Arizona toddler rescued after getting trapped in a Tesla with a dead battery | The Model Y’s 12-volt battery, which powers things like the doors and windows, died

ForgottenFlux OP , 6 days ago

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment; it has dissolved its press office.

cheese_greater , 6 days ago

MadLad that Elmo is

helenslunch , 6 days ago

Honestly it’s pretty smart. There’s nothing you can say in the modern age that won’t be intentionally misrepresented, misquoted, or otherwise twisted. Plus there’s really no defending stupid decisions like this. Same reason Apple almost never comments on anything that isn’t marketing. They know they can’t justify their bullshit.

DaddleDew , 6 days ago

Let me fill in for them then: “We CoUlDn’T PoSsIbLy pReDiCt ThAt tHiS wAs GoInG tO hApPeN!”

That’s the usual typical Corporate bad faith answer to whenever a serious consequence that everyone could see coming but they kept ignoring finally happens.

iturnedintoanewt , 6 days ago

Does it also send a poop emoji now?

Neato , 6 days ago

Sounds like journalists can just make shit up and publish it. “Telsa declined to comment.” so I guess it’s true until corrected.

frezik , 5 days ago

It’s how journalists apply pressure to companies to respond. “We have statements x, y, and z from the public about you. Do you care to respond? We need to go to press with it in two hours.” Companies can ignore it if they want, but the statements will go uncontested.

ForgottenFlux OP , 6 days ago

According to a report from Arizona’s Family:

The 12-volt battery that powers the car’s electronics died without warning.

Tesla drivers are supposed to receive three warnings before that happens, but the Tesla service department confirmed that Sanchez didn’t receive any warnings.

helenslunch , 6 days ago

Lead acid batteries are notoriously hard to predict when they will fail. Other OEMs also fail at this often.

Tesla upgraded to lithium 12V batts some time ago, which are much more predictable and last 2-3x longer.

AbidanYre , 6 days ago

What other oem hides the mechanical latch?

helenslunch , 6 days ago

What makes you think I was referring to the latch?

AbidanYre , 6 days ago

You said other manufacturers fail at “this” referring to the 12v battery dying, but the context here is a child being trapped in a car when that battery fails. If the 12v battery fails on any other car you simply pull the handle and the door opens.

helenslunch , 6 days ago

I was referring specifically to the failure to detect a dying 12V battery.

AbidanYre , 6 days ago (edited 6 days ago)

Ok fine, what other manufacturer traps someone inside when the battery fails?

You mentioned the hidden latch on another thread. Should I bring my question over there instead? I may conflated two discussions because you’re up and down this post defending Tesla’s boneheaded decisions.

Kecessa , 6 days ago

“Should I bring my question over there instead?”

That’s usually what people do so conversations can actually be followed and come in a logical order…

helenslunch , 6 days ago

Ok fine, what other manufacturer traps someone inside when the battery fails?

I don’t know. I don’t understand why you’re asking me this.

you’re up and down this post defending Tesla’s boneheaded decisions.

I have been both both critical and supportive of Tesla, depending on the topic of discussion. It’s called being objective.

AbidanYre , 6 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

I don’t know. I don’t understand why you’re asking me this.

Because this article is about someone being trapped in a car when the battery died, and saying “it’s hard to tell when a battery is going to fail” skips over the fundamental problem of being unable to open the door when that happens.

helenslunch , 5 days ago

It’s not “skipping over” anything. I was not commenting on the door latches. I was commenting on a specific failure to do with the battery exclusively. I commented elsewhere that the latches a terrible and stupid design. Every car should have mechanical door latches, inside and out. If for no other reason than simplicity and reliability.

ColeSloth , 5 days ago

What? No they aren’t. They almost always fail on a curve of power and voltage loss.

