Tesla’s new self-driving taxi seems to be entirely made of red flags and those horror movie moments where you can’t understand why anyone would go in there, because they’re clearly going to die.
Highlights:
- No door handles. Good luck getting out instead of burning to death and/or drowning!
- Doors might not unlock if there are power issues, eg. Bad things happened in a crash.
- No manual controls! First responders will have to push it out of the way.
- Unless there’s a power issue, because the parking brake will engage if there’s no power, so it’ll need to be barged by another vehicle, I guess?
- Or you push it faster than 5mph, because the brake will engage for safety reasons.
- Or if it is in the wrong gear or mode, because back-driving the motor can cause electrical safety issues or overheating, which will presumably increase the risk of people trapped inside being burned to death.
- The vehicle is silent and may move without warning. You can’t tell if it is unpowered. First responders are instructed to “cage” the vehicle before trying to interact with it. Otherwise I guess it might just main or kill them by surprise.
- Not all high voltage components are labelled. Exposed bits in a crash might just kill you if you don’t have suitable ppe, and you can’t tell which bits those are, lol.
The guide advises first responders to contact the company via the car’s communications system or phone for most emergencies, and says that the Tesla can assist emergency personnel by moving the car remotely, helping provide access to on-board controls or putting the car in neutral so that it can be pushed.
If Tesla cannot be reached by phone, the manual advises first responders to use an email address to learn more about how to move the Tesla, though it warns, “This email is not monitored for emergency requests.”
🤡
Welcome to the future, where first responders might just opt to watch you die because they’re not certified to rescue you from your autonomous death trap, because there’s no point in you all dying.
H/t to violet blue. https://mastodon.social/@violetblue/117237691936474802