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Comment by zacharycohn | Hacker News Reader

"We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wall on the other side of the road and tearing off the right front wheel, before crashing into a tree. The driver stepped out and walked away with no permanent injuries and a fire, again limited to the front section of the vehicle, started several minutes later. The underbody shields will help prevent a fire even in such a scenario."

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

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Exactly why. They're gently poking fun that Tesla vehicles are extremely safe, especially compared to fires - and then sticking it to critics further by actually announcing improvements to further reduce the already very low numbers of fire and further increase the already highest rating ever for a safety check for a vehicle. Well done Tesla and Elon.

And yet, I can't help but feel they're being very, very defensive over it. I can't blame them, of course, given how something trivial like a car fire (trivial given the average frequency of them) is turned into a national news event.

At the same time, Tesla's attention to quality and perfection and what-have-you will end up in them being heavily scrutinised. It's not that different from Apple in that respect; random mp3 player breaks, no problem. iPod breaks and the torches and pitchforks come into view.

>It's not that different from Apple in that respect; random mp3 player breaks, no problem. iPod breaks and the torches and pitchforks come into view.

Considering that a "random mp3 player" costs $6 on Amazon and that an Apple iPod costs over $200, I'd say people are totally justified to get upset. They spent the extra money expecting a product whose quality matched its price.

I'd say this is true of cars as well. When your used Ford Escort breaks down, you're hardly going to be surprised. When your exceedingly expensive Tesla breaks down and/or catches fire, you're going to be a tad upset.

That said, I'd say people lose all rights to be upset when they are the cause of the malfunction. You can't be too upset at a broken iPod after you drop it down a flight of stairs, and you can't be too upset at your Tesla catching fire after you ran it into a tree at 110 MPH. (I'm not saying the Tesla driver was upset mind you- I think all the Tesla hate is just coming from frightened car manufactures and the media.)

> I'd say this is true of cars as well. When your used Ford Escort breaks down, you're hardly going to be surprised. When your exceedingly expensive Tesla breaks down and/or catches fire, you're going to be a tad upset.

Actually the doctor who owned one of the Tesla cars that caught fire said the car saved his life. He was happy to have been in a Tesla and was going to buy another one (before Musk actually gave him a replacement).

Teslas aren't exceedingly expensive. They're not cheap, but they're not iPod vs Amazon MP3 expensive.

Compared to what? A Tesla isn't anywhere near my price range (and I drive a C-class).

My Infiniti payment is something like ~$550/month. To go to a Model S would only cost me ~$800 more per month, which is 5 hours of my time from a billable perspective.

Yes, the payment is higher, but I'd have no fuel expenses (currently ~$350/month), so technically its only $450 more a month (3 hours of my time).

That just indicates that you make enough money to buy a more expensive car, not that the Tesla is not significantly more expensive (i.e., about double what you are paying).

That's entirely fair. I didn't look at it that way.

What do we consider affordable? I haven't had the time to do this, but you could take US Census data (average/median income per zip code), derive a formula for percentrage of income someone can spend on transportation, and thereby determine what affordable is.

A Model S is definitely a luxury item at this time; on the other hand, if it was self-driving, and could roll into bays to recharge all in software, with access being on-demand (Uber, with no drivers), they wouldn't be expensive. It would be the same as a company buying airplanes and selling seats on said expensive aircraft.

Maybe we're looking at Tesla wrong. They're not selling luxury cars; they're bootstrapping a mobility company by selling to the wealthy.

Maybe we're looking at Tesla wrong. They're not selling luxury cars; they're bootstrapping a mobility company by selling to the wealthy.

I would agree with this statement 100%.

It's the best strategy also because it makes sense to them to produce a car that has a controlled demand, since they're essentially limited by battery production. It also showcases the quality of the brand, associating it with reliability and luxury -- and it's a sedan, which has a smaller power requirement than other luxurious classes.

> and it's a sedan, which has a smaller power requirement than other luxurious classes.

Model S vs the new Corvette Stingray

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VOqW...

If you need more power than that, you might as well bolt a turbine engine on your car.

That is actually what Elon Musk has explicitly said: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-p...