Also, I didn’t look it up, but I’d be very surprised if the model Y tesla didn’t require (suggest and oem?) an AGM battery. It’s still lead, but due to how they’re made they can’t get a dead short in them like older regular lead acid batteries can once they get old, although it still isn’t very common for it to happen.

helenslunch , 5 days ago

Yes they are. I used to test them for a living. It’s just a best guess.

ColeSloth , 5 days ago

No they aren’t. They degrade before they fail. If tesla wanted to provide a warning of a failing battery that pretty much always worked it could have wired in a load test and went off voltage drop under a heavier load.

Testing if batteries are good or bad does not qualify a person to chart out battery degradation.

helenslunch , 5 days ago

No they aren’t.

Yes. They are. If they weren’t, no one would have these problems. But they all do. I know everyone likes to pour over them with a microscope and drool over their flaws because they’re Tesla, but many of the issues commonly attributed to them are common with all other OEMs, you just have a bunch of armchair engineers who don’t know WTF they’re talking about.

They degrade before they fail.

No shit

If tesla wanted to provide a warning of a failing battery that pretty much always worked it could have wired in a load test and went off voltage drop under a heavier load.

Once again, I did this for a living, for a decade. We would constantly have cars with failed batteries, we would bring them in, charge them up, test them, they would pass, we’d send them on their way, and they would fail again, and come back for replacement. Our load tests also tested the alternator.

I worked on BMWs for years and they would regularly come in with the same problem, with no warning, even though they had a similar detection algorithm that mostly worked.

ColeSloth , 4 days ago

Once again, I did this for a living, for a decade. We would constantly have cars with failed batteries, we would bring them in, charge them up, test them, they would pass, we’d send them on their way, and they would fail again

I also test batteries and this just looks like you all didn’t test them well. Like you skipped the capacity test because it takes being hooked up for a long time instead of the test that takes 20 seconds to do.

explodicle , 5 days ago

Even if she did receive warnings, she’s a grandmother who easily could miss one of the many messages on the car. It’s just bad design.

_sideffect , 6 days ago

Does the indoor lever (hidden) not work without the battery too?

octopus_ink , 6 days ago

Not sure, but 20 month old toddler…

Blackout , 6 days ago

The only sensible solution then is to ban toddlers from EVs. They'll just have to walk.

EngineerGaming , 6 days ago

Just strap them into a stroller tethered to the back of the EV.

octopus_ink , 5 days ago

The only sensible solution then is to ban toddlers from EVs. They’ll just have to walk.

Better give 'em guns too. With all that walking maybe they can stop a school shooting or two.

nailingjello , 6 days ago

Yes, the interior manual release works without power, but the only person in the car was a toddler in a car seat and they were not able to open it themselves.

Notyou , 6 days ago

Oh great! So someone couldn’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps and now they want a hand-out. I bet this “toddler” doesn’t even pay taxes.

/s

thefartographer , 6 days ago

Woke toddler was working for Big Baby to make Tesla look bad

Also, firefighters are just beefy sexy shills for the axe industry

FiskFisk33 , 6 days ago

I though it was working against Big Baby ahem

_sideffect , 5 days ago

Ah yes… The typical downvotes for asking a question. Brilliant people we have here on lemmy, real stand up fellows.

pewgar_seemsimandroid , 6 days ago

where’s the manual door release?

nailingjello , 6 days ago

Inside the car (sadly). No manual release on the outside.

pewgar_seemsimandroid , 5 days ago

im as stupid as a baby, i still actually meant the inside but OFC the baby can’t figure that out.

Grippler , 6 days ago

On the door

thefartographer , 6 days ago

Where’s the door?

Grippler , 5 days ago

If you can’t find the door on a car, you’re too far gone to help.

thefartographer , 5 days ago

But there is babby in crar. How girl get pragnent?

ripcord , 5 days ago

Read the article

TransplantedSconie , 6 days ago

Wish Version Iron Man:

“Really? Do you think its 2010 again?

