Stolen Tesla Crashes, Splits in Half in Fiery Multi-Car Wreck
nbclosangeles.com
nbclosangeles.com
This has nothing to do with Tesla and EV fire concerns. Try doing this with an internal combustion engine car and see what happens.
Exactly. There was a rash a year or two ago of idiots wrecking their high end sports cars, splitting them in half (and usually killing themselves in the process). The focus of those articles was on the driver and not the car (the titles reflected it too).
Curious that he managed to "significantly damage at least four vehicles." That should be a testament to the Tesla's build quality.
Rather than lamenting poor quality journalism people could be preparing for the obvious stories in the future.
eg A self driving car is going to crash and kill people. That will be reported, probably sensationally, by newsmedia.
Not sure if that's an endorsement of the Tesla's safety, quality of EMS in LA, or billions of years of evolution, but I wouldn't expect someone to survive an accident like that.
Automobiles are engineered for safety within an expected operating envelope. Automobile safety engineering is a compromise of three factors cost, weight, and safety. Tesla goes above and beyond in their engineering of their safety features, but they still target an operating envelope that is sane. The forces involved in a car accident increase rapidly with speed, so the compromises involved fail hard when you push well outside the envelope.
What is an operating envelope, exactly? Roadway speed limits are (ideally) set based on conditions. Things like the number of side streets, shoulder clearances, road quality, and even the design of road infrastructure (like guardrails) are taken in to consideration. Interstates are the only environment where an automobile should exceed 55 MPH (if you're obeying traffic laws). Roadside obstructions on an interstate are designed with this in mind. City streets are not. When you drive within the confines of traffic laws, you're within the operating envelope. Exceed these parameters, and you're pushing in to territory that was not explicitly considered when engineering the car.
Put more simply, there is no testing standard for impact with telephone poles at >55 MPH because that is never an expected outcome for accidents where operators are driving within an expected operating envelope.
It's also the case that states with a lot of rural roads have speed limits, on undivided highways, higher than 55 mph (Wikipedia seems to be fairly comprehensive on this topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Stat... ).
In the incident outlined in the article, the driver struck a pole orientated (roughly) perpendicular to the direction of travel. The testing standard for this type of impact is currently 20 MPH[1]. Why 20 MPH? Because, as you suggested, research [2] indicates that most accidents involving fixed poles don't occur at high speeds. Roadside hardware present on highways are designed to crumple and absorb impact, or are situated such that they would deflect the car, rather than cause it to stop abruptly. Yes, you can find exceptions to this rule, but they are exceptions, and would be considered a deficiency to be resolved, not an engineering standard.
Tesla exceeded the required criteria for this test by a sizable margin, but you've got to look at the physics of kinetic energy to understand why anything above 55 MPH is still wildly outside of the range considered in the safety engineering of the car.
In a crash, the kinetic energy of the vehicle must be dissipated somehow. This energy is governed by the formula (1/2)mv^2. The important part of that formula is the velocity-squared portion. The velocity coefficient impacts the kinetic energy as a square. Just have a look at a graph of that function:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2F2%282100x%5E2%29+fr...
As much as I commend Tesla for their safety efforts, when you drive like this guy did, your only ally is dumb luck.
1: http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle+Shoppers/5-Star+FAQ#fifteen
2: http://www.nhtsa.gov/CARS/rules/rulings/SideImpact/index.htm...
Shortly after posting my other reply, I was pondering how worthwhile it was and what prompted me to post it, and I decided that I found the 55 to be overly specific. I haven't changed my mind about that, but I don't see much reason to try to argue about it.
Precedent from 2009 with OnStar: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/onstar-gp...
That is one of the reason I will not own a Car with OnStar, nor would I own a Telsa is they start doing that
Sure in this instance it may have saves lives but giving the government that kind of power is .... scary....
No, just no.....
I'm surprised it doesn't work like this.
So no is should not work like an Apple ID...... I do not want the government to even have the ability to access it is even with a court order. I do not want it to even be technically possible....
Yeah. 50s, 60s, and the 70s sounds like an amazing time.[1]
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon#Microwav...
[1]: Minus the wars.
Someone is going to be the first. Lets hope is not a child :S