"1. Build sports car

2. Use that money to build an affordable car

3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car"

Yes, but you're assuming those affordable cars are for purchase. If Elon can make them self-driving, you get the benefit of never having all the expenses that go with vehicle ownership, and he makes the spread between an expensive electric transportation appliance and people paying dirt cheap rates to get from A->B (because electric is so much cheaper per mile than petroleum).

What? I'm not assuming anything. All I did was post a link to Elon Musk's own words.

If you went with the 60 kWh Model S, your payment would only go up $130, INCLUDING gas. If you're spending $350 a month in gas, you'd actually save money over your Infinity.

http://www.teslamotors.com/true-cost-of-ownership

Think you just sold me on one. Well done :)

I'm not worried about going with the smaller pack; it only takes 90 seconds to swap it with a new, higher capacity pack down the road.

So at 3 hours per month you are talking about 36 hours per year or three to four days of holiday (depending on the length of your work day).

That sounds significant to me. It might be worth it but there are other ways to spend that time and money.

We each value our time differently. 3 hours per month is more than acceptable to me.

Then again, Apple goes to great lengths to conceal just how often those iPods exploded and turned into molten metal fountains. Most folks were NDA'd the to hilt. They've got quite the white washing operation. With Tesla, it's harder to conceal a several thousand pound ball of flames on a public road, so they've got to fix the problem, no matter how small.

How does Apple convince victims to sign an NDA? Is it attached to a massive cash settlement or something? I'm surprised the cover-ups haven't loudly backfired on them yet.

They're being defensive because a few fires crushed the stock price (irrationally), evaporating a ton of money. These headlines matter.

Those fires were the best thing to ever happen to my stock portfolio, knowing the real story behind the fires almost felt like insider trading

>crushed the stock price (irrationally)

The high valuation of this company is equally irrational. It's a massive speculative play, so there's a load of volatility.

> given how something trivial like a car fire (trivial given the average frequency of them) is turned into a national news event.

This is how media bias works. They take something trivial like a car fire and make it the most important news item of the day. People start to think it's happening everywhere. There are billions of "newsworthy" things happening all the time. The selection of stories and insinuation layered on top of them by the news media can easily drive agendas and influence the public.

Also don't forget the usual thing: News, by definition is stuff that happens rarely (and thus is note- or newsworthy). So in turn it's rarely something that we need to worry about.

Edit: I see, someone else has quoted Schneier exactly on that already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7487144

I'm surprised no journalists are taking the advantage of the views they will get by writing the opposite story. i.e. write about how many fires per vehicles capita in cars from other manufacturers vs tesla.

I personally would love to see normalized fire figures for other manufacturers like Ford, Chevrolet, Honda, etc.

Yep, people rarely realize this when they talk about media bias but it's a major element of influence. No matter how "balanced" a report is within itself (rarely actually balanced), if all you hear is stories about the IRS targeting specific political groups and the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi (conservative stations) or anecdotes about how much money Obamacare is saving people and how many local government programs are underfunded (liberal stations), you're going to walk away with a skewed perspective. The choice of stories and tone will tell you everything about a media organization's biases.

Yeah, it's unfortunate. I actually had to explain the reality of the Tesla car fires to my mother (who is usually very good at seeing through media bias). She was under the impression that the Tesla fires were actually indicative of the car being less safe than normal cars...

Plane goes missing and it's the top story of every news cast. It's sad but there are so many other issues in the world right now that outweigh a missing plane. The news can sell that plane though.

>It's sad but there are so many other issues in the world right now that outweigh a missing plan

A plane? How about a plane with 200+ innocent, unsuspecting people on board goes missing, and all are now presumed dead? It's woefully ignorant to think the story is about the plane.

It's sad no doubt but in the grand scheme of things 200 people dying is not much compared to the number of people dying each day. It's just that it scares people more because it could have been us on that plane. Someone I didn't know that works for my company was on that plane, so that hits kind of close to home. How many millions of people day every day because they don't have access to clean water? I'm just saying that the news (especially in the US) will sell whatever can get them the most eyeballs and ignore much bigger issues.