This is the fuuuuuuttttuuurrreeee!!!”

snorts Ketamine and twirls out the door

Nougat , 6 days ago

The car’s owner, Renee Sanchez, was taking her granddaughter to the zoo, but after loading the child in the Model Y, she closed the door and wasn’t able to open it again. “My phone key wouldn’t open it,” Sanchez said in an interview with Arizona’s Family. “My car key wouldn’t open it.” She called emergency services, and firefighters were dispatched to help.

Just so nobody thinks someone left a kid in the car and then went into a store or something. Tesla should be paying for the broken window repair at the very least.

Ghostalmedia , 6 days ago

Also, this is similar to a use case that Telsa likes to promote. They allow you to leave the climate on while the car is locked.

This makes me never want to trust the dog and camp modes they advertise.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/322c99db-d397-4dde-ae8d-cbc52ef1f96e.jpeg

Nougat , 6 days ago

In this specific example, I believe the driver buckled the child, closed the door, then was unable to open any door before starting the vehicle. Is it possible to either start the vehicle or at least turn on the climate control from outside? If not, this was a horribly dangerous situation.

Ghostalmedia , 6 days ago

Yeah, this wasn’t even intentional. The car just shit out while she was getting the car situated. Very scary.

DBNinja , 6 days ago

Not without the 12V. I’m pretty sure most of the internal electronics are dependent on that working. There’s an access port so you can “jump” the 12V with another car, which I think would then allow you to open the door though.

IMongoose , 5 days ago

I think I just saw an article saying that dog mode is currently broken lol

cyborganism , 6 days ago

My 1998 Honda Civic SE hatchback was all manual. Manual windows with the canks, manual door locks, manual steering (no power steering), no braking assist, no assist of ANY kind in fact, and a manual transmission. It was basically an engine, four wheels and a steering wheel.

If EV manufacturers could make cars that are closer to my old Civic, with the only difference being the engine being swapped for an electric motor, I would switch in a heartbeat. For now I’ll stick with my 2010 Mazda 3, which I barely use except for the occasional trip to my family or friends who are out of the city or to do my groceries once a week. Until cars start using manual controls for essentials like door handles and locks, audio systems and temperature control, I want none of it.

I’m already having trouble with touch screen tablets when I’m not driving, let alone when I need to focus on the damn road.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod , 6 days ago

I’m with you but I’m still hesitant because I like my manual transmission

0110010001100010 , 6 days ago

Toyota is working on that, lol: insideevs.com/…/toyota-ev-manual-transmission-tes…

Bezier , 6 days ago

simulates the way a multi-gear transmission operated

m8

I like driving stick, but if I get an electric car, I think I’ll pass this toy.

kusivittula , 6 days ago

i think kia ev6 is as manual as electric cars get. you can adjust the climate control with knobs, and move the seat manually!

ramenshaman , 6 days ago

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.

Venator , 6 days ago

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)_/¯

frezik , 5 days ago

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.

Venator , 5 days ago

There really shouldn’t need to be a 12V battery at all

I think it’s mainly there just to be able to control the circuit that cuts power to the high voltage battery off while the car is parked for safety reasons.

histic , 5 days ago

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

frezik , 5 days ago

Compared to what the main batt can provide, there’s barely any draw from the other electronics.

histic , 5 days ago

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

frezik , 5 days ago

Battery management electronics don’t let you drain lithium batteries to 0%. It’s a severe design flaw if it does.

uriel238 , 6 days ago

Whenever essential functions (e.g. access) are powered, they’re supposed to have manual overrides. I’m pretty sure this is a regulatory requirement even here in the States where we’re stupid and regulatory agencies are mostly captured.

So WTF happened, Tesla? Where’s the manual override for when the battery fails?

FaceDeer , 6 days ago

Here it is.

Kecessa , 6 days ago

That’s for if you’re inside, a mechanical access has to exist on the outside as well, no?

DBNinja , 6 days ago

You can also “jump” the car to open it via a 12V access port in the front.

