You may have heard about the death of the woman who was killed by her Tesla when she inadvertently backed it into a pond and then discovered – as it slowly sank into the pond – that she could not open the door to get out.
She eventually drowned.
The woman – who happened to be the billionaire sister-in-law of Mitch “dirty turtle” McConnell, the glitching front-man for the other half of the Uniparty in the Senate – made the mistake of buying an electronically controlled car. Her Tesla did not have mechanical door pulls; instead, the doors are opened and closed by push-button electric actuators and computers that require electricity to operate. Computer-controlled electronics don’t work very well when immersed; try it with your smartphone and see.
So, when Agenla Chao – the now-dead woman – backed up her car into the pond, the water shorted out the door controls and they could not be unlocked or opened. This resulted in her slow death-by drowning, as it took a while for the Tesla to go totally under. In the meanwhile, she reportedly had time to call/text for help – which came in plenty of time – to watch her drown. Had she backed up into that pond with just about any other car, the people who came to her aid would have had plenty of time to get a door open – and get her out.
But they weren’t able to, because it was a Tesla.
These electronically controlled devices also don’t work very well when dry.
Apparently, the accident itself occurred as a result of Chao’s inadvertently tapping Reverse when she wanted Drive. Italicized to draw attention to the fact that – in Chao’s Tesla – there is no gear selector in the usual/physical sense of a lever that moves back-and-forth from Park through Reverse, then Neutral and Drive, etc. Instead, there is an icon on the touchscreen that the user – to call this person a driver is as silly as calling the person who rides an amusement park carousel horse an equestrian – taps to select forward and backward and so on.
It’s easy to make a mistake because there is no feel – other than the sensation of tapping the screen. It is not like pulling a lever backward – and past Reverse to Drive, which has a definite feel to it – though less so in most modern cars because the selector is now also an electronic control. Still, there’s a higher degree of physicality. Much more so than the tapping of what amount to apps. When you are tapping your smartphone’s screen, how often do you make a mistake?
Chao’s was fatal.
Her real mistake, of course, was buying such a dangerous device. A ’70s-era Pinto may have been vulnerable to exploding – if hit very hard from behind, with sufficient force to sever the fuel filler neck from the gas tank, which could result in both a leak and a spark that might trigger a fire (and potentially, an explosion). But the Pinto was, otherwise, not an unsafe car. It didn’t catch fire spontaneously, when parked. It didn’t catch fire when it was being fueled up. It didn’t drive itself into other cars – or people. And if you managed to back one up into a pond, the doors could be opened manually. Also the (usually) manual, crank-down windows.
No electricity – or computers – required.
Yet “Pinto” has become almost synonymous with “unsafe.” The car’s very name is the butt of jokes. It was the object of a massive recall and massively expensive (for Ford) litigation. Though the individual risk of a fire/explosion was extremely slight (more than three million were made over its ten year production run while the total number of confirmed fires was fewer than 30; if you’re interested in an interesting story about the Pinto, see here) the little Ford was pariah-ized by the media and gone after bigly by the “safety” apparat.
There’s an interesting incongruity in that.
Battery powered devices – not just those made by Tesla – have a built-in risk of spontaneously combusting. It is not necessary to run into one at high speed. They can – and have – caught fire while parked. And charging, due to the very high voltage involved and the heat involved. If the lithium-ion battery is immersed (especially in brackish/salty water) it can catch fire. Water will put out a Pinto fire. It can start an EV fire. Given that it commonly rains heavily – and that it is not uncommon for there to be high water in the road – this is certainly a safety issue.
If, of course, safety were the issue.
But it isn’t – which ought by now to be obvious. At least as regards battery-powered, electronic devices such as Teslas – but it’s not just them. It is all of them. The “safety” apparat looks upon their safety problems with interesting indifference. As if safety were much less important – to the apparat – than something else.
What’s much more important, of course, is the pushing of these devices – and getting the public to accept them.
It is already hard to get most people to accept them because of their limitations, as well as their cost. Only a relative handful of people will choose to buy an inferior device when a less-costly and superior alternative is available. But almost no one will knowingly choose to buy – and get inside – a dangerous device.
Ergo, the apparat must pretend not to see that these devices are exactly that. Just the same as the apparat pretended not to see that the mRNA drugs people were misled to believe were “vaccines” were dangerous – as well as ineffective.
This speaks to the actual motives of the apparat.
They have as much to do with “keeping us safe” as the calming cattle chutes designed by Temple Grandin had to do with keeping the cattle alive. Well, they did keep the cattle alive. Long enough to calmly walk those last 20 yards or so for their date with the knock-on-the-head.