Elon is always very defensive. Instead of being diplomatic, he reacts with long-winded arguments and makes public spectacles, like the Top Gear controversy, the New York Times controversy, his response to the car fires, and the public and political feuds over car dealerships. Besides that he'll lob casual insults at hybrids and insinuate he should take over all of Detroit's plants, etc. He should just not ever be allowed to talk.

Wow. Long-winded arguments, I assume you're referring to the depth of his explanations that he gives painting a clear picture of situations? Do you rather people give shallow explanations? Most people aren't used to founders and CEOs being so proactive and engaged with the public. I've never heard him "lob" insults (like what you're currently doing and even suggesting censorship of speech?) - he does however state his thoughts when he thinks something is a bad idea or not the best idea.

It's entirely possible they know something we don't - like the results of the investigation into the Tesla fires - and are trying to get this story out ahead of something more negative. It'd certainly be a smart move.

I don't take Elon for a dishonest person.

Tesla is very, very defensive over this. This hasn't been stated explicitly, but it is very clear if you read between the lines of their PR initiatives.

According to statements from the company, the media coverage after the fires last year caused a sharp decline in the rate of Model S reservations. It has since recovered, but after these events Tesla started viewing poor public perception as an existential threat. The reasoning is that new and unfamiliar technology (battery propulsion) is scrutinized very, very closely and held to a much higher standard than the status quo. This is evident from the ridiculous headlines every time a Model S is involved in a fire. (Garage fires, house fires from unrelated accidents and the two floorpan fires + the high-speed crash referenced in the article). Poor public perception equals lower sales to an already skeptical public, and perhaps the second demise of the electric car.

A different strategy than the one Tesla is pursuing, would be to not change anything and just repeat the (correct) message that their electric cars are statistically much less likely to catch fire than a gasoline automobile. But this leaves them wide-open to PR attacks from skeptics and the established auto industry the next time an inevitable fire occurs. It's already been firmly established that there is a big PR machinery which will jump on any opportunity to call Tesla's technology into question - and there will be plenty of competition from the incumbent manufacturers. They're playing it safe.

(Tl;dr: Yes.)

They're being responsive, not aggressive or defensive. If someone makes false accusations or in a blown out of proportion way, do you just take it and not react? I know how I feel when I let someone walk over me or is being a bully.

Man are we going to have a difficult time with self-driving cars.

Headline: Is a society where 33% don't believe in evolution and don't understand video aspect ratios ready for computer-driven cars? What Betteridge's law tells you may shock you!

It's being responsive, perhaps mistaken as aggressive when in fact to me it looks prompt and blunt.

Defensive but addressing a rare issue with a proper solution, free of charge (possession and installation) retroactively. What's not to love.

I think I will disagree. (Although for sure this is a definite matter of opinion it's not a science but an art in determining public perception).

Anyway it's a bit of a Streisand effect. They are focusing on something and making it stand out even more.

When in the minds of the general public it very well would be forgotten. Or not even known about. Not everyone pays attention to what the tech press says, what hackers think, or what Road and Track cares about.

Lastly they are attaching a negative to a positive emotion buying experience. People buy cars on emotion. And the whole idea of discussing safety and accidents in this detail on something that is an emotional purchase doesn't work in my opinion. It's raining on the mind game parade.

> This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Do you mean ridiculous as in you believe that he is exaggerating, or ridiculous as in it is amazing that the car held up so well? I doubt that he would simply make up verifiable facts concerning a specific, well publicized accident to make his company look better. That said, it is quite clear from these facts that this driver is lucky to be breathing today regardless of what kind of car he was driving. If the guy had died, Elon would be talking about how such an extreme accident wouldn't be survivable in any car.

This being an edge case, it doesn't really sway me either way, but it is undeniable that Tesla automobiles are very safe relative to others. He is justifiably incensed at the negative media attention surrounding a very small number of incidents.

It's ridiculous how much emphasis the media placed on the fire while ignoring the extreme speed and consequently minor injuries involved in the crash.