Kecessa , 6 days ago

Yeah, doesn’t help much in case of actual emergency does it?

cybersandwich , 6 days ago

Then break the fucking window if it’s an actual emergency.

AbidanYre , 6 days ago

They did

The child was safely removed from the car after firefighters used an ax to smash through a window

cybersandwich , 6 days ago

I know.

My response was to the previous comment.

In a non Tesla, if someone is locked in a car, what happens? There isn’t some secret “let me in” button. You just break a window. This is a dumb story.

Kecessa , 6 days ago

If someone is locked in your car and you’re the owner you simply use the key and open the door, no need to break anything, except in a Tesla.

Cort , 6 days ago

Some cars aren’t quite that simple, on newer models they’re hiding the keyhole on the bottom side of the handle behind a cover. But usually those models won’t lock with the keys inside the car

IamAnonymous , 5 days ago

My keyfob battery was dead and I couldn’t use the hidden keyhole to unlock it. I watched a video on YouTube but I still wasn’t able to make it work. It wasn’t an emergency but I would just break the glass if it was one.

histic , 5 days ago

Unless your keys get locked inside too

skulblaka , 6 days ago

I mean, presumably if I’m standing outside my car with a key, I just unlock the door and open it. Can’t do that with a dead tesla.

TBi , 6 days ago

Agree. The only worry is the flying glass might hurt the child.

catloaf , 6 days ago

Tempered glass is designed to not be sharp when broken. But they break a window furthest from the person inside to limit damage.

They can also use some tools to remove the window in mostly one piece after cracking it, rather than smashing it and sending glass flying.

Soggy , 5 days ago

Tempered glass is still sharp but it breaks into tiny pieces so it can’t cut deeply.

Kecessa , 6 days ago

Yeah, that’s much quicker than just unlocking the door with your fucking key, right?

Lost_My_Mind , 6 days ago

Yeah…because breaking the window as your first option in an emergancy is a GREAT idea. No need for a manual handle with a key, right? What a stupid idea that would be.

FaceDeer , 5 days ago

It's not your first option in an emergency. Normally you just open the door. Breaking the glass is several layers of things-not-working deep.

Honytawk , 5 days ago

So breaking the glass as the second step isn’t a good option.

DBNinja , 6 days ago

I don’t disagree there!

Darkassassin07 , 6 days ago

No. You just need to be able to exit without power. Getting back in mechanically isn’t a requirement.

It should be, but it’s not.

Kecessa , 6 days ago

(┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻

piecat , 5 days ago

Damn, even fighter jets have an external override. They’re even labeled for rescue workers.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/259aef3d-a98d-472d-835c-ae33c1e946ae.jpeg

NaoPb , 5 days ago

I don’t know who Jettison Canopy is but I hope he’s around when you need to do this.

FaceDeer , 5 days ago

A car window is a lot easier to shatter than a fighter jet canopy.

Mirshe , 5 days ago

Not these Teslas, from what I understand. The type of glass they use is EXTREMELY resistant to shattering.

Xtallll , 5 days ago

Those are inside the car, doesn’t help if there’s a toddler stuck in the car.

ripcord , 5 days ago

As discussed in the article, even.

tabular , 5 days ago

When has it ever been difficult to get out of a car?? Why does this page exist??

assassin_aragorn , 5 days ago

It’s basic safety for industrial plants to designate powered equipment as “fail open” or “fail closed” or on/off. It’s shocking that this wasn’t applied to Tesla cars.