And that – as the little song goes – is how we get hamburger.
. . .
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As bad as EVs are on the risk of explosion, they are not nearly as volatile as the hydrogen-fueled cars, which are literally bombs waiting to explode.
In fairness, the only way that Tesla made this accident more likely is the design of putting the car into drive or reverse. Other than that, Chao would likely have met the same fate in an ICE vehicle. Once a car goes into water, the door cannot be opened even if there is a manual release. The reason is physics. When there is air inside and water outside, the pressure is too great to open the door.
You can wait until the car fills with water but most people will drown in that scenario. Chao could not have used one of those window breaking hammers to exit because Tesla uses laminated glass on side windows. Most new cars will do the same soon due to new regulations. If your car goes into water, your best and often only chance to survive is to hit the DOWN button on the window immediately. Exit the car in under 30 seconds and your chance of survival is good. If you wait – or try to phone a friend – you’ll likely meet the same fate as Angela Chao.
I even as a young man. was capable of punching out a car window.
Anyone can break then with a sharp device…
Like the childish cyber truck that is bulletproof. How do you get out of the thing when the battery goes into thermal runaway and you cant open the fucking door or break the glass.
There is a video on youtube of a dude and his Tesla in flames. He almost did not get out alive. He had to break the window and crawl out.
I should add: The lithium battery flame temperature is about 3500F. That will leave a mark.
I spent today in the shotgun seat navigating a leg of a long RV trip. I did all the smartphone work. I lost track of the number of times the bouncing rig caused me to entirely miss what I was tapping and tap something else that had negative consequences. That was true of both the phone itself and the on-dash touch screen. An absolutely stupid user interface for anything involved in real safety.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iK_QuA6aR0k&si=E2VxhCDN6qjcvP70
From the inimitable Mr. Lehto.
News you can use.
Eric-and all-here is a short video of someone filming the veeeery loooong line of EV’s waiting to charge their vehicles. Talk about insane! How many of those EV’s will go completely dead just sitting there? And, it is not like a gas guzzler, where you can maybe quick drive to the next gas station, or quick put five gallons in your tank to tide you over until you DO get to the next gas station. Can you imagine if this was Winter time up here, and it was -40 below zero out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqEwLle8xKU
Is not a matter of time when electricity and fuel will run out and we’re back to the Great Depression when them fancy city workers turn into desperate farm workers hoping to do some work for the Amish in exchange for a simple meal?
According to Tesla, there are emergency, manual door releases in case the car has no power. Here’s how the Model 3’s emergency manual door release works: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2017_2023_model3/en_us/GUID-EA692A77-9F5B-44C4-B291-444263199337.html
MarkyMark: Of course, every owner has read the 303 page manual for the Model 3 cover to cover. The manual for my Fusion is 458! And surely, every salesman warns buyers that “If you drive your car into a lake, or the battery catches fire, you can open the doors with this little thing right here.”
I remember Ford falling flat on its face in 1955 with the seatbelt, padded dash and visors ads. For one thing, people do not want to think that they might be needed, so they don’t. And there are so many pages of WARNING! in every thing from toothpaste boxes to “Informed Consent” forms that nobody even looks at them now.
Uh, did you ever hear of a table of contents or an index? What about-gasp-using the search function for a pdf or online document? I did that with the above link, and the answer came right up! One would want to know how to get out of the car if the normal, powered mechanism isn’t working, correct?
I agree with manuals being too long; they’re like books! However, it’s something all manufacturers are guilty of, not just Ford or Tesla. The owner’s manual for my old, 2006 Nissan Altima was book length too. I wonder what’s going on? After all, the manual that came with my 1966 Chevy was a more manageable booklet that could be read in a matter of minutes.
I noticed the same thing with my two, Honda Helix scooters. I had a 1993 for a while. Later, I got a 2004. Now, other than the switch from steel wheels to aluminum in the early 1990s, the bike didn’t change during its production run. However, the manual for my ’93 Helix was a booklet like my ’66 Chevy had, whereas the one with the 2004 was approaching book size. Why did Honda lengthen the manual so much for a machine that didn’t really change over the years?
I haven’t read a manual cover to cover in years. I just use the index to find what I need when I need it.
MarkyMark: Surely, the way to do it is to download the .pdf and search. If nothing else you bypass all the “boilerplate”. I just suspect that the average person (I was going to say Joe, but caught myself) doesn’t do that. And the salesperson (darn, typed salesman first) sure won’t point out anything but the “Gee, Whiz!” stuff. When I worked at GM the joke was that the least used part of every car was the Owner’s Manual.