The standard that the media holds Tesla to will still be a picnic compared to how the media will treat the first self-driving cars. Far safer than human-driven will not be nearly enough; the first high-profile accident will be wall-to-wall "Are Self-Driving Cars Really Ready For Prime Time?"

Even Betteridge's law occasionally has it's exceptions.

Does Betteridge's law have exceptions?

No.

I love the meta-ness of this exchange. I assume it was intentional.

Breaking News: "Vehicle computer records indicate that the driver took control of the vehicle three minutes prior to the accident."

I would bet the first self-driving car accident involves a human driven car as well. Even if it is human error, the media will say the self driving car should have avoided them or something like that.

It already has.

http://mashable.com/2010/10/09/google-cars/

Tesla was handled with kid gloves compared to Toyota.

Remember the unintended acceleration crock?

You mean this one? http://embeddedgurus.com/state-space/2014/02/are-we-shooting...

Yes, this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_...

Um, it wasn't crock. They recently settled a huge lawsuit and criminal investigation with the US government to the tune of $1.2B. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/03/19/toyota-s...

It was a crock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_...

The Toyota Acceleration issue ranks up there with the McDonald's Coffee lawsuit as one of the most doubly misunderstood corporate events in recent history.

Popular belief has there being an acceleration problem with Toyota cars. Slightly less popular is the correction that in fact it was all just senile old people and floor mats, nothing to do with the computers. Far less common is the correction that there were in fact technical problems with the cars.

Similarly popular belief has the McDonald's coffee lawsuit being absurd, because "everyone knows that coffee is hot and how much damage can it cause anyway?". Slightly less popular is the correction that the burns were in fact horrific and the coffee was stunningly hot, far hotter than industry standard. Far less common is the further correction that in fact McDonald's coffee was being served at an industry standard temperature, where "industry standard" is defined as how other companies also serve their coffee (Starbucks coffee is generally just as hot, and many companies serve hotter coffee than McDonald's was serving.) In fact, since the lawsuit, McDonald's hasn't reduced the temperature that they serve their coffee at. The only change that McDonald's has made since the lawsuit is adding warning labels, the coffee you buy there today can be just as hot as the coffee that burned Stella Liebeck... don't spill it on yourself!

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restauran...)

Excellent summary. 5 stars, would read again.

According to NHTSA, there was not a technical problem:

In February 2011 the findings of a 10-month-long study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), aimed to identify the main cause of sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus models. The study was requested by the US Congress and "enlisted NASA engineers with expertise in areas such as computer controlled electronic systems, electromagnetic interference and software integrity".[229] The most common problem was drivers hitting the gas when they thought they were hitting the brake, which the NHTSA called "pedal misapplication.”[229] Of the 58 cases reported, 18 were dismissed out of hand. Of the remaining 40, 39 of them were found to have no cause; the remainder being an instance of “pedal entrapment.”

Toyota cars did not fail safe in the event that both the accelerator and the brakes were pressed. Combined with the floor mats, this could create dangerous situations where drivers were unable to stop their cars using the brakes (the standard objections that they should have turned their cars off or shifted out of gear still have some validity of course) The two sibling comments to my above comment address other potential technical problems with Toyota vehicles. Your Wikipedia link does not refute their points.

Reiterated:

What the NHTSA believed that they found in 2011 is overshadowed by more recent developments, mainly that Toyota was not being forthcoming with the NHTSA. In 2014, Holder said "Today, we can say for certain that Toyota intentionally concealed information and misled the public about the safety issues behind these recalls," Additionally: "The cover-up is still there on the electronics issue," says Sean Kane, an auto safety expert for Safety Research and Strategies. "This (government penalty) sends an important message, but it's a mixed message." Furthermore it has become clear that Toyota's code was a clusterfuck and that the alleged failure modes were very possible.

My point is that in both the Mcdonalds case and the Toyota case, the issue is not nearly as clear cut as the two most popular points of view present.

It is as simple as the second most popular theory makes it out to be.

Holder is wrong. This shouldn't be surprising.

If it really were that simple, it would have stopped in 2011. That seems to be when you stopped following the story.

There is really not much more I can say in response to such a substance-less comment, other than telling you that you should research the more recent developments in this situation before misrepresenting it again in the future.

