If only we had the technology to open doors without power. One day, perhaps.
Or the foresight to have a small backup battery unit used exclusively for emergencies like say when the battery goes out or when someone reverses their car into a lake. The fact these are such death traps shows just how bad the US is when it comes to giving a flying fuck about people over money.
And all the while Elon is touted as some kind of super Lex Lutherian genius.
Honestly if I wrote a fictional book with some of the shit he’s done and how the world looks at him publishers would throw it back in my face as being the most unbelievable POS they’ve read in the past 20 years.
have a small backup battery
As far as I understand, that 12V battery was that backup…
Nope it’s a separate battery used like in a normal car to power the low voltage stuff so you don’t have to use high grade power lines to run the windows and doors
During the pandemic my car sat in the garage until the battery died. After 7 hours of charging it, turned on the car and found the hybrid battery was almost full.
I get why the high and low voltage systems are separate, but damn that was one of those “Really!?” moments…
The 12V is not a backup, it’s the sole battery used to power electronics.
Not anymore, they’ve updated the platform to be 48v (which they shared the docs with the rest of the industry) and are using lithium batteries in both systems instead of lead acid. They’re supposedly supposed to last the lifetime of the vehicle instead of having to be replaced every 4-5 years.
https://insideevs.com/news/656775/tesla-switch-48v-voltage-system/
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That’s only the Cybertruck
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The 48V battery will become “the sole battery” for the electronics so nothing will change in that regard. They’re not connecting 400-1000v batteries to the electronics.
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Only the cyber truck. Model S and 3 refreshes are still on the legacy platform, with a lithium ion 12V.
The fact a car was approved that doesn’t have a manual way to open doors from inside and outside and start it is ludicrous. That’s basic-ass level shit. NHTSA is asleep at the wheel.
Other comment says there is a way from inside, just not outside (which doesn’t help with a young kid/toddler/baby is the inside passenger of course).
Either way, glad this is “only” a huge embarrassment, and not a dead kid.
Until then we’ve included a complimentary hammer with each Tesla.
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Does it also send a poop emoji now?
Really interesting design decision. Was the main battery also dead? I’m guessing not. There’s a step-down converter under the rear seat that outputs 12-16 volts, Tesla could probably have fairly easily set the car up to power the doors from that when the auxiliary 12V battery dies.
Probably would still need the 12V battery to have enough charge to close the connection to the high voltage battery that would power the step down converter.
But yeah it seems dumb to me that most EVs don’t keep the 12V battery topped up from the high voltage battery somehow while the car is parked, but I’m not an electrical engineer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There really shouldn’t need to be a 12V battery at all. Stepping the voltage down isn’t that complicated, but the supply chain for the necessary parts aren’t there for the car industry.
Plus, it’d be really nice if everything could run off a 48V line instead of 12V. The wires can be thinner due to less current draw. Getting that to work across all the electronics for everything is a whole separate level, though.
You don’t want to fully drain the main battery as it would do severe damage to it and most of the 12v system has a phantom draw of power so to keep the main battery from running out they have a separate one
Compared to what the main batt can provide, there’s barely any draw from the other electronics.
That’s not the point the fact is that there is some dumbass that probably will let it sit at 0% and kill the battery
Battery management electronics don’t let you drain lithium batteries to 0%. It’s a severe design flaw if it does.
You still end up with the same problem of no power for locks when it turns off the battery
Failsafe.
Fail Safe.
Fail Open.
Elon is why we need to write safety regulations. He’s the kind of guy who would put sawdust in your food and call it innovation.
Agree on your overall sentiment, though I’d say it is a bit more complicated than that for car doors. You don’t want it to fail and come open while moving, for example, especially if the car is coming to a stop and inertia forces the doors fully open. That Boeing door failed open and it was not very safe.
Vehicle doors should be fail functional rather than open to fail safe. As in designed to be very unlikely to fail and/or still functional even if one or several components do fail.
Edit: I normally avoid commenting on my downvotes (you win some, you lose some) but this one is baffling. What’s controversial or unpopular about what I said?
I’d say it is a bit more complicated than that for car doors.
Car doors work fine on every car but a Tesla. They aren’t some new technology invented by Tesla where design flaws like this are understandable. Tesla just does things so badly that they invent brand new dangers that only exist with their vehicles.
You don’t want it to fail and come open
That isn’t what “fail open” means. It doesn’t mean that the moment the battery dies all the doors fly open. It means that when the battery dies the doors aren’t latched shut like a bank safe.
At a minimum, the key should offer a way to open the car from the outside when the battery is dead. It’s completely asinine to put the only emergency latch on the inside of the car where you can’t use it, especially since it is hidden so deep most people can’t find it without the manual.
What’s controversial or unpopular about what I said?
You’re giving Elon Musk’s awful cars the benefit of a doubt by pretending that this isn’t a completely reckless design flaw that should never have existed in the first place, and you are deliberately misinterpreting what “fail open” means to make it sound like a ridiculous solution instead of the industry safety best practice that it actually is.
Also, you’re complaining about downvotes, so expect even more now I guess.
The headline rambles a little bit, and by the time I got to “, died”, I thought the toddler was dead.
