This article shows that the author has little knowledge of freeway safety and thus presumably not a ton of knowledge about cars in general. When stopped on a freeway or on ramp and not in the shoulder, one should never exit the vehicle. Especially if one is in the safest car ever tested by NHTSA.
Secondly calling tesla roadside is great but the first call should be to 911 for a cruiser to come and at least add some safety with their lights. A stalled car on a freeway on ramp is an emergency situation and by not calling 911 the author was endangering the lives of himself, his son, and anyone else using the on ramp.
edit my first point was a bit off. If you can exit the vehicle and exit the road without crossing active traffic that can be safe too. Second point still holds.
(1) Because he clearly stated why he got out of the car. The fact that you suggest he call 911 to avoid a catastrophe, and then suggest he remain in the car to "partcipate" in the catastrophe, should be a hint something is amiss in your advice.
(2) Services/companies like On-star will typically dial 911 for you. Presumably Tesla's level of service is comparable. In any event, if it was not already...this should be reason to add better service rather than criticize the author.
Like the overwhelming majority of people reading this article I possess the capability of criticizing the author but not the power to dictate changes to the Tesla roadside assistance policies. Although I agree with your implication I should be granted the power to dictate changes to Tesla's policies, unfortunately, at this time Tesla Motors has not yet come around to our way of thinking.
"Like the overwhelming majority of people reading this article I possess the capability of criticizing Tesla Motors but not the power to dictate changes to the Author. Although I agree with your implication I should be granted the power to dictate changes to The Author's stories, unfortunately, at this time s/he has not yet come around to our way of thinking."
Some technical background: in addition to the propulsion electrical system, the Tesla has a conventional 12V electrical system for running lights, radio, door locks, computers, etc. This system is always on, unlike the propulsion power which is disconnected by a relay when the car is off.
The 12V system has a conventional lead-acid battery which is kept charged when the vehicle is running by an inverter running off the propulsion battery.
Presumably, the 12v inverter failed in this story so the lead-acid battery ran down. You'd get results similar in a conventional car where the alternator failed: gradually dimming lights, then suddenly no engine power.
Except the Tesla should be able to detect a failed inverter instantly. How would the conventional 12v battery failing cause a loss of engine power, and yet continue running the touchscreen and hazard lights for half an hour?
Lights and touch screens will still mostly work on half their normal voltage, but the propulsion control system is fairly conservative. Rightly so. Trying to keep going on flickering power could cause the control DSPs to behave erratically.
Indeed, you could imagine the system being able to give an earlier warning for this class of failure. Perhaps they'll be able to add it in a future software update.
I've had this exact scenario happen on one of my previous cars. The alternator was somehow overcharging the battery. At some point, the battery acid would basically be boiling over (the battery case was physically bulging out), and no longer function at its job of carrying power to the rest of the electronics in the car. The throttle could no longer operate, so the car just stopped moving, spontaneously in the middle of the road I was driving on. No battery sensor would detect this as there was no voltage drop before the battery stopped functioning, and I could still run the radio and headlights for a couple minutes even though the car couldn't be moved. Replacing the battery didn't fix anything (the first shop I took it to didn't realize the battery wasn't the issue since the alternator was putting out power), replacing the alternator did.
It should be able to see that it was overcharging. Too high a voltage(>14 or 15 volts for a conventional 12V lead acid battery) or too high an amperage would indicate overcharging.
It's tricky. You don't necessarily have to exceed the voltage range that would normally be seen to overcharge the battery, just fail to regulate the output correctly. It's correct to provide a certain extra voltage/amps when the battery is not fully charged and you turn on headlights and fans; it's not correct to put out that same power 100% of the time.
It's probably possible to build a sensor that tracks all this, but normal cars with the same 12V system don't have that sensor either. If the alternator goes the way mine did, you won't even see a battery indicator on the dash (even though it has such an indicator), you find out about it when your car stops moving in the middle of the road.
I think the real lesson here is never get in a Tesla driven by an automotive journalist. You have a median time of about two hours until it runs out of power or spontaneously explodes.
As soon as I read that he was a car salesman in LA, I immediately threw out his entire statement. Car salesman in general are complete liars. They are also extremely at odds with the Tesla way of selling directly and not through dealerships. There is way too much incentive to take his word for it.
In general, there have been a lot of liars asserting ridiculous things about the car that are eventually proven to be false. It seems like he just ran out of battery.