In fact the story is that simple.

It didn't stop in 2011 because there are careers to be made in slamming corporations for even bogus claims.

Corporations are more than willing to settle when the government is willing to take them to court. Guilt and innocence are irrelevant.

It's rather comical that many of the same folks who complain about the criminal justice system hammering individuals into pleading guilty when they are innocent fail to see the parallels with civil suits / government pressure and corporations.

Just to add - My '07 Vauxhall Corsa has a throttle cut off - so if you a apply the brake pedal, the car [ecu] ignores any/all throttle inputs when in gear; which I assume is what you meant by fail-safe.

exactly.. I read that and was like... how did I not get that from the original article?

Most normal cars survive "normal" crashes just fine, don't they?

Tesla buyers tend to be sports car buyers who want to drive fast. Whether this means we should expect accidents with more force or that Tesla should anticipate this and design accordingly is debatable.

Do you have a citation for that claim?

I think a lot of people still think of the Tesla Roadster, not the Model S. The Roadster is definitely a sports car, but the Model S is like a BMW 5-series... Yeah, it's fast, but the people who can afford one are generally old/mature enough to know not to drive recklessly on public roads.

...you don't know the same middle aged and affluent people I do.

I know 280 though and Tesla S drivers although they often like to drive fast are generally courteous.

True. Here's what happens to a Ford Focus that crashes into a concrete wall at ~100mph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmRkPyuet_o

That's not really comparable, though, because this video is going straight into a super reinforced wall. The Tesla accident was hitting the roundabout, going on into another wall, then going on into a tree, so each of those is much less of an impact than smack into a reinforced wall.

Ah yes, because a Tesla would leave you unscratched if you collided with the same immovable wall?

Reminded me of a joke I heard a while ago:

"Just released car has amazing safety features that prevent any damage to the vehicle. Amazing advance of technology was made available by near instantaneous braking. Even going 100 mph a car can come to a complete stop instantaneously. After that wipers are deployed automatically to wipe off remains of a driver from windshield."

Any significant change of momentum will harm humans no matter how tough the car is. Newer cars are actually less rigid to provide a cushion to human drivers in case of such collision.

Edit: I meant less rigid in right places. If you observe crash test you could see how neatly car folded around drivers cage. Thanks drglitch for pointing that out.

Newer cars are more rigid in just the right places (e.g. driver cage) - they do have larger/softer crumple zones that permit the damage to be absorbed along a longer time period. By prolonging the total crumple/crash time, the peak energy is decreased, thereby avoiding injuries from force overload during deceleration.

Knowing that, one should also be able to conclude this Focus crash test is meaningless. How it performs vs. an immovable wall at 120mph really doesn't tell you much about how it will perform at 65mph vs. a fence, or a tree, or a guard rail. If it didn't crumple at 120mph, then you'd have cause to worry though.

Reminds me of the saying: "people like to say that speed kills, but really it's a very sudden lack of speed that kills."

I think that might be a Clarksonism...

Also, "No-one ever died from falling. They die from stopping falling."

Also, 'nobody ever died on a motorcycle'.

Not true: plenty of people have died of a heart attack on the way down before they ever hit the ground.

I don't know about Tesla but 120MPH head on collisions like that are in fact survivable without serious injury given the correct car design. People can safely decelerate at 45g's which takes 10.4 feet from 120MPH. Of course in most cases your going to slow down a little before impact and or not hit an immovable wall so cars are generally optimized for lower impact velocity's.

The closest real world example is probably Nascar. Granted, there track design make head on collisions rather difficult but as cars regularly hit 190MPH you do occasionally get near head on collisions at around 120MPH which are often survivable. Best example I could find was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QVlj7...

PS: The much more common 60MPH drivers side impact is also survivable which I still find shocking.

Yes, cars can be designed to protect you from a 120mph crash into a brick wall. But that comes at the expense of their ability to protect you from a 65mph crash into a lamp post or other car.

I don't know about you, but I drive near cars & lamp posts much more often than I drive on an Autobahn full of brick walls.