I used to pretty much scan every page of the manuals because there was almost always a surprise someplace. But looking through 300 pages is not worth it. I just find most surprises by “a delightful new discovery” or “man, I hate that!”
I saw a video online 2 years ago about the hidden manual door release lever.
The video was about how badly designed and hidden the release lever is. Because of this the victim may not of been able to get it to work anyways….is that what happened?….
This guy’s Tesla didn’t have the hidden rear door release installed…it was missing….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ei9A06ruRA
One thing that damned Ford was that they were aware of the fuel filler neck issue, yet they let it go anyway! They reasoned that it was cheaper to pay off any lawsuits than it was to properly fix the car the car before production began.
No they didn’t.
That was Mother Jones accusation to sell magazines and do a hit piece on Big Corporate/capitalism.
A lie repeated often enough….. is still a lie.
Read for yourself:
https://pdhonline.com/courses/r152/Ethics-Alternative%20Account%20of%20Pinto%20.pdf
The actual memo: https://www.autosafety.org/wp-content/uploads/import/phpq3mJ7F_FordMemo.pdf
The cost benefit equation was for the figures NHTSA had gathered for burn fatalities injuries and gas tank safety. It was a reference for the cost of a valve to prevent leakage in a rollover situation and whether it would be cost-effective to propose the regulation. NHTSA’s question to Ford. The valve cost would be spread across all manufacturers, not just Ford.
It covered all cars and light trucks produced annually, estimated to be 11-12 million. Not 11 million Pintos. [Over a 10 year run only 3 million were ever made].
[Side note: the Pinto was developed in 68-69 so was not even referenced in the NHTSA data as it had never been built yet and was not referring to rear end collisions in the first place]
It was a cost/benefit study at NHTSA’s request to help NHTSA with it’s own regulations. Even the Feds play at cost/benefit concerns, they just ignore the actual data.
Read for yourself.
The name Pinto was never even mentioned once. It was not the subject of the study. More Mother Jones 7vkkery and sensationalism.
The Pinto was no more prone to rear end fires than any other subcompact of the era, Vega, Colt, Gremlin, etc.
I would also recommend reading “Reckless Homicide?” 1980 about the Indiana case.
[…] Guest Post by Eric Peters […]
“After eating dinner together and celebrating the Chinese New Year on Friday night, Chao left the guesthouse around 11:30 p.m. to head back to the main house, where her son was sleeping. It was cold out, so she decided to take her Tesla Model X SUV for the four-minute drive rather than walk.”
So she was probably drunk as shit too, Chinese keep it super buttoned up except at CNY where they go nuts.
She died at a fancy glamping fake ranch tourist thing near Austin. It was cold so probably the people watching her die didn’t want to get wet and cold too, too dangerous and uncomfortable.
“At least one tow truck driver, however, said he was afraid of being electrocuted by the electric vehicle, a person at the scene told the paper.”
Lmfao
That would explain why she backed up into a pond. Being drunk would also explain why didn’t make use of the emergency manual door release. Here’s how it works in the Model S: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html
Bro you know she never read the owner’s manual
I got made fun of at work when I related that I had read the owners manual on my other vehicle that is semi-retired. Until one day one of my co-workers did not know something about her Dodge Charger, and suddenly, it was not so stupid a thing to do. You would be amazed what one can find in those things. There is much stuff in there regarding your vehicle that the dealership (and salesman) will not tell you.
Why didnt she or anyone else break a window is my question?
Tesla now uses laminated glass on the side windows. It is the same type of glass in windshields. It is nearly impossible to break. The window breaking devices that many people (like me) carry in their cars only work on tempered glass.
Mother Nature does not care if you make wrong decisions. We live in a tooth and claw universe, Natural Selection is always on, even for humans living in a modern world. If you make a fatal mistake, you’re out of the gene pool. The best one of all time, made it to the Darwin Awards, was the guy who strapped a JATO rocket engine in the back of his car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3WC4zL6tnw
Wiki – You all know about the Darwin Awards – it’s the annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year’s winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.
I have a title for a future essay:
Darwinian Fitness and the Rise of the Stupids. Mother Nature has the Last Laugh.
“Chao’s Tesla” looks like ‘chaos tesla’. Yes indeed. And where the hell is Ralph Nader? LOL Why no lawsuits against Elon Musk?
August 21, 1978 Nader Hits Ford on Recall
“Consumer activist Ralph Nader yesterday accused the Ford Motor Co. of deliberately delaying the recall of 1.5 million Pintos to correct potentially dangerous gasoline tanks.”
Where is Ralph Nader (or Leftist equivalent) on this Tesla safety issues? Is it they do not want to criticize EVs?