The 12V battery system is not the lithium battery pack that runs the motor which you can run out by driving too far. It's the big lead acid brick battery all cars have that runs your headlights and dashboard panels. It also typically runs the computer that controls your throttle and transmission; if the battery goes, your car stops moving, whether you have fuel (conventional or electric) or not.
Oh good grief. Is this what HN has become? I want Tesla to suceed as much as the next nerd, but I'm not going to act like every negative experience is part of a conspiracy theory.
What's the conflict of interest? He said that he was a former car salesman and now works for Edmunds. You think he faked it? With Tesla ready to pull data from the car and go on the offensive?
I'm an EV driver (Fiat 500e), I'm generally a Tesla fan (would love to be able to afford one), and I am tired of articles like this (where any failure of the car is somehow newsworthy) but treating it like a conspiracy is nuts. Of course there are going to be individual Teslas with problems or system failures.
These articles are nothing compared to the owner's forums. Go read what the RAV4 EV drivers think of Tesla (who provides the drivetrain for Toyota). There is definitely a suprising number of RAV4 EVs that have had this exact same power failure.
Los Angeles is the epicenter of a corrupt auto industry. We don't have effective public transportation and our freeways are the worst in the country.
With the amount of negative news coverage that the Tesla has received in relation to automobiles in general, I think it's safe to say that they are being targeted. I don't think there is necessarily a conspiracy, however, a car salesman is quite possibly the least trustworthy character to trust for honesty in this matter.
Humans aren't unbiased. We have biases, hence why courts give the conflicting parties a chance to choose their juries, and dismiss them if there's conflict of interest.
Same thing applies here. It's valid to bring up his background, and considering his background I don't expect him to be unbiased in his assessment. I wouldn't even be surprised if he's actively working against Tesla.
This isn't a Tesla-specific point but this article does highlight some of the downsides of cars (both ICE and electric) becoming more high-tech.
In an older car, even if there's an engine failure, it should be possible to get the car into neutral and either let it roll or propel it with the starter motor to the side of the road. Similarly the brakes will still work, although they'll be very heavy once the assisted-braking is depleted.
Once everything is electronic and drive-by-wire you lose this redundancy - I've heard of new Range Rovers, as one example, being very difficult to tow because if the electrics fail then it's impossible to take it out of gear and to remove the parking brake.
I heard that the Range Rovers need a tow vehicle equipped with a crane because it's impossible to move them. It's one of those "happened to a friend of my friend" stories so it may be not 100% correct.
Even if it is true, as the technology advances, I think it is normal that it needs different and more complicated tools for support.
Nearly all flat-bed tow trucks here in the US have a winch. Be it a dead Tesla, broken Ranger Rover, or a wrecked car with it's wheels pointing in different directions, the winch will just drag the car up the ramp.
You should be able to put dollies under the wheels individually (jacking or lifting with the tow vehicle), even if the axles on a car are utterly seized, and then drag it onto a flatbed in the normal way. Not quite a crane, but still obnoxious.
Just put the car into 1st gear and keep cranking the key and it'll lurch forwards even if the engine won't start.
It's not exactly healthy for the starter motor but can be useful in emergencies for getting the car over to the shoulder or out from the middle of a junction.
I'm not sure how it'll work with automatic gearboxes (a small minority of cars here in the UK) but no reason why it shouldn't work on any car with a manual gearbox and key ignition.
You would have to have a starter with quite a lot of torque for this to work.
I have actually tried this before, in a 1972 J-4000 with a 258. The starter on that truck would make most other starters look like wind-up toys, but the truck would lurch, but not roll.
> Name a car that supports this. Genuinely curious.
Over six decades of driving, I cannot tell you how many times I have successfully moved a misbehaving car a short distance by doing this -- a car that had a healthy battery attached to an unhealthy engine or out of fuel.
There are few topics on HN in which the reader response will be so predictable. A Tesla didn't work right? The driver is a liar, an idiot, an asshole, or all of them.
All cars have issues. Tesla is new-ish tech, so I'd expect a these things to happen for a bit. Furthermore, I think given the cool-factor and price tag, we're just more likely to hear about a greater proportion of the issues than with other cars.
No idea what the law is like over there, but here you are obligated to place a warning triangle some distance out and every car must carry a kit that among first-aid stuff has such a triangle.
Not sure if I'd try that stuck on the left lane of the freeway (or Autobahn).