Look what they did to Toyota over the Sudden Unrequested Acceleration that never was. $1.6bn fine!

EDIT:

By they I mean the Media.

I guess I should add some substance.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/nesc-toyota-stu...

NASA's Toyota Study Released by Dept. of Transportation 02.08.11

WASHINGTON -- The results of a ten-month study by 30 NASA engineers of possible electronic causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles was released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

"NASA found no evidence that a malfunction in electronics caused large unintended accelerations," said Michael Kirsch, principal engineer and team lead of the study from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) based at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

The studies cost over $3 million, including the cost of purchasing the vehicles that have allegedly unintentionally accelerated. Upon completion of the studies, the NHTSA will determine whether a formal investigation into Toyota is necessary.

ABC made a totally fake video demonstrating the alleged phenomena.

"Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington today before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Transportation. LaHood first told the subcommittee that owners of Toyotas should stop driving them, then clarified his statement and told owners to get their cars fixed promptly."

Later LaHood told reporters it was "obviously a misstatement"

Toyota have been abused, IMHO, their "blame no-one else" culture is being rinsed by the US Govt.

I don't know what to believe about this. Wasn't it just all over the news that an embedded software engineer found all sorts of code quality problems with Toyota and could even demonstrate unintended acceleration via various bugs?

That's me schooled. I'd not been party to that (not being in the US) I'd missed it.

http://www.viva64.com/en/a/0083/

It sounds like a proper mess. How curious that much is revealed that the NASA people didn't speak of. Maybe because it was ostensibly an investigation at the behest of NIHIST to demonstrate that they hadn't let Toyota off the hook.

It is also somewhat disturbing that these are not Toyota parts but parts sourced from NEC.

I'm still not convinced that Toyota deliberately hid their knowledge of system failure. A software update would have been much simpler than the millions of physical modifications they chose to make, including fetching customers cars on transporters because they owners were too scared to drive them.

And there were some drivetrain software bugs that Toyota did acknowledge and fix (at least partially). My '07 Camry was dangerous to operate for the first few months before a firmware update. Prior to the update, it would accelerate well from 0 to about 15-20, but then almost coast for a few seconds before the speed would increase further. It felt like my 4-cylinder was suffering from severe turbo lag, and it made turning onto busy thoroughfares quite scary when the speed limit was 45 or more.

Yes their were bugs, but nothing implicstingt actual observed failures.

I think it's amazing how any vehicle maker can idiot-proof any vehicle, the general population seems to be suicidal and then blames the manufacturer for not protecting them during their 110mph missile ride.

reddit's /r/Justrolledintotheshop and /r/TalesFromRetail/ makes me wonder how people manage to use any product without killing themselves.

This is written in a semi-sarcastic/ passive aggressive tone to get across the point of how safe their vehicles already are. Very cheeky of Elon and his team.

Let's not forget that Tesla recently issued a recall for 29,000 charging adapters because they would overheat and catch on fire.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/automobiles/citing-chargin...

Come on dude, you make it sound like these things we're catching on fire all over the place - "... the number of incidents remains small, and Tesla’s review to date points to the building receptacle or wiring as the primary cause of failed NEMA 14-50 adapters, the company has determined that a voluntary recall is appropriate as a precautionary measure.”

And lets not forget how astonishing that is in light of what many other car manufacturers[0] do when they find issues that effect millions of their cars in a much more dangerous way. The fact that even with that issue, their safety numbers are through the roof and their number of incidents are way under the national average, and they still willingly and transparently issues a recall, I count that as nothing but a plus for Tesla.

[0]http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732466910...

Let's not forget it was a special kind of recall, one where no vehicles were being physically recalled by Tesla.

Did you actually read that article ? Toyota recalled cars and paid damages. Which is exactly what Tesla would have done.

And you're being disingenuous by comparing a single Tesla incident to the entirety of the automobile industry's history.

I did, and I'm not sure what you are trying to say exactly, but the point I was making which others have pointed out as well is that Tesla issued changes not for an issue with their car, but to improve it and make it better. Other car manufacturers waited until there were either deaths, lawsuits, or media outcry to recall cars. They were all reactive purely based on cost-benefit. Tesla decided here that their already incredibly safe cars that have fared better than most, if not all others; could be made even better. What Tesla did is leagues above what any other manufacturer has done in recent memory.

