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[–] 26 points 2 days ago (22 children)

That's the worst idea for a car ever, the cibertruck can't survive a carwash and you are telling me you are going to do Car kickflicks?

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  • [+] -17 points 2 days ago (21 children)

    It might be impractical, but I saw this and thought of the safety features. If you're in an accident and the car is uncontrollably rolling then these thrusters could bring it to an upright stop.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 days ago (12 children)

    The extremely dangerous high pressure vessel right behind the driver's head seems like it's not worth the trade off there... Better carry a bomb around just in case the car rolls over. /s

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  • [+] -11 points 2 days ago (11 children)

    Sure it's dangerous, but so is that giant tank of fuel that's in the car. I think we figured out pressure vessels pretty well

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  • [–] 14 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    A fuel tank is not a pressure vessel (apart from being sealed to keep fumes in). If you get a puncture in your gas tank, it doesn't immediately and violently explode, it just leaks fuel out. Even if it does catch fire, it would not be as violent an explosion as a pressure vessel failure. In most scenarios it would burn, but not explode.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    I know the gas tank is not a pressure vessel, I made two separate statements.

    My point is that we already do dangerous things. I don't think it's a huge jump to put a pressurized nitrogen tank in a car. Car manufacturers even tried putting hydrogen tanks in cars. It's possible to make it safe.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago* (4 children)

    Fuel is necessary to the function of the engine. If cars didn't need it, they wouldn't have it. We've figured out C4 pretty well, but we don't stuff the doors full of it.

    These thrusters could maybe help you if you fell down a particularly short cliff. Otherwise, if you get in an accident severe enough to send you rolling, you do not want high pressure nitrogen tanks right next to your head.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (3 children)

    Bumpers are there for if maybe you get in an accident. We don't build safety systems for maybe

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago* (2 children)

    Bumpers also don't explode in exactly the type of situation where they would ostensibly be useful

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Nascar manages to do that without thrusters.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    I've seen those and would advocate for flaps being added to regular cars. Could they do it better with thrusters though?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago

    Yes you can scare up some possible safety applications for this but you have to take it on the whole and balance the safety risks and benefits. They haven’t even answered how rhey are going to make the underbelly fan street legal when we know it shoots a lot of gravel out backwards at high speed. And understanding from MKBHD is that the model with all directional thrusters is only a high end demo which will never actually be sold. The one that might actually get sold only has thrusters in the back. Does that scream “safety” to you or “excessive speed?”

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