————-
Ralph Nader and the demise of the Pinto and Corvair
« on: May 19, 2008, 01:30:48 PM »
Well, Ralph Nader certainly was the catalist and voice that spelled the end of the Corvair and Pinto many years ago. Unfortunatly the Corvair really was a bad handleing car when they were first introduced but by the time Nader got wind of it Chevrolet had straightened out the problems and the 1965 and up Corvairs were much better and probably equal to any other car its size. The Pinto of course got its’ bad reputation when two girls got rear ended by a large truck going over sixty miles an hour and the gas tank suffered a pin size hole which sprayed gasoline thruout the car and the resultant fire caused a horrible death for the two occupants. A quick fix included a plastic deflector that would not allow spilled gasoline to spray forward but deflected it down. It is too bad that the Pinto got such a bad reputation from that one accident but even without a fire it is doubtful that anyone could walk away from that many tons hurtling down on them from from the rear. I drove my Pintos for many years after that and even got Pintos for my daughters who loved them. What kind of automobile enthusiast was Ralph Nader and what kind of cars did he drive? I have heard that he never learned to drive and to this day does not have a drivers license Interesting!
—————
I looked up Ralph Nader, he is still alive and recently wrote this essay:
How Many Gazans Have Already Died? Perhaps 200,000.
Ralph Nader • March 6, 2024 • 1,200 Words • 157 Comments • Reply
Yep, forget that 30K deaths as reported by the MSM – the real death toll in Gaza is much higher than reported because when you cover a genocide, always deflate the numbers, make it look no so bad.
check out tesla-fire dot com
101 ways to die in a Tesla
101 Ways to Die in a Tesla (courtesy tesla-fire dot com)
Get drunk and back your Tesla into the pond.
Drive through a puddle.
Fall asleep inside while charging and the battery ignites locking the doors.
Fall asleep at rest area, not charging, and battery ignites locking the doors.
Piss off Hillary Clinton and gets your Tesla remote controlled into a telephone pole.
Have the name Osama bin Laden and Tesla’s wifi is used to steer the Hellfire missile into the car as you travel in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.
Park next to a Tesla which catches fire and ignites your car too.
Have critical information about Boeing jets and driving home from work after being fired.
Fall asleep at the wheel with Tesla autopilot on the freeway which impacts a patrol car killing you instantly.
While driving over Donner Pass your Tesla gets trapped on the freeway and runs out of charge. It is 30 below and the snow is piling up a foot an hour. You try to walk back down the mountain to find the nearest phone but a 9′ Bigfoot jumps on the road and carries you back to his lair as food for his family. No one ever finds your body or learns what happened to you, but Dave Paulides writes the event in Missing 411 book sequel and the story is featured on Monster Quest.
You come home from work and park your Tesla in your garage and plug it in, in the middle of night the batteries catch on fire and burn your house down and your entire family, including your beloved Fido.
While driving at night a deer jumps in front and you steer into a tree and die then the car ignites turning you into charcoal saving your relatives the cremation fees.
You take a vacation to Mexico in your brand new Tesla only to have a 9 ton Olmec stone head fall on your car.
While camping in Texas in the dry summer, your Tesla auto ignites, you get out of the car successfully but get burned beyond recognition from the resultant brush fire. The fire burns 4 counties and turns East Texas into a disaster zone.
On a business trip to China, as you park your Tesla it takes off high speed and runs over 5 bystanders and you eventually lose control, the car crashes into a brick building, it explodes into fire killing you, which is lucky for you that the Chinese commies don’t get to torture you to death for the loss of their comrades.
You try to add fuel to the Tesla plug in, the fuel spills on you and ignites, burning you to a crisp, your car explodes, and the entire gas station is torched to the ground. The fire is so huge the orbiting Sky Lab takes pictures from space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P47zjQ_p2kI
A rocket in the back of his vehicle? For some reason, reminds me of Wile E. Coyote strapping a rocket to his back, in the hopes of catching up with the Road Runner. Did someone tell this guy that there are some things he sees on television, that he should not try in real life?
EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS:
https://the-pipeline.org/time-to-put-team-e-v-on-defense/
As the saying goes…..It’s time to put the pedal to the metal.
‘They must suffer a loss, and they must put all their energy into not suffering any more losses, to ensure that they don’t get the opportunity to come after our gasoline-powered cars again. In warfare, the only things that counts is the unconditional surrender of the enemy.’ — Buck Throckmorton
YEEHAW! Aux armes, comrades!