Compared to GM that waited recently until 13 people had died before issuing a recall for faulty ignitions? Or how about the 119 deaths from knowingly underinflated tires on Ford Explorers back in 2000? Car companies are reactive and calculating, Tesla is proactive with foresight.

GM is currently recalling 1.6M cars which can accidentally turn off while driving: http://www.thewire.com/business/2014/03/gm-recall-mary-barra...

(this has apparently resulted in a number of deaths, as the power steering stops working)

And they were aware of the problem.

Not only were they aware of the problem, they did the calculus and decided to release a brand new model knowing this issue effected.

http://consumerist.com/2014/03/25/gm-knew-chevy-cobalt-ignit...

"Take the nubmer of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probabilty rate of failure, B, multiply by the average ouf-of-court settlement, C. A x B x C = X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

Cost-benefit analysis, psychopath style.

It's from Fight Club :)

In all honesty, how would you recommend doing cost benefit analysis for a car manufacturer? There will always be safety risks to the drivers, after all.

Yes, perhaps the law should be more strict , but in any case there is a value -- there is a number which sometime you'll have to assign even implicitly to a customer's life.

But consider the possibility that the law had a loophole (or the law is simply inadequate in light of common expectations from the population) which brought the maximum litigation from crashes to a very low number. Although this simplistic view would suggest a very low cost, that would be unrealistic -- the actual cost should include heavy brand damage from consumer distrust in the products and even brand damage from raw ideological/moral basis. This is way promoting values inside companies makes sense -- you can't neglect humans have personal values and sometimes make non-economic choices to stay aligned with those -- so you have to adjust your "psychopath" economics towards consumer irrationality. In the end I suspect the optimal choice is much closer to Tesla's reaction than GM's.

A similar equation is fine, but 'average settlement' is probably too low. Add 10 million to C before multiplying and you have a better balance, with a margin of error on the side of safety.

Are you serious? A non-psychopath might start by assigning a nonzero value to human life.

I see two issues with your comment. First, the quoted formula doesn't assume a zero value for human life. Second, even if you assign an explicit finite value to human life, a lot of people will call that psychopathic.

> First, the quoted formula doesn't assume a zero value for human life.

I suppose technically it could value human life at a million zillion and three, but it's irrelevant because that value appears nowhere in the equation.

> Second, even if you assign an explicit finite value to human life, a lot of people will call that psychopathic.

I said "nonzero," not "finite." I suppose I should have said "positive." Nitpicking aside, the point is that being utterly indifferent to the life or death of innocents, except where it may directly threaten your net worth, is pretty psychopathic.

Corporate American style. You want to guess the number of times an airplane design defect that threatens the life of passengers is allowed to be corrected "over time" -- basically because fixing them ASAP would be too expensive?

That's really comparing apples to oranges.

At the airplane industry it's the government that does this calculation, with a publicly known value of C. Also, airplanes don't have the kind of problem that cause an accident by itself, every issue can be corrected on several levels, and normally when the proper fix isn't instantly applied some other action is done to attenuate the problem.

On any advanced country, around here it calculates nothing, even yelling "Are you insane? Do you know how many hospitals we could build with that kind of money?" won't make they think about numbers.

Which company do you work for?

A major one.

Don't know why this is astonishing; hell, Fight Club devoted a full 2 or 3 minutes explaining this. Big companies are evil, etc.

Isn't it true that every car manufacturer will be aware of some level of risk and will have to make decisions based on that? There's always more you can put in a car to make it safer, but at some point you stop and release the car.

Note that I'm not saying this particular case is justified. I'm just saying that it's a continuum, and I'm not sure how we should expect car manufacturers to draw the line on the continuum.

Certainly. Knowing that a car may lose control if it runs over the alternator that fell off another car at highway speeds (as shown in the Tesla video) is one thing. Knowing the car can randomly shut off including airbags at highway speeds is another.

