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Tesla Fires

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I don't like the software update, I think it's a bad idea, and I think, if (when) another incident happens, it will end up being reported as "Tesla tried to make a change and it's still happening, this problem is unfixable and inherent to all electric cars and we need to ban this technology now for the safety of our children!!" or something similarly hysterical. I suppose this will satiate the "do something" crowd, but "doing something" for the sake of doing something isn't necessarily the best way to go about business.

I don't like the comment about mystical healing powers, it was out of place. The other snark about arsonists was awesome though.

I do like the warranty change (not that it matters much, given that insurance would rather pay to fix a car than a human), and I really like the paragraph about NHTSA investigations. That, there, I think is the slam-dunk paragraph which needs to be repeated as often as possible.

I also like the mention of the "law of large numbers" preparing people for the inevitability of an injury in a Tesla car, though I think perhaps that it should have been extended to cover further incidents, because this will happen again and people will likely overreact again, and preparing them for that might help, I don't know.

Wow, bold and beautiful response. I'm still frustrated when people mention numbers and not the age of the vehicles that are likely to have fires.... But the request for the investigation moots that point.

Why focus only on one variable? What about the fact that sportscars will likely have a higher chance, as they're generally driven harder and higher performance? If we compare the Model S to a Ferrari or Lamborghini, it's even more impressive in terms of fire risk. Ferraris and Lamborghinis catch fire all the time.

Further, the numbers presented are numbers which were culled from other articles, as obviously cited in the blog post itself. There is an extreme futility in attempting to extrapolate statistics when your denominator is 3, so most of those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, obviously. Which is also why Elon mentioned there are more than 18k cars out there by now, as these numbers will continue to change, and the numerator and denominator will both get larger.
 
So not a bug that the car lowers itself at 97mph?

Well, maybe hitting road debris at 97mph is safer than hitting it at 60mph, but then Tesla should come out and say why they think so. Otherwise, it is a bug.
Maybe they just assumed that if you were doing 97 you were intentionally speeding and taking things into your own hands anyway and that most people (me not included) aren't doing this speed on a regular basis... :biggrin:
 
So not a bug that the car lowers itself at 97mph?

Well, maybe hitting road debris at 97mph is safer than hitting it at 60mph, but then Tesla should come out and say why they think so. Otherwise, it is a bug.

Part of the reason for the air suspension lowering the car in the first place - and one of the benefits the feature is sold with - is that it is safer to have the car lower at high speeds, because it reduces the amount of air going under the car which gives the car better handling which means you are better able to react to road situations and the car is less likely to have unpredictable handling at high speeds (this is the feeling Elon was talking about when discussing the Autobahn package). An inch makes a huge difference in terms of lift from turbulent air under the car, and yet makes zero difference for any road debris which is not between 5.1 and 6.0 inches tall (or whatever the numbers are, something like that).

This is why all of the completely uninformed commentary on this website about how Tesla absolutely positively had to raise the ride height of the car to the maximum possible at high speeds was crazy and unproductive. This site contributed to what I believe to be a poor decision which was made for no other reason than appeasing a hysterical public which knows nothing of the subject they are discussing.

Not only that, but if (when) another incident happens, if it happens after this update got pushed through but before the next one with driver-selectability (or even after that, honestly), it will only make the car look much worse, as the "problem" (which is not a problem) will then seem "unfixable." And all of you chicken littles will freak out over a non-issue once again.

Thankfully this decision was accompanied by the investigation and warranty announcements, which are both positive (even though they'll probably be covered negatively, e.g. "Tesla doesn't trust their cars so they're adding this to the warranty" and "NHTSA starts investigation" (leaving out that Tesla asked for one), since the media has a narrative to push). But I am very much disappointed in the level of commentary on this website, particularly considering the lack of basic engineering and car dynamics knowledge being thrown about, which I believe has helped to force this change and to keep this non-issue in the news and affecting the company. Stop being so hysterical, all of you.
 
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Maybe they just assumed that if you were doing 97 you were intentionally speeding and taking things into your own hands anyway and that most people (me not included) aren't doing this speed on a regular basis... :biggrin:

How does that help Tesla's "non-safety" "upgrade" though?