Drive the EeeVee rabble to their charging stations under withering small arms fire … then set them alight.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just
And this be our motto — In Oil is our trust
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave
— Francis Scott Key, The Star-Spangled Banner
Yes.
1. If somebody is trying to force or coerce you into doing anything, the proper response is not to negotiate, but to immediately push back. The person engaging in the coercion is most definitely not operating in good faith, so the only appropriate response is to say no unequivocally and to escalate the no until the attempted coercion ceases. These “climate” Marxists are not operating in good faith. At a minimum they need to be repeatedly told to fuck off.
2. As the article discusses, I’m afraid that the Marxists do need to feel some pain in response to their attempts to enslave humanity. Right now, they suffer no consequences at all and are often rewarded. Social and economic pressure in the form of ridicule, ostracization and boycotting probably would suffice. Of course, Pinochet and Franco felt the need to employ more extreme methods.
I wholeheartedly agree, ML. The problem with the Marxist lovers these days, is that they have not thoroughly read up on Karl Marx, his writings, what he really believed, and who he was (a Satanist, and a lazy f- as well). They have also never had to suffer under his “Manifesto” (bible) that Lenin judicially followed, that has lead to millions being brutally tortured, enslaved, worked to death, or starved to death. They think Marxism is the next, “sexy and cool thing around”, and will eagerly follow it. For such Marxist lovers have never had to suffer anything, let alone suffer under the rules of Marxism they think is so wonderful. And to try and educate them? Forget it, they would rightly be called “Useful Idiots”. It is just they are trying to forcibly drag the rest of us who know better down into the sewers of hell with them.
“If somebody is trying to force or coerce you into doing anything, the proper response is not to negotiate, but to immediately push back.”
I tried that with a Mexican cop once, he was demanding my name which I did not want to give, so I said my name was “Sledge Hammer”. He looked at me puzzled as his pig brained whirred and I laughed.
PS if a cop ever asks if you “understand” say no. Tell him that “you do not stand under him”. That prevent arrest. Little known fact.
NO I DO NOT UNDERSTAND, I DO NOT STAND UNDER YOU, MAY I GO?
Rastafarians, who parse language excellently, speak of “overstanding.” For instance, “I overstand what the politrickians were saying on the tell-lie-vision last night.”
Oops almost forgot;
Snob Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrinket
The door latching mechanism on Teslas has always creeped me out. I could not help but wonder what would happen if those computer operated latches would fail… If you aren’t sinking in water or the car isn’t on fire I suppose you would just call technical help.
Personally, I want actual mechanical latches on my car doors. The more complicated something is, the greater the likelihood of failure.
Speaking of Pintos, when I was a kid my dad got trapped inside my mom’s Pinto. This was because the budding criminal teenager across the street decided to steal the inside doorknobs. My dad got in, pulled the door shut and then realized he had no way out. I think he just honked the horn until my mom came out and opened the door for him. That’s about the only way you’ll get stuck in a car with mechanical door latches – if someone steals them!
The Neanderthal part of my brain (at least 95% lol) requires mechanically actuated devices in my vehicles. Digital systems fail ALL THE TIME.
I make my living working on a computer for 9 hours a day. Every time the program crashes and I lose work, I think of a plane going down or a car being piloted into a pond.
Why would I ever put my or my family’s safety in the hands of diversity hired electronic engineers? Because it’s the latest thing? It’s trending right now?
Neanderthal no like. Neanderthal want levers.
‘Neanderthal no like. Neanderthal want levers.’ — Philo Beddoe
Neanderthal want carved stone Olmec head dropped on Tesla from crane … like sculptor Chavis Marmol did in Mexico City (photo):
https://tinyurl.com/2sxy9e7f
Me like! Even better if Dirty Old Turtle inside … ‘turtles all the down.’ MWA HA HA HA
‘turtles all the way down’
It’s turtles all the way down the line
So to each their own ’til we go home
— Sturgill Simpson, Turtles All the Way Down
I read that story yesterday and wondered where all these people get all this money to drop 9 ton stone head on a brand new car – and then call it art.
almost the exact scenario happened to my neighbors Sr. father. I don’t know all the details because there is a lawsuit, and I just looked it up, and all news has been scrubbed, even off the police reporting.
I do know he was being driven around in his tesla by his caretaker, guessing just passing time, tooling around. In the lake it went, she got out, he didn’t. It was reported as a heart attack but I have my doubts.
Sad, he was a mentor to me.
“all news has been scrubbed,”
All these EV fires, crashes…..MSM won’t report them….any bad or negative news is banned…soon will be illegal….
The slave owner nobility is having a hard enough time already, trying to get the dumb slaves to buy these highly dangerous, defective pieces of crap as it is…..
