Chao, the billionaire former CEO of dry bulk shipping giant Foremost Group, tragically died at the age of 50 on Feb. 10 after accidentally backing her car into the pond making a three-point turn.
It’s 100% Tesla’s fault. Mechanical way to open doors is not obvious and hidden, sometimes all together missing. And car relies on power to open the door, which runs out when submerged. Shit car with shit ideas. There’s a reason why windows easily shatter on cars and Musk and his cult followers seem to think getting out of car in case of emergency is less important than sounding cool.
Swiping up to drive is the same direction as tap up to reverse from a previous model Tesla. Kind of like how trackpads and mouse scroll wheels work in opposite directions. I can see how it’s not so intuitive if the direction contradicts 35 years of muscle memory.
Over here, ice roads are opened on typical winters on several smaller bays. The instruction to drivers is:
don’t wear a seatbelt
if ice breaks, open your door swiftly (get out first, then think about calling people)
if you can’t open the door, lower your window swiftly
if you can’t lower the window, break it (the side window, not the windshield - a windshield is multilayer laminate, too strong to break quickly)
Typically, if a car sinks on an ice road, people are likely to get out. A crank-operated window is handy in such a case. But regardless of instruction, sometimes folks do die. :(
In general, I would not like to experience any sort of extreme incident in an over-engineered car. I’d prefer something from the 1970-ties, but with airbags.
Pressure takes a while to build up and you generally can open the door before car sinks enough, it’s been tested. But even if you had to wait for car to fill with water, pressure would equalize then and you’d have no issues opening the door. Of course, you need to keep calm to use all of those tricks but car taking them away from you just increases risk of something like that happening.
Okay but a door that just works is going to be easier to get open before water pressure makes that impossible. Also, once there’s enough water in the car, a mechanical door will open just fine. At which point you swim for it in the opposite direction the car is moving.
It’s 100% Tesla’s fault. Mechanical way to open doors is not obvious and hidden, sometimes all together missing. And car relies on power to open the door, which runs out when submerged. Shit car with shit ideas. There’s a reason why windows easily shatter on cars and Musk and his cult followers seem to think getting out of car in case of emergency is less important than sounding cool.
I bet her car didn’t have a shifting stalk. New Model X makes you shift using the touchscreen. I knew that idea sounded unsafe but holy moly.
What?
Swiping up to drive is the same direction as tap up to reverse from a previous model Tesla. Kind of like how trackpads and mouse scroll wheels work in opposite directions. I can see how it’s not so intuitive if the direction contradicts 35 years of muscle memory.
The pressure of the water against the door would’ve prevented her from opening it regardless of the door’s mechanical features or power supply issues.
The windows not shattering is absolutely a Tesla design flaw, but there’s no way that woman was ever going to open a door from inside a submerged car.
True, but there’s some more.
Over here, ice roads are opened on typical winters on several smaller bays. The instruction to drivers is:
Typically, if a car sinks on an ice road, people are likely to get out. A crank-operated window is handy in such a case. But regardless of instruction, sometimes folks do die. :(
In general, I would not like to experience any sort of extreme incident in an over-engineered car. I’d prefer something from the 1970-ties, but with airbags.
Pressure takes a while to build up and you generally can open the door before car sinks enough, it’s been tested. But even if you had to wait for car to fill with water, pressure would equalize then and you’d have no issues opening the door. Of course, you need to keep calm to use all of those tricks but car taking them away from you just increases risk of something like that happening.
Okay but a door that just works is going to be easier to get open before water pressure makes that impossible. Also, once there’s enough water in the car, a mechanical door will open just fine. At which point you swim for it in the opposite direction the car is moving.
That’s wouldn’t be a factor once the water entered the car. The pressure equalises if there water is on both side of the door.