I repeat this only once. Elon Musk is a genius. His Electric Cars are also amazing and GENERALLY good for the environment, especially if charged by Solar and Wind Power. But they need some fire suppression ability because 4 hours and 30,000 gallons of water is like a major house fire. That’s is when these type of wrecks are uncommon. What happens when they are everywhere?

Then there is the whole disabling the auto pilot function. I mean Morons aren’t good for the environment either.

https://slate.com/technology/2021/04/tesla-crash-texas-drivers-seat-fire-autopilot.html?via=rss

The Industry

The Most Disturbing Part of the Latest Tesla Crash

Two men died near Houston, Texas, on Saturday while riding in a 2019 Tesla Model S that, according to local authorities, was speeding into a turn and ended up going off the road and crashing into a tree. It took first responders four hours and more than 30,000 gallons of water to put out the resulting fire, which kept reigniting; when damaged, the lithium ion batteries in electric cars can cause fires that are very difficult to extinguish because of how they store energy. Authorities reportedly attempted to ask Tesla for advice on how to put out the fire, but it’s unclear whether they ended up getting any help.

Besides the fire, there was something especially disturbing about the crash: No one was in the driver’s seat. One of the men was in the passenger seat and the other in the rear. There has been no official confirmation that they had engaged the car’s “autopilot” feature—something that is beloved by many Tesla owners and that critics of the company say is marketed in unsafe ways—though their wives reportedly told authorities that they had been discussing the feature before leaving for their drive.

Unlike the systems that companies like Google and Uber have been developing and testing for years, Tesla’s autopilot is not completely autonomous, though it does allow the cars to accelerate, steer, and brake by themselves. The company warns drivers that they need to be behind the wheel and paying attention in case the system makes a mistake and they have to intervene. There have nevertheless been a number of serious accidents in which the autopilot feature appeared to be involved. For instance, a man died in 2018 while using the autopilot in California; data from his phone indicates that a video game had been active on the device. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also confirmed to the New York Times in March that it is currently investigating the potential role of Tesla’s autopilot feature in 23 crashes.

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