| Author |
Message |
    
Blake
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 10:33 pm: | 
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There are far fewer fires in vehicles with air- cooled engines. |
Mr_grumpy
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 01:26 am: |
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Naughty Naughty, Blake.  |
Crackhead
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 10:02 am: |
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Sifo,
There are at least 2 model Ss around me and I talked to one of the owners and he had the Tesla super charger installed at his work. (he said being the VP has perks). He said that he needed to have it installed to be able to drive the way he wants to in order to do the round trip and it is also used for picking up clients instead of sending a town car.
Lets just say he is not a slow driver, and runs full electronic counter measures that would make the military jealous.
I think the 7k mileage is accurate. While rick folk typically have multiple cars, this is still the hot button car that the media wants to drive, so there is a few that are constantly rented/ borrowed. |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 10:45 am: |
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Blake, does that mean that air cooled batteries hit operating temperature faster than liquid cooled ones?
I rather like the Tesla, and after reading the First Responder MSDS am a little less afraid of running into this insanely rare car in an accident situation.
Then again, after helping a very fat lady out of an inverted Toyota that spun out and rolled down the median on the X-way I'm moe afraid than ever.......
Not of car fires, of people.
No idea why the car lost control, (unless it was a stoutly denied panic reaction upon missing an exit ) but when the rear view mirror suddenly became a scene from Fast & Furious ( the bad, but popular racing movies, not the illegal gun running Op to steal your Civil Rights ) I did the "right but stupid" thing and stopped to help.
I would have left the nice lady strapped in upside down until some Ambulance or Firefighter types arrived, ( it takes quite a while to kill someone that way, unless they vomit ) but the gas tank was leaking and the area was getting rather stinky. It got down to maybe be wrong, but slow, or wait and be fast and dangerous.
As to procedure.......let's just say, it's far safer and easier to wait for a bunch of well trained Firefighters. Safer for YOU, I was able to keep her from crashing head down into a serious spinal problem, but I'm not sure MY spine would take that kind of abuse again.
As it happened, the dang Toyota never did burst into flames and the Responders that were giving me a hard time for moving a crash victim ( usually a BAD THING ) shut up when the Fire Truck guys got all excited and foamed the ground for 40 ft around the car.
If it had been a Tesla upside down and pinging hot metal with no gas spill, I would have waited for help, and just done the crappy bedside manner "keep 'em calm" routine. ( with fast & dangerous in mind. )
YMMV, based on your movie going experience. In retrospect, it WOULD have been better just to sit there and chat with the large, unhappy lady until better equipped folk arrived, but you only know these things after.
It is considered Holy Writ that more people are injured dragging them out of crashed cars than burn up in car fires. |
Crackhead
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 11:36 am: |
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Think of the speed required to turn a Tesla upside down even if the said lady was strapped to the roof.
"There are far fewer fires in vehicles with air- cooled engines."
Ask any Beetle owner about the external temperature increase cycle to help with combustion efficiency. |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 02:20 pm: |
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This was a case of locked brakes, panic freeze on wheel, so no steering corrections, off the road into a ( luckily ) empty, wide & soft median and when it went sideways based on angular momentum ( seriously, NO steering input was noticed in the mirror ) the tires plowed and the vehicle flipped. A couple of times. Would have been a great video.
Dry asphalt, nice weather.
In the same place driven with the same skill, the Tesla would have done the same thing. Or maybe not, with traction control and anti-lock braking. But get one sideways at 65+ in soft sod and the electronics wouldn't help at all.
If the ground had been summer hard & dry, the Toyota might not have flipped.
If the driver hadn't froze, ( "the brakes just locked up!!" ) it might not have even left the road.
To be fair, I'm assuming she locked up the brakes and froze on the pedal, and everything else until after the car stopped. I wasn't told about any investigation, and didn't even try to follow up. IMHO the car just obeyed the whims of the traction gods and went where the vectors pointed. There may have been an over correction to a skid initially, but not by the time I noticed it swapping ends in the mirror. Car was about 70ft behind me, so it was peripheral vision that alerted me.
A moron in a Tesla, or a Porsche, or Pinto can do incredible things.
I will agree that a Tesla, with a competent driver, may be a safer car than a Camry, in handling & accident avoidance. |
Crackhead
| | Posted on Thursday, November 21, 2013 - 09:18 am: |
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I reread your first post and the first time I read it my mind automatically changed
"after helping a very fat lady out of an inverted Toyota "
to
"after helping a very fat lady out of an inverted Toyota RAV4 "
So i equated the flip with the high COG Rav4. |
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