We really need an industry that performs industrial grade HAZOPs on consumer products and publishes a report for everyone to see.

dinckelman , 6 days ago

There should really be a law, requiring a certain list of mechanical things to exist on the car. So far, it’s only the emergency turn signals, and what, the mirrors? The door handles absolutely need to be on that list

captain_aggravated , 5 days ago

At least one door should open via a mechanical key and mechanical handle from the outside, and I firmly believe the internal door handles should all function mechanically as well. There shouldn’t be “usually you use a button but in an emergency this thing that looks like a bit of trim is the actual mechanical handle” that shouldn’t be allowable by code.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod , 5 days ago

I saw a clip on Just Rolled In where a lady in a Lexus thought she was trapped in her car when the electrics failed, as did the firefighters who broke her window, despite there being manual releases on both the inside and the outside of the car.

captain_aggravated , 5 days ago

I spent enough time in aviation to know how much drilling it actually takes to teach people emergency procedures. If it’s different than what they usually do, it takes hours of practice. Even something as simple as finding and pulling a different door latch. If you’re stressed, even as stressed as “the doors won’t open the way I’m used to them otherwise everything is okay” your brain will just fail to pivot to the alternate procedures.

Cars got so simple to use in the 90’s. Sure they were simpler machines in the 60’s but fuel injection eliminated chokes and other carburetor issues, automatic transmissions became ubiquitous, children can handle vehicles of this complexity. And now we’re making them more complicated for no actual reason, with electric door latches with manual backups and such, and it’s causing problems.

Guy_Fieris_Hair , 4 days ago

I agree, the main handle you use on the interior and exterior of the vehicle should be PHYSICALLY connected to the latch. Seems like a pretty simple rule to make and enforce and seems pretty common sense.

I have a 61 f100 with shaved doors that only opens electronically from the outside with a fob, but I didn’t build it to be a grocery getter with my wife and kids in it. I know the risks. And the hood opens without having to get into the cab so I can easily access the battery if it’s dead.

Buttons , 5 days ago

There was a time I wanted a Tesla, but I don’t anymore. This is just another reason why.

Does Tesla care about making a “neat thing” or do they care about making “a car that can drive me places”. The doors clearly show they prioritize making a “neat thing”, but I want a reliable car.

Opening and closing doors was a solved problem. Somehow Tesla made it worse.

Imgonnatrythis , 5 days ago

Does Tesla care about making a “neat thing” or do they care about making “a car that can drive me places”

Neither. Care about making money.

ripcord , 5 days ago

One thing about Musk, I think he does care more about making a thing. Money is involved; but mostly because it’s necessary to make the thing.

It’s just that the things he wants to make are increasingly stupid and childish.

Imgonnatrythis , 5 days ago

I think at this point Tesla is more about stockholders than it is Musk.

ripcord , 5 days ago

Boy you would think that, but it is clearly not the case. At least not primarily.

Although it’s definitely more of a factor than his other companies.

Wahots , 5 days ago

Same, but cars in general now. I used to look forward to driving, but now I’m sick of it. Biking and ebikes have made going places fun again :)

laurelraven , 5 days ago

Tesla isn’t a car… It’s an EXPERIENCE!!!

(/s just in case it isn’t obvious enough)

suction , 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

I understand wanting a Tesla maybe 5-6 years ago when they were a little ahead of the competition and the only ones with a big touch screen etc. and people didn’t understand that “self driving” is just a marketing term. And of course Musk hadn’t fully revealed his political agenda.

Not nowadays? Almost all EV are better than Tesla and at the very least buying one doesn’t line the pockets of a Nazi.

MeanEYE , 5 days ago

In summary, Tesla the company cares about not going bankrupt. Edge they have been walking on since inception. Musk on the other hand cares about money and being on TV non-stop because he’s a narcissist asshole. Problem is, those two have colliding interest because Musk is majority holder now and Tesla has to make what he says in his drug induced and poorly educated rambles. He wasn’t a majority holder for a while thanks to 42.0B$ fuck yea deal with then soon to be announced X but at the time Twitter. Now stock holders voted to give him 40B$ bonus to keep him in “leading role”.

So in short it’s a shitstorm. Stupid car that had a great idea but was ruined by narcissistic manchild. Car which you can only repair in authorized service centers by the way which is something no one talks about. Car that eats away your tires and some people report having to replace tires every six months. And on top of that, you have no spare tire to begin with. That means you run over a nail, tow truck for you it is.

