[HN Gopher] Tesla plunges 250 feet off a California cliff, all 4...
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Tesla plunges 250 feet off a California cliff, all 4 occupants
survive
Author : pseudolus
Score : 59 points
Date : 2023-01-03 21:45 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| piinbinary wrote:
| Based on the video footage, I think the car landed here:
| https://goo.gl/maps/UWGTDgMuytiS37Zr8
| downvotetruth wrote:
| It's a bird, it's a plane, it's launch control to Mars with a 5
| star safety rating!
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| Entinel wrote:
| Teslas have shit quality assurance but the Department of
| Transporation consistently scores Teslas as some of the safest
| cars on the road. Glad they are earning that score.
| samwillis wrote:
| Teslas has very high, better than almost all other cars, crash
| test scores for three main reasons:
|
| 1. They have a very low centre of gravity, due to the battery,
| less likely to roll.
|
| 2. They are heavy (again due to battery), the heavier car in a
| two car collision always comes off better.
|
| 3. There is no engine in the front, so larger crumple zones and
| no risk of finding an engine rammed into your legs.
|
| All these properties are the same for all BEVs, Tesla "moat" of
| higher than standard crash scores is shrinking as other
| manufacturers launch BEVs.
| jeff-davis wrote:
| "the two adults suffered 'non-life threatening injuries' and the
| two children were 'unharmed.'"
|
| Remarkable.
|
| Is there something about a Tesla that could account for this or
| is it just modern best practices for safety along with a non-
| trivial amount of good luck?
| dgrin91 wrote:
| A mix of modern safety, and also a major advantage of EVs in
| general (not just Tesla) - since there is no engine, the front
| of the car is basically just an empty crumble zone. That
| greatly increases survivability compare to traditional ICE cars
| in the same weight class.
| blamazon wrote:
| I did some crash testing in a previous life and it's
| absolutely crazy to see this play out in high speed (slow-mo)
| videography. The camera angle from directly below a vehicle
| pointed upwards in a frontal collision is biblical--RWD
| driveshafts turn into giant spears! Engine blocks into
| kinetic missiles, blazing a trail of mechanical destruction
| after they shear the mounts. Suspension parts zooming across
| the screen as springs unload their tension. Steel acting like
| wet cardboard. Nuts and bolts and other flotsam levitating
| chaotically like flocks of birds. Surreal stuff.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| What you say makes sense, but if it is true, why aren't all
| cars built with the engine in the rear, then?
| mhb wrote:
| Does it make sense? I thought there was a survival
| advantage to having a giant chunk of metal absorbing the
| impact of a head-on collision. Assuming that it is routed
| under you instead of into you - which it is.
| bagels wrote:
| Fwd is cheaper and easier to provide interior and storage
| space.
| stephenhuey wrote:
| > Automakers began to abandon the rear-engined layout in
| the 1970s, with only a handful of cars still available in
| the 1980s. This was due to the fact that rear-engined,
| rear-wheel-drive cars were prone to oversteer, which caused
| vehicle instability.
|
| https://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/10-rear-engined-
| cars-...
| kalupa wrote:
| not to mention how awful they are in slippery (ice/snow)
| conditions, which is related to exactly what you
| mentioned with oversteer
| pifm_guy wrote:
| Engines are only ~100kg usually. And a full fuel tank is
| also about 100kg.
|
| So the fuel tank and engine could be swapped without
| affecting weight distribution.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| Both kids were in car seats which held in place.
| cypress66 wrote:
| Teslas generally score among the safest vehicles. Lack of
| internal combustion engine in the front obviously helps a lot.
| Other than that I don't think they are doing anything
| completely differently than other cars. It's the small things
| that add up: fatter pillars, and small design choices like that
| overall seem to help.
|
| In the near future when they begin to use gigacastings that
| could theoretically further increase their safety.
| stephenhuey wrote:
| Maybe this will help the plummeting stock to skyrocket
| tomorrow.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| The stock is still worth nearly 10x what it was in mid
| 2019.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| For a minute my Reddit persona/brain read this as Tesla Stock
| plummeted off a cliff, as if it were facetious. Not as if it was
| a real event.