The Felicity Ace had some electric vehicles onboard and it sunk 400 kilometers from the Azores, scuttled is what happened.
Teslas must have a ‘Titan dive mode’ in the software.
Too bad they aren’t hermetically sealed once they enter a body of water.
A tragic death, may she rest peacefully.
200,000 dead Gazans are a statistic.
When I first heard this story I immediately figured it was because the Tesla locked her in and she couldn’t get the doors or windows open, funny (not) how it took a few days for that factoid to leak out in the press. Just more evidence that the saaaaaafety cult is a cover for the control freaks.
Hi Musky ! Hows ur ides goin?
Glug glug glug
has anyone ever heard of a hammer? or a bullet to the window? the way i understand it the ”help” watched her die….hummmm..never even tried?..so no one even tried to bash the window out or perhaps after it was under water it is too late can’t get force behind a hammer but still…a lot of people stood around and watched her die. that is what i heard from a report on it. not sure if it is true.
can’t buy a minute of extra life with your billions. even billionaires get a ticket to the other side. pretty sick. the smart car so smart it kills you.
Seems easy, but it was fear of being electrocuted that prevented responders from entering the water in the first place. Would you enter water if lightning was constantly striking it nearby? Guarantee you they wanted to try, but no one outside of a husband, mother, or father would risk their life so easily to save someone like that.
Hmm… another good reason (as if there weren’t already a near infinite number) to always have a sidearm on your person.
I do have to shake my head at the thought of being electrocuted by the EV battery in water. You’ll really have to work at getting across that current path. Makes me wonder if there is more to this accidental death story…
the driver didn’t die by electrocution or so the paid liars say in the media. she drown. i am thinking the thing shorted out and there was no more electricity to it or the window and doors could be opened. wasn’t the case.
i can understand the fear..grab the person next to you and throw them in..did they get a shock? no…then it is safe…tongue in cheek of course. a little sarcasm.
death by tesla…the new normal! pretty brave people!! those who drive them and who own them. are playing russian roulette every day they sit inside on of those death machines….having the battery explode.
being cooked by the radiation the battery packs put off as well as all the electronics inside the vehicle that do the same thing.
having the car lock the doors and windows so you can’t escape if anything happens like driving into a pond or a fire starts…pretty brave people
taking a huge risk with themselves and their families. and willing to do it…or it would be called one of a kind stupidity! taking that kind of risk.
kind of like people taking selfies while being run down by a train or walking off a cliff doing the same thing. same level of stupidity at work.
goes to show that even rich people are stupid though they claim they are better then the rest of us…their money won’t buy them a minute more of life from a bad mistake.
I remember that Consumer Reports raked the 1958 Edsel over the coals because of its “Teletouch” electric push button shifting mechanism with the buttons in the middle of the steering wheel because people shifted gears when blowing the horn and because the car would get stuck in gear on a hill.
Didn’t we learn anything from that?
PS: I’d take an Edsel over a Tesla any day!
A electronic only door release! Talk about stupid! Even businesses are required to have a manual release fire exit door. I keep hearing this Musk character is a genius? Doesn’t take a genius stealing profits from other manufacturers using the Globull Warming scam. Nor does it take a genius to know a door should be mechanical in case of emergency.
Ken: Are not all “trunks” (where you stowed your stuff pre SUV) required to have a luminous tag hanging on a mechanical release? Seems like you have a better chance of escaping a ride in a Mafia Don’s trunk than in the “cockpit” of a Tesla.
We needed a rental car recently, decided to go with Hertz, don’t know exactly why. On the web site they were hawking a ‘managers special discount’ if you settled for an EV. No thank you. Leading up to the trip, they would E=Mail me offers for even deeper discounts, again no thank you. When I got to the counter, they tried one last time. Total discount was nearly half off, If I went with their ludicrous clown car. We chose the Mustang, which still has a surprising amount of ludicrous acceleration
E Vees are going extinct, again, as they did in the early days of automobiles. Cant wait to see what punishments await we plebs for our disturbing lack of faith in the green narrative.
Good grief, they were a bit push there, ‘eh? Yeah, forget the EV, I would have gone with a Mustang, too!
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” T. Jefferson
Thousands of $ of “safety features” in newer vehicles but
they are tech/electric tombs. Vehicle manufactures are
more concerned with meeting government agency
mandates than offering practical safety designs.
All vehicles should have a manual crank on the driver’s-
side window to allow exit in emergency situations.
I thought these things can be opened manually ( with a conventional lever just poorly hidden and pretty much where you would expect it)?