Oh and I haven’t said anything about share holders because they are plain old idiots. Tesla is not paying dividends and never planned to do so. So people buy stocks to have them? I don’t know some sort of mystery. And even then, they buy stocks, then Musk hypes them up a bit, sells quintillion shares and bails out, which is why he’s not allowed to talk about Tesla without babysitter. So share holders buy stocks, lose money and cheer for Musk.

obinice , 5 days ago

Why not just open the door with the key like every car ever

tabular , 5 days ago

It’s so obvious, then again I think there’s some cars out there without even a metal key for the engine. So dumb.

erwan , 5 days ago

My car (Citroën) has a contact less key, I don’t have to get it out of my pocket and the car automatically opens.

But it still includes a small physical key to open the car when the battery (of the car or key) is dead.

tabular , 5 days ago

The metal key is attached to the contactless key or is it a seperate device?

Tlaloc_Temporal , 5 days ago

It’s usually stored inside the key fob.

AceBonobo , 5 days ago

I’d love to see a crank on EVs to power the low voltage stuff in emergencies. How many amps does the car startup take? 15A? Maybe bicycle pedals.

ryannathans , 5 days ago

Yabba dabba dooooo

Duamerthrax , 5 days ago

Or just have manual doors and locks with an electric actuator if you really want those “smart” features.

lagomorphlecture , 5 days ago

Have your manual doors, peasant, but I will not debase myself in such a fashion.

Duamerthrax , 5 days ago

pfft, ok. If the rich want to cook themselves, all the easier to eat.

bandwidthcrisis , 5 days ago

So we would have come full circle. That actually has a retro appeal to it that it could catch on!

youtu.be/8EWDRHC2dzg

xc2215x , 5 days ago

Glad the toddler could be saved.

Mouselemming , 5 days ago

I had something similar happen to me years ago in a Toyota minivan. The car stalled and died in traffic, some kind of electrical glitch. I got out to raise the hood. The door closed behind me and it came up with just enough battery to lock itself, with my keys in the ignition and my two babies and quadriplegic husband inside. It was 107° outside. And pre-cellphones. I bolted to the nearby gas station to call 911 and grab something to break a window. Meanwhile hubby tried to coach toddler how to wriggle out of car seat and open door, but straps were too snug. Firehouse was near, and the jammed traffic was all in one direction so they used the opposite side and didn’t take long, and they jimmied the door open quickly. But it was boiling in there. Sat the kids by the road to cool off with water and get checked by paramedics, gave water to husband in car with open doors, and waited for a tow to the gas station so I could lower the ramp and get my husband out. Meanwhile of course we made the traffic even worse, but people weren’t too mad when they saw our plight as they squeezed past.

I’m wondering, did some similar glitch happen here, or do Tesla doors lock every time they shut?

assassin_aragorn , 5 days ago

Might be the doors are fail shut if anything happens… But that seems like the worst design ever.

Come to think of it, it’s basic design to designate features as fail closed/fail open on loss of power in an emergency, and you go with what’s inherently safe. It appears Tesla did not consider basic safety design. To no one’s surprise.

Passerby6497 , 5 days ago

You’re assuming they didn’t consider it, vs having considered it and thought that its more important to protect property than peoples’ lives. Again, to no one’s surprise.

assassin_aragorn , 5 days ago

It really says something when even oil companies will design for these considerations but Tesla won’t.

afraid_of_zombies , 5 days ago

I design process control equipment for a living and you are 100% correct. When the controller/PLC dies or the power goes out everything goes to a safe state that protects the human. Big part of the design decisions.

assassin_aragorn , 5 days ago

I’ve unfortunately been working on process control strategies for almost a year now on new and novel applications for my company, so I’ve been intimately familiar with this. If it isn’t obvious, this isn’t my favorite professional area of interest hahaha.

