Elon Musk is obsessive about the design of his supercars, right down to the disappearing door handles. But a series of shocking incidents – from drivers trapped in burning vehicles to dramatic stops on the highway – have led to questions about the safety of the brand. Why won’t Tesla give any answers?

The car came to rest more than 70 metres away, on the opposite side of the road, leaving a trail of wreckage. According to witnesses, the Model S burst into flames while still airborne. Several passersby tried to open the doors and rescue the driver, but they couldn’t unlock the car. When they heard explosions and saw flames through the windows, they retreated. Even the firefighters, who arrived 20 minutes later, could do nothing but watch the Tesla burn.

At that moment, Rita Meier was unaware of the crash. She tried calling her husband, but he didn’t pick up. When he still hadn’t returned her call hours later – highly unusual for this devoted father – she attempted to track his car using Tesla’s app. It no longer worked. By the time police officers rang her doorbell late that night, Meier was already bracing for the worst.

  • ZMonster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    01·
    3 months ago

    Musk thinks everything should be electric because it’s cool.

    I strongly disagree. Things are getting more and more electric across all manufacturing because it is cheap. A single touch screen that drops in place under a snap on bezel with a premade cable harness and some programming time is so much faster and cheaper than designing, installing, wiring, coding, and testing physical buttons or mechanical linkages. PCBs can be tested in a negligible amount of time.

    Mechanical door locks would have been cheaper.

    No. Sorry, but no. The locks were going to be electrically operated no matter what. But the inclusion of standard mechanical components would increase the cost significantly.

    very common, cheap technology

    Yes, but that would be electrical components. It’s not very intuitive, I agree. But cost is the sole reason things are becoming more “electronic”. Electronics are extremely cheap compared to their analog ancestors. And not only that, but since very few mfrs are using off the shelf mechanical components, they are now less supplied and harder to get. So their cost is going up. Electronics are going down.

    I don’t know the engineering endeavors that he may or may not have been directly involved with. I’m not entirely sure what “from on high” means, but I would presume you are referring to his net value and authority. In that case, I would say he is no different than literally any other CEO. He made decisions that made him a profit. That’s what they do. GE is a great test case for this. Nearly destroyed the company in the long term so that board members see a small financial gain in the short term, then dump the carcass on the next guy. It’s just money. That’s all.