The Guardian article was about Teslas specifically, so that immediately shortens the odds. Furthermore it raised several disturbing issues rather than just the one you mentioned, so the odds of a mishap shorten by quite a bit more.
Despite the shortened odds, you might still be right, but the difference is most people are aware of the danger of being struck by lightning and take precautions to avoid that happening, whereas all the Tesla incidents came as a surprise to their owners.
@John_Scully made an excellent point about the dangerous non-mechanical door handles and surely that is something that should be dealt with by legislation.
Well paid profession though. Itāll be tough on them having to stack shelves having been replaced by a sliver of silicon. I wonder what they thought the risk of that was five years ago
Not trying to start an argument here, but as someone who pretty closely follows Teslaās shenanigans and has read the article linked in the original post, I think that the evidence presented shows quite conclusively that Tesla hasnāt been properly investigated and hasnāt made amends.
There are many regulators across the US who have over the years investigated crashes and safety system as far as I am aware. Not supporting Tesla but at least they are public record. Also many times stupid owners have been found not in control of their vehicles including 1 time driver was in the rear seat at the time of the crash
The Tesla car handle comments are really nothing to do with the EV vs ICE discussion. They are a bad design in a bad car but nothing to do with its method of propulsion (OK, I am rather biased against the Muskrat)
As for cars running away by themselves, I think any proven instances are extremely rare. There are instances where the driver has jammed his foot on the accelerator, convinced he is trying to brake (but he is not going to tell his insurance company that). On my car I can simply press the Neutral button once while the car is in motion and there is no drive to the wheels (or even regenerative braking). If I have a problem with the foot brake, I can press and hold the parking brake button and the brakes will be applied.
I find it hard to understand why anyone would insist on having a manual disconnection of the battery. On my car, if the car deploys an airbag or the sensors detect a collision, the main battery is disconnected. There is a manual disconnecter but it is not available from the driverās seat. Apparently, I can install a diconnecter to the 12v battery operated from the driverās seat and this will cause a disconnection of the main battery. Modern EV batteries have thermal barriers to prevent thermal runaways in the event of a fire. On the other hand, ICE drivers are happy to drive around sat beside a tin can full of highly inflammable liquid with no way of switching that off in an emergency. ICEs are statistically 10 times more likely to catch fire than EVs.
This is common with many of the criticisms of EVs in general. Most of the complaints about the electronics and driver āaidsā apply to any modern car.
A problem with any automated system is that it can fail in an accident situation given the right set of circumstances. Therefore wanting a manual override is understandable.
IMHO electronic parking brakes are an invention of the Devil.
I had a VW Passat with a push-button parking brake instead of a mechanical lever/cable system - the push-button became faulty and the parking brake would sometimes refuse to disengage, rendering the car undriveable.
Not fun when itās 11pm at night and you have just finished a 10 hour stint photographing a wedding and want to get home.
It was erratic as well - mostly it would be fine but when it played up it was always at inconvenient times.
It took three different garages to sort it out, including a VW main dealer, despite it being a very simple Ā£30 on/off push-button. My private theory is that they were taking the old switch out, placing it on the passenger seat next to the replacement switch, and then picking up the old switch and putting it straight back in again.
After failing to fix the problem the VW main dealer wanted to charge me Ā£125 for āfurther diagnosticsā.
The third garage managed to replace the switch correctly, but the whole experience put me off having such devicesā¦
Also the ātin canā that the fuel is contained in is quite robust. If you are in a crash thatās so bad that the fuel tank gets ruptured I would imagine that would be the least of your problems.
The last OTA update I had to my Hyundai Ioniq 5 in the States had an interesting flaw: when you started the AC to climatize the car ahead of entering it, it also decided to turn on the defroster and the heated seats. As it was about 6 weeks before I jumped over here, I didnāt complain, but honestly? Thatās a pretty big software bug.
Yes, but compared to the devastation to the environments and cost in human misery just to get petrol to filling stations, then the gases emitted which add to global warming and the noxious gases given out causing debilitating/fatal health issues when you burn it, plus the stresses caused by the general cacophony of some ICEs, some of these software glitches are pretty small beer.
I have owned one from new since November and it has been the best decision I have made. I had a sporty Focus ST (300bhp) previously which I loved and I took a leap of faith being a techy and loving the stats on paper plus a lot of reviews. It is the best car I have ever owned and driven.
It is slick, quiet, and exceptionally responsive and quick when you need it to be (500bhp) and despite that has saved me a fortune on petrol equivalent of my previous car (so far nearly Ā£2000 in 7 months). The app is sensational and I can control most features with it, including venting, cameras and pre-conditioning, as well as charge stats.
That said I have experienced a couple of issues in self drive mode whereby it detects obstables, normally vehicles, and has violently stopped twice. This has actually saved me from an incident once, however scared me twice where it was overly proactive! The software of course is new and there are regular updates around once a month, continuously inproving it. Even with that, what a beautiful piece of technology and incredibly comfortable and wonderful vehicle to drive. I will be upgrading to the performance version as soon as I can, likely after moving to France next year (all being well).
Go and test drive one, you wonāt look back.
PS when I have taken it to France for our property searching over the last 6 months it has been perfect, and there chargers everywhere.