And the airbags don't go off.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-gm-recall-casua...

And just to give a sense of the orders of magnitude:

    1,600,000
       29,000

While I agree with the general point this comparison is not fair - if you sell more cars, more cars may be affected.

If you sell more cars, you should be able to invest more in engineering reliability. The cost should be spread out over many more vehicles. This all goes out the window depending on margins, priorities, and presumably other factors, but for the sake of argument: I'd say both numbers on their own aren't fair.

Or you could just report recalls as a percentage of production, and have a meaningful metric to being with...

>This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

ridiculously awesome?

I read this in Archer's voice. Have to cut down on cartoons...

Strangely, me too.

Maybe Tesla cars are too safe.

I was just thinking that the evolutionary pressures against ultra-rich...persons who go plowing into traffic at high speeds in high performance cars might be unduly reduced.

Yeah that's crazy. Because in the old Beetle I got, you had to be careful not to push your feet through the floor to the street. So why would car need to be protected from such extreme underbelly damage, it's not normal in any circumstances.

Road debris causing damage, to the underbelly or elsewhere is not uncommon (heck, drivers even have to worry about road debris going through the windshield and impaling them, let alone dangerous damage through the underbelly). I would not have wanted to drive your old Beetle in some parts of the United States, particularly not speeding on a highway.

Here's an article about road debris in a normal car (not even your Beetle, where it would have easily killed you): "a sizeable chunk of angle iron that actually tore through the bottom of the vehicle, found lodged in a portion of the backseat." (https://www.westerndirect.ca/learning-centre/insurance-news-...)

The reason the car "needs" to be protected from such damage is the media attention, not because it's unusually unsafe.

This is why Elon Musk is the man.

I kindof wonder if it's going to cause more deaths on the road when people who think they're important and drive like this are going to do so more confidently.

You can't just take a snipe at that whole thing without explaining what you mean. It's a crazy car crash. Here's the Yahoo news story about it:

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/second-tesla-model-fi...

What's ridiculous about it?

That it sounds like it was written in Slashdot passive aggressive style: rather than just directly saying it was an extreme scenario, they used list of somewhat-hyperbolic-but-way-more-so-if-you-know-the-jargon descriptors of each element of the crash.

Part of me thinks that they are deliberately passive aggressive, like, "I can't believe people don't believe yet that our vehicles are safe, fine, let's just go all out and shove it in their face."

Only part of you?

Sounded like a list of facts about the crash to me. What should Tesla have done in this situation? The media was spreading the falsehood that Tesla vehicles are more prone to fires than the average gasoline car. That is provably false. In this article they state that it is false and then give the very unusual sequence of events that led to the unusual outcome.

Media reports leave people thinking, "Electric vehicle? No thanks, too dangerous." Tesla's response leaves people thinking, "Well I have no plans to go 110 MPH through a round-about so I'll probably be OK." The latter is more accurate.

I think Tesla is probably exasperated that a couple Model S cars catching fire is international news while cars from other manufacturers catch fire every day and it's barely even worthy of the local news.

"The very definition of news is something that hardly ever happens. If an incident is in the news, we shouldn't worry about it. It's when something is so common that its no longer news – car crashes, domestic violence – that we should worry."

    -Bruce Schneier

If only this was how the human brain actually worked...

Yes, definitely a contender for most ridiculous thing heard.

Edit: Sorry, "ever" heard.

Yup, I really wish there was video footage of it.

Ha, maybe the most dangerous thing about Tesla cars is that they are so safe that the occupant will feel invincible.

Sounds plausible I Guess but I wonder how Tesla in this crash description circumvented Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and the bodily damage the driver should have incurred on negative G's.

The longer something takes to slow down the less acceleration it experiences.

This sounds as though the car took a while to stop, given the list of things it hit. The G forces won't have been that high.

The Model S is a long car compared to the hatchbacks and mini sedans that we're getting used to. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Pfff...Titanium. Wake me up when they start using Mithril.

Or Adamantium

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

Agree. I'd love to see what happens to the vehicle and driver if the object (say an alternator) hits the tire instead of the under-body.

Or skips up and hits the windshield.

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