Designating fail open and fail closed valves is so intrinsic to what I’ve been doing that I can’t imagine someone designing a car control system and not thinking about that at all.

afraid_of_zombies , 5 days ago

I designed a quencher system that failed closed, no water flowing, during outages once. Granted I was an intern but still not my proudest moment.

It’s weird now as my employer is slowing moving into motion control tech for waste. Seeing the changes like having to really think about hardwired limit switches and safety relays. Chemical world I feel is easier.

assassin_aragorn , 4 days ago

We all make mistakes. I once forgot to include gravity in a pressure drop calculation for a 100 ft vertical pipe as part of a steam drum system. I had to send an awkward email revising the design pressure I previously communicated out.

But hey, if we were perfect, we wouldn’t need peer review.

I have a little bit of experience with limit switches, but that’s really interesting. It certainly seems like an unusual system. I’m a lot more familiar with safety relays.

afraid_of_zombies , 3 days ago

Imagine there is a process that makes a gas that is too hot. The solution is to spray the gas outlet with water. That’s a quencher. The PLC controls the amount the water valve is open or rather how much to close it. If the PLC dies the valve should open up as much as possible and blast water. It is better to waste water instead of risking hot gas going through ducting systems that can’t handle it.

My mistake was putting failed closed valves in the system. If there was a power outage or a dead PLC no water would have cooled the gas. And presumably the ducting would have melted and there would have been fires.

Like I said my most embarrassing mistake. At least we caught it before shipment.

assassin_aragorn , 3 days ago

It happens! The important part is review and learning from the mistakes.

n0clue , 5 days ago

IDK about Tesla but yeah Toyotas like to lock themselves.

poorlytunedAstring , 5 days ago

Auto-lock doors have been a nightmare in general. I always roll a window down at least far enough to stick an arm through every time I get out of a running car because of the one time forever ago that I left a 90s Pontiac Skylark running, shut the door, and it autolocked with the keys in the ignition and the motor running. I had to get my girlfriend to drive me back to my apartment for the spare key while the car was humming away, and I never forgot that. If I wasn’t close to home, with a helpful ride nearby, and a spare key on hand, I’d have been screwed.

Talk about features that need regulated out. All because suburban whites don’t want to remember to lock the doors as they drive through the black neighborhood so the car locks itself whenever you put it in Drive.

kalleboo , 5 days ago

Every car I’ve driven with keyless ignition (which seems to be the standard now) refuses to lock if it detects the key inside the car, even if you try to do it manually by pressing the lock button, so hopefully this is a solved problem now.

I’ve honestly never heard of self-locking cars doors, that’s a crazy idea.

uid0gid0 , 5 days ago

Our new keyless ignition vehicle wouldn’t fully close the hatch with the doors locked and the keys in the car. It would go down half way and play the “I can’t close” noise.

laurelraven , 5 days ago

Last couple cars I’ve had that’s been a setting you can change… I set mine to lock when the car moves at more than a few mph, the other options seemed like too high a chance to cause an accidental lockout to me

0x0 , 5 days ago

All because suburban whites don’t want to remember to lock the doors as they drive through the black neighborhood so the car locks itself whenever you put it in Drive.

Color discrimination?

intensely_human , 5 days ago

Yup, racism. Right out in the open. Upvoted, even.

jabjoe , 5 days ago

I’m glad that had a happy ending and sorry that happen. Autolock is so dangerous.

limelight79 , 5 days ago

Most cars I’ve used with it won’t lock until you put it in drive or start moving at a certain speed; I assume that’s because of incidents like this one.

wagoner , 5 days ago

Tesla model 3 doors do not lock immediately every time they shut. But if you use your cell phone as a key, the default behavior is that they are locked if you walk away with the phone a few yards.

Hexarei , 5 days ago

Specifically, it’s that the doors opening mechanisms are powered, and the power was not being applied to open them. There is no exterior mechanical entry option.

Mouselemming , 5 days ago

Ah, that is stupid.