| nitrix wrote:
| Tesla stock plunges 250 dollars, all four shareholders survive.
| cfeduke wrote:
| This is exactly how I read it at first, I figured maybe a 3%
| drop to use a word such as "plummet" or "plunge." Or, a 25%
| drop. Either of those, or any drop in value whatsoever, is fair
| game for any suitably catastrophic falling word.
| [deleted]
| pengaru wrote:
| It's surprising the batteries didn't catch fire, this seems very
| lucky indeed.
| redweer wrote:
| my grandmother tells a story that my late grandfather rolled his
| car down devil's slide in the 60s. He landed up right on the
| beach. She's known to extend the truth, so who's to say if it
| actually happened.
| thewizardofaus wrote:
| Wow. Using a free fall calculator to put it into perspective.
|
| Height: 250ft (76metres)
|
| Speed at impact: 87mph (140kmph)
|
| Time of fall: 4 seconds
|
| I can't imagine the dread during those 4 seconds of free fall.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| They wouldn't be in free-fall though.
|
| They rolled down a steep slope to the beach.
| userbinator wrote:
| Looking at the state of the car, I don't think it was freefall
| but more like a tumbling, which is definitely going to be more
| survivable than a head-on at 87mph.
| warinukraine wrote:
| When I read "Tesla plunges" I thought this was about the stock.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Glad they survived, wow. Seems like some safety benefit from
| Tesla engineering perhaps? But also
|
| > It veered off the roadway
|
| So...?
|
| Those cliffs are no joke, I drive on them at least 3-4 times a
| year and the vibe, especially in some spots in particular, is
| never not a dicey one.
|
| And some of the beaches are just as bad...
|
| (Nothing like watching your own family members run toward the
| water & past the signs on Portuguese Beach while you pause to
| give all the warnings a cursory read)
|
| Hoping for a speedy recovery for the family in the article.
| almost_usual wrote:
| For whatever reason the driver believed the trail to the bunker
| was a road and were going too fast.
|
| > "As I'm driving by, I'm like, 'Wow, he's driving extremely fast
| to take that exit. You're not even supposed to be going up that
| way," she said. "And I can see in my rear-view mirror this car
| that just go over the edge and straight down."
|
| https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/peninsula/tesla-plunge...
|
| They're incredibly lucky.
| KindAndFriendly wrote:
| The question is if it a) was an honest mistake (maybe in
| combination with reckless driving) or b) purposeful self-harm.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Are they? I think the answer will depend on their medical
| insurance.
| glial wrote:
| Wow, this comment belongs in r/ABoringDystopia.
| encoderer wrote:
| Oh come on now. That is absurd.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You can absolutely drive up there when no one is there to stop
| you, though I think park rangers will stop you otherwise.
| You'll get some nice photographs of your car if you do.
|
| Last time I was there, though, the road had eroded quite a bit
| and had crevasses big enough to get a wheel stuck in there.
| Arrath wrote:
| Incredible that anyone, let alone all the occupants, survived
| that. Wow.
| jonas21 wrote:
| It seems to have happened at the fork in the road just past the
| traffic light, where the left fork continues down the highway,
| and the other (straight) fork basically goes off a cliff
| (technically, it's a bus stop).
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@37.5707862,-122.5159555,3a,74.4...
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Looks like a fairly steep slope down to a beach there.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| It would be interesting to learn whether Autopilot was engaged.
| Looking at pictures of the scene, there is a short utility road
| that begins further back but which ends about 100 feet from where
| it splits from the main road.
|
| Relatively straightforward for most human drivers to figure out
| it's not a through road (there are two sets of gates, though the
| first one might have been open), but very difficult for software
| to figure that out....especially one that has so many problems
| detecting stationary objects in front of the car, due to the lack
| of range-detecting sensors. However, it's also possible that the
| car (or human driver) noticed the dividing wall too late and made
| the wrong decision about how to avoid a collision.
| tantalor wrote:
| Several articles are calling this location "Devil's Slide"
|
| This is incorrect, it is more accurately called "Devil's Bunker"
|
| The car landed in this pile of stones here:
| https://goo.gl/maps/Y3w6KFeFDQaixs6c6
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(page generated 2023-01-03 23:01 UTC)