Which is consistent with his story since he claimed the hazards went out "While the tow truck was setting up to load the Tesla" which was a 15 minute process.
My family and I are on a road trip (to northern Wisconsin) to attend a funeral of my wife's aunt, who died suddenly last week. We're driving an old Rav 4, and I'm acutely aware of the danger you can be in if your car suffers some kind of basic problem.
Ideally speaking, an electric car should be simpler and less prone to failure than a gasoline vehicle (after all, a gasoline vehicle needs a battery and a starter motor), but it seems that the Tesla has many single points of failure. It probably needs to have at least two completely independent battery systems so that if one fails you at least have half power. The idea that the car could go from drivable to being unable to power its hazard lights in half an hour is truly scary.
It seems to me that Tesla needs to incorporate some of the ideas from Space-X (in terms of redundancy) into its cars.
With that said, I see Tesla replacing the 12V battery with a Lithium pack at some point (vs a lead acid battery), not just for capacity but also for deep discharge durability.
Your car has the same single point of failure. If your 12V battery goes, you can't drive (it powers the car's ECU and throttle) and your hazard lights won't work. This isn't anything Model S specific.
Oh, a gasoline-powered car has lots of single points of failure, no question. But it's also a very well-proven technology, and pretty easily fixed even in very out-of-the-way places.
Sounds like this guy is incompetent as a driver, independent of his skill as a car reviewer.
Your car breaks down in the highway in California? Call CHP (911 should go there)?
Leaving your car visible only from 4-way hazards is...questionable. Flares and/or LED flares and/or marker triangle placed behind the vehicle would allow drivers to notice your disabled vehicle before being a threat. Emplacing flares can be dangerous, though, if traffic isn't already stopped. CHP will do this for you, and is the safest/default option. In civilized parts of the country, commercial truckers or good samaritans may stop to help you if you pull over and have your hood open (I'd personally definitely stop for a Tesla driver, even in LA, just to see what the problem was, and my trunk has emergency stuff like flares, hi-viz jacket, etc..)
Getting out of your disabled car stopped in the roadway or on the shoulder is often unsafe, too, although it depends on where exactly this was; if you could walk off the roadway entirely, sure. Otherwise, getting rear-ended while sitting in a car is far better than being run over outside it.
C'mon, this is a petty attack and it is completely off the point.
Tesla died. Suddenly, in a bad location, after dark, on the first ride. What else do you expect him to say? He is actually quite gallant in how he describes the incident. As pro-Tesla as the situation permits.
I don't mind him being angry with Tesla (writing a bad review, etc. -- that seems fully justified, and he's not a bad writer); I just don't want him leaving a blacked out car unmarked in the middle of a highway where someone else might hit it.
I think the justification for getting out/away from the car was that he didn't know what was wrong or what it could develop into. In an ICE car, "disabled" generally means just that. If you can't smell gas or you can tell what happened (stall, flood, etc) the car's going to be safe just sitting there. In a Tesla, once something's gone wrong, who knows what's going to happen? You're probably still safe, but with all the FUD out there I can't blame him for worrying about a leaking or shorted battery blowing up in his and his kid's faces.
How good are these vehicles at knowing the amount of juice left in the battery? I'm completely ignorant when it comes to electric car battery technology but I can't help but think about experiences with mobile phones and laptop computers where I have been using them and suddenly lost a large amount of juice for no apparent reason. Either something drained the battery very quickly or the system was miscalculating the amount of energy left.
Anyway, it's one thing for that to happen when I'm browsing reddit, it's another thing when you're cruising down the highway at 70mph.
There are two batteries here -- the lithium ion packs under the car that run the motors, and the 12V lead acid battery that all types of cars have. That's the battery that died, not the fancy lithium one whose capacity is displayed on the dash.
The article said that the error message was 12V battery low; my understanding is that's the same sort of battery as in an ICE car, not the main electric power-pack.
Since the 12v battery is (presumably) powered from an alternator from the drivetrain the only way it could get flat while driving is if there's a fault with the car.
Secondly calling tesla roadside is great but the first call should be to 911 for a cruiser to come and at least add some safety with their lights. A stalled car on a freeway on ramp is an emergency situation and by not calling 911 the author was endangering the lives of himself, his son, and anyone else using the on ramp.
edit my first point was a bit off. If you can exit the vehicle and exit the road without crossing active traffic that can be safe too. Second point still holds.