This is the most important point: is there anything Tesla should have done differently to get a result like your or was theirs severe enough that you can’t really do anything
AA5B
That would be one of the things to establish in court: could they have survived? Despite occasional outrage headlines, the battery pack is hard to damage. It usually takes a very severe crash.
Aside from the horrible fate, it’s not much different from any other car. When running into a tree, airbags protect you to a point. But there Ali’s no technology that can protect you from a severe enough crash. Was it severe enough? Could their fate have been different? Those are the most important questions
While I understand the outrage, this is misleading…..
- yes the rear door emergency releases suck
- but there were two people in the car so most likely in the front. The front emergency releases are very different, depending on model year. Recent years are very accessible
What’s important for this crash are the front door emergency releases and lack of an outside emergency release. The front door releases are probably fine, depending on model year, but if the crash is bad enough to damage the battery pack, they weren’t getting out under their own power. We also don’t know whether the outside help would have been in time but we do know the electronic latch failed by that point so there was no way to open the door from the outside
Same with my Tesla. I’m sure part of this lawsuit will cover whether it screamed for the driver in time.
Realistically that’s even a likely scenario for the crash. Autopilot (which is simply adaptive cruise plus lane keeping) screamed for the driver and disengaged, but the driver was not paying attention
I’d also like to know what kind of road it was on. Some of these descriptions of roads in the uk are scenarios where it doesn’t make sense to think autopilot would work, nor to go fast enough for a crash of this severity.
I feel for the family’s loss: that’s a horrible way to go
…. But the article has a lot of inconsistencies that cast doubt
- ~~they’re in the uk and most of the article blames self-driving but that is not supported in the uk.~~
- it gets to the end before switching to talking about autopilot, which is supported in the uk. Autopilot is adaptive cruise control plus lane keeping. I never understood how people seem to think this means self-driving: it is exactly analogous to autopilot in aircraft. Those have a range of functionality but are always under pilot command. I used to fly a small plane with single axis autopilot which basically just kept heading, much less capable than what you’d find on military or commercial aircraft, but there was never any confusion about capability
- the article blames the emergency door release complexity which is true, but the description of hidden cable release depends on model year and which seat you’re in: they get partial credit for improving this over time. My 2023 model y front seats are very accessible
- importantly the flush-mount door handles are not an adequate description of the problem. Firstly, the self presenting handles were only on the high end models: these are mechanically presenting so don’t fail that way. The root cause to focus on is the electronic latch. If your only option is an electronic latch and that fails in the crash, it doesn’t really matter what the handle/button is
- fwiw the entire industry is aware of the possibility of current batteries igniting when sufficiently damaged and, including Tesla, has taken measures to prevent it. But there’s only so much you can do. The question is not whether current battery technology poses that risk: it does. The questions are whether that’s an outsized risk relative to other car technologies and whether Tesla could have done more. There have been several announcements of safer batteries but I don’t think they are available yet.
Edit: UK reporting but the accident was in the US where FSD is supported
Oh this is outstanding! I just mentioned in a post, about an hour before reading this, about my annoyance toward a TV I accidentally turned on by streaming to but couldn’t find a way to turn it off!
Yeah, but tracing my hands around the edges of the tv in the dark trying to find that power button just got my hand dusty, so I also had to go wash up
The top 1% has more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. They don’t need us anymore. They can sustain themselves on just selling to eachother.
How many TVs can they sell to each other? How many cars? How many airline flights and vacations? They may have the money but can never be the market
Yeah, but it’s kind of obvious. Given the huge investments, it can only be profitable if it makes equally massive efficiency improvements. I’m skeptical but also one of those trying to make it work.
But the thing is even without LLMs, automation keeps on increasing everywhere. We are approaching the end of livable general employment regardless, and LLMs might just make it more sudden. We really need to start providing better ways for people to live without employment




It’s really not commonplace, it gets attention because of the horror. In particular I’ve seen several times cars on the side of the road ripped open by jaws of life. Apparently those were also too damaged to get people out of the doors. Where are those headlines?
I’d rather see results of a fair investigation whether there was anything that could have gone better, rather than internet speculation.