The car came to rest more than 70 metres away, on the opposite side of the road, leaving a trail of wreckage. According to witnesses, the Model S burst into flames while still airborne. Several passersby tried to open the doors and rescue the driver, but they couldn’t unlock the car. When they heard explosions and saw flames through the windows, they retreated. Even the firefighters, who arrived 20 minutes later, could do nothing but watch the Tesla burn.

At that moment, Rita Meier was unaware of the crash. She tried calling her husband, but he didn’t pick up. When he still hadn’t returned her call hours later – highly unusual for this devoted father – she attempted to track his car using Tesla’s app. It no longer worked. By the time police officers rang her doorbell late that night, Meier was already bracing for the worst.

  • ZMonster@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    There’s absolutely a reason to not engineer something you’re not required to. It’s called capitalism. Tesla cut every corner they could.

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      38 minutes ago

      No, the problem is they engineered something they didn’t need to, because Musk thinks everything should be electric because it’s cool. They had to then engineer a mechanical release, because it was required by law (for good reason)

      Mechanical door locks would have been cheaper. The fly by wire in the cyber truck is far more expensive, heavier, and far more dangerous than the very well polished power steering systems every other car uses

      Maybe it’s something like they wanted to make more money on repairs or something… But even that they could’ve done better by starting from very common, cheap technology

      Let’s be clear… The real problem here is that Elon Musk, opinion having idiot that he is, made decisions from on high with very little understanding of engineering