You can simply accelerate to 97mph on the onramp, then slow back down to 60mph when you hit the highway. (Like most people on here haven't done that at least once).

Tesla is effectively inviting & encouraging drivers to do this regularly now. If one of us get into an accident because of it, it will make the fire issue look like small potatoes.
 
Let's not overlook this part:

Another software update expected in January will give the driver direct control of the air suspension ride height transitions.

That's already in 1,5 to 2 months time.

By the way, from the blog it's not yet clear whether Tesla intended to prevent the car from going to 'Low' at 60 mph (with the bug being that it still does so at 96 mph) or whether Tesla intended to make the 'Low' setting a bit less low (with the bug being that now it doesn't lower automatically anymore at 60 mph).
 
Part of the reason for the air suspension lowering the car in the first place - and one of the benefits the feature is sold with - is that it is safer to have the car lower at high speeds, because it reduces the amount of air going under the car which gives the car better handling which means you are better able to react to road situations and the car is less likely to have unpredictable handling at high speeds (this is the feeling Elon was talking about when discussing the Autobahn package). An inch makes a huge difference in terms of lift from turbulent air under the car, and yet makes zero difference for any road debris which is not between 5.1 and 6.0 inches tall (or whatever the numbers are, something like that).

Wrong.

The Model S lowers at higher speed to lower the center of gravity. There's less body roll and therefore less weight transfer.

Furthermore since the Models has a virtually flat underbody more air underneath means acutally less downforce.

These are the two reasons why the car lowered at high speed.

The sudden change to the setup will have a clearly negative effect on the handling at high speed.
 
Wrong.

The Model S lowers at higher speed to lower the center of gravity. There's less body roll and therefore less weight transfer.

Furthermore since the Models has a virtually flat underbody more air underneath means acutally less downforce.

These are the two reasons why the car lowered at high speed.

The sudden change to the setup will have a clearly negative effect on the handling at high speed.

...You basically just rehashed what I said and called me wrong?
 
By the way, from the blog it's not yet clear whether Tesla intended to prevent the car from going to 'Low' at 60 mph (with the bug being that it still does so at 96 mph) or whether Tesla intended to make the 'Low' setting a bit less low (with the bug being that now it doesn't lower automatically anymore at 60 mph).

Please send email to ownership to ask them about that specifically. Keep it simple. Hopefully they'll reply to one of us.

Here is the email I sent:

"I noticed in 5.8 the highway speed at which the suspension is set to lower has been changed from 60mph to 97mph.

Is this intentional?

This seems more like a conversion issue (since 60mph is 97kph), but from Elon’s blog post it also seems somewhat deliberate.

But if this is deliberate, why is there any speed at which the suspension lowers – as things are now it seems Tesla is encouraging unsafe driving?"

 
One thing that never seems to get emphasized by Elon (or, obviously, the media) with these fires is that have occurred when the Tesla has encountered some foreign body on the road.

The implication of these "news" stories is that the batteries are spontaneously catching fire (like what was happening with the Boeing Dreamliner). If that was happening with the MS, there really would be a design flaw. Wish this distinction was made more often and more clearly...
 
One thing that never seems to get emphasized by Elon (or, obviously, the media) with these fires is that have occurred when the Tesla has encountered some foreign body on the road.

The implication of these "news" stories is that the batteries are spontaneously catching fire (like what was happening with the Boeing Dreamliner). If that was happening with the MS, there really would be a design flaw. Wish this distinction was made more often and more clearly...

He is pretty emphatic in the blog that all three fires were a result of collisions.
I actually haven't seen any news reports that didn't at least mention a foreign object being involved although I would love to see more time spent on just how big these have been.
 
So not a bug that the car lowers itself at 97mph?

Well, maybe hitting road debris at 97mph is safer than hitting it at 60mph, but then Tesla should come out and say why they think so. Otherwise, it is a bug.
Trying very hard to not comment on the person but the post. No I do not believe there is any reason to accelerate to 97 mph on an on ramp nor do I believe most people will. Driving like that not only puts your life but others unlucky enough to be driving near you at risk and gives tesla owners a bad reputation. You don't happen to travel to Mexico?