driving in traffic when it happened.

The trouble went away after some of the recall work was done, but we never fully trusted that vehicle again. For what it's worth, we still drive a pair of Toyotas.

Yeah, I remember one day just after I got home in my manual VW rabbit, with the the engine still running, the gear in neutral, and my foot on the brake, suddenly the engine revved hard by itself.

I put off the engine, and it has never occurred again as far as I can tell, but no one can convince me that that was not a case of unexplained acceleration due to some internal bug.

Thankfully the break overrides the acceleration, and I imagine a driver's eventual instinct will be to hit the break - and once they notice the vehicle decelerating they can stop panicking.

Does it override the accelerator?

Do you trust Space Karen enough to make that assumption?

Tesla vehicles have a lot of software onboard, and they build it like a regular SV tech company. That is frightening to me.

I've driven several cars that cut the throttle if you brake hard. Especially easy with drive-by-wire.

(Haven't tried it on a new Tesla)

>I've driven several cars that cut the throttle if you brake hard.

Me too. I don't trust Tesla to get that right.

The TikTok video[1] that originally showed off this issue noted that he was able to stop because the brake overrode the accelerator. He was then able to set the truck to "Park" using the touchscreen while he figured out what happened.

[1] https://jalopnik.com/tesla-cybertruck-hit-with-stop-sale-bec...

Some news outlets are reporting that as fact, yes.

Your implication being its not, or you just adding nothing here?

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