So, the Cocaine Turtle’s sister-in-law dies in a Tesla accident? Who pays for this? OK, they are rich beyond our imagination, and made their pile via Chicom shipping interests and kickbacks and perks of her sister marrying the leader of the Senate. However, who will pay for this as an accident? Insurance mafia to pay for the car at a minimum? Her life is compensated only by whatever Life Insurance she had? Perhaps the Life Insurance firm should sue Tesla for contributory cause of death? Maybe the auto mafia should raise the rates on EV’s? (not just everyone’s rates but that is happening because they are corrupt). The Cocaine Turtle is too feeble and corrupt to take this on but how about Rand Paul raise the question of EV safety in the Senate? After all, his colleague’s relative was just murdered by these devices.
Let’s make EV’s suffer the same regulation fate of cars when this sh’t happens and demand *something be done in the name of safety* regarding these dastardly evil EV’s and those greedy car companies that sell them. If the Cocaine Turtle’s Sister-in-law isn’t safe in these things, how can we? Let’s kill the EV mandate by Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafty.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/accelerating_the_electric_vehicle_doom_loop.html
From the linked article:
‘Mandate massive weight reductions in E.V.s by 2030, perhaps an across-the-board 25 percent reduction from the current “corporate average weight” of the E.V. fleet. There would be punitive taxes and levies for failure to comply.’ — Mike McDaniel
YES! I love it. Tax those EeeVee fatties and their lard-ass batteries.
Let’s not get hasty and find ourselves cheering for more government involvement. I want EVs to fail on their merits. Let the market handle this.
Given that the victim here was a VIP I would think this incident would attract some high powered law firm to sue the sh*t out of Tesla. Here’s hoping.
Hes currently too busy with the hamaster gunocide suit .
Many well-meaning commentators here are missing a larger point: we need lake control.
Prohibiting water features on private property will end tragic accidents like this one. /sarc
I have placed a call to Ralph Nader
The important people can have access to water. Mere serfs cannot be trusted with it.
Here’s another narrative about EVs that, unsurprisingly, is complete bull crap. A study found that instead of being “CLEANER”, EVs POLLUTE the environment 1,850 MORE TIMES than a regular gas powered automobile. However, I suspect that governments (including the U.S. & some state governments) that have been infiltrated by the WEF sociopaths will double, triple, or even quadruple down on trying to SHOVE EVs down the masses’ throats……..
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/electric-cars-pollute-1850-times-more-than-fuel-based-vehicles-study-finds/
Teslas have a feature called “auto park” where it will automagically move into (for example) a garage without anyone in the drivers seat. It is invoked by selection on the Tesla app, which like most modern software, is just a front end for a server that does the real work (think graphics terminal).
The “Epstein didn’t kill himself” crowd wet itself when this hit the wire services. The official answer of hitting the wrong button on the touchscreen is completely plausible, and probably likely, but no one buys it. Too many people have potential access to Tesla’s back office systems, too many potential spooks at key locations at Tesla… the conspiracy nuts have a lot of yarn to pull on this one.
The only thing I’ll mention is, as soon as I put my Cherokee in reverse, the center console display becomes a rear view monitor, the center of the instrument cluster changes from the normal digital speedometer to a graphic of the car with sensor feedback and the radio mutes. It is very hard to not realize you’re in reverse. I have to imagine Teslas have much the same sort of activity, probably more.
That’s all I have to say about that.
Hmmm.. RK.
I never considered “The Micheal Hastings” option!
Stupidity should be painful. Increasingly, it is.
CHINESE SPY DIES IN DROWNING: WELL THATS THE FIRST GOOD THING TESLAS HAS DONE IN A WHILE….PITY HER SIS WAS NOT IN THE PASS SEAT. GOOD RIDDENCE.
I get all the lessons here about the dangers of EeeeVeees but something seems off about this story. So she taps the reverse icon instead of drive. Does it take off backwards at ludicrous speed? I’m surprised she couldn’t have just hit the brakes. Looking at the pic of her spread it isn’t that far from driveway to water but she probably had to hop a curb at least. It’s possible someone was sending a message of some sort to Mitch McChao. These known to be glitchy devices would be a perfect cover for a hit.
I wondered that too, but didn’t want to get into stereotypes about drivers.
That sounds ultra creepy and “conspiracy theorist”, Funk, but the sad thing is, it is a real possibility. It sure does not give any good PR to EV’s, though. Oh, and sadly, I think the “Conspiracy Theorist” crowd are starting to run out of conspiracies, and they have been coming true. What a bizarre world we live in.
“conspiracy theorist”
Someone said….better to have a tin foil hat then a blindfold….lol
“better to have a tin foil hat then a blindfold”
Oh, I like That One, a LOT.
Thanks.
Of course, we know that the CIA used the term “conspiracy theory” to discredit anybody questioning the official narrative of JFK’s assassination. That the term is most useful in getting people to suppress their own gut sense or human intuition (which is often correct) and self-censor about a given situation. That same tactic has been employed more recently with the admonition of “CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION.” Yet another means of dumbing down the public and getting people to shut down their inquiring minds.
Critical thought of official narratives will not be tolerated, citizen.
The news reports (and yes, I take them with a grain of salt) states that this is the not the first time Chao has made the mistake of putting the car in reverse believing it was in drive. The new cars today you push a button in and push “up” to go into Reverse rather than “down”. If you were born before 1985 this totally messes with your head especially because Reverse is equated to down and back.
I seriously believe the auto companies are trying to kill us. Why mess with a gear shifter that we have practiced on for 50-100 years. New is not always right or safe and if it ain’t broke it does not need to be fixed, revised, or updated.
Recently read a (old saying, Zen?) about a fence/gate(?) going across a a road. Some people found it, didn’t like it, wanted to tear it down cause they couldn’t think of a reason for it being there.
The response from on high (or from an old human?) was ~ if you don’t know why it’s there, don’t remove it until you do. There’s likely a very good reason it’s that way.
Stuck with me ever since: “don’t remove/change/alter/modify it until you know ‘The Why’ of the the way it is”.
Always used to follow that in a way, just never saw it pointed out like that.
“Why mess with a gear shifter that we have practiced on for 50-100 years. New is not always right or safe and if it ain’t broke it does not need to be fixed, revised, or updated.”
Yup, We are the carbon they want to reduce.
‘They Want You Dead’
… “Would you believe I wrote in 2009, “It is not monsters from space that are planning this attack but human monsters who make rapists and your typical mass-murderers look like choir boys? It takes a special type of human consciousness, something beyond arrogance, and hate [sic] to plan a simultaneous assault on billions of people. And it takes an extreme weakness of the human spirit to bend over and let what is planned come into play. This attack is being financed and planned, not in secret but in full view and is almost guaranteed to be fully implemented someday.”…
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/05/mark-sircus/they-want-you-dead/
The Medical Industrial Complex has some 250,000 deaths due to ineffective treatment, wrong medications, surgical mistakes, sometimes, maladministration, it is business as usual.
warfare, like healthcare pays, death is a commodity. Especially in Ukraine and Gaza. Israel too.
All wars are economic wars, death is part of the plan. Every dead body pays, why you have counts.
Bomb out the hospitals. What for? It might be better to stop, eventually, it won’t pay.
“It is somewhat reassuring that some of those doctors were hung.” – Dr. Mark Sircus
Well, if the doctors are female, women, they’re not hung.
The men doctors are undoubtedly hung.
I’m hung.
When it is a death sentence by hanging, you are hanged.
Not to be a grammar freak, look it up.
Dang me, dang me
They oughta take a rope and hang me
High from the highest tree – Roger Miller, Dang Me
RG: I have never understood why that, when “floor shift” in consoles controlling automatic transmissions first showed up, the chance to put forward for forward, and back for back was missed. All they really did was move the pattern developed for the steering column to the floor. No thought of an innovative approach to the pattern.
I have seen several of the GM “dream cars” and the stuff they actually drove around the area of the Tech Center in Warren in the early ’60s. The ones with joy sticks, instead of steering wheels, were left/right as was natural, and forward/backward like they should be. Somehow it was never made the standard for console controls.
She should have had one of those “break a window hammer” contraption thingy hanging from her rearview. It would have at least given her a fighting chance. In fact Tesla should make the manual hammer a lease-option upgrade for those people who like to try to stay alive. Or if people don’t like to use manual labor, what about an icon on the Tesla screen that says “break glass in case of emergency!” and the car does it automatically. Of course they have to make it at least 5 screens in so people don’t keep busting out their windows by mistake. Tesla should hire me for safety design.
Even the now-universal automatic door locks probably have killed some drivers who got submerged in floods, when rescuers couldn’t open the door.
NHTSA should hire me as safety czar. Rule #1: no frickin’ EeeVees in the employee parking lot. We are going to regulate by setting a good example.
You have to be quick thinking & roll down the windows instantly. Once submerged the water pressure my prevent the windows from being opened. Think I saw that on a show in the 70’s.
They did that on Mythbusters. It’s almost impossible to open a door under water until the car is depressurized, meaning, it’s filled with water. You have to be calm and patient while the water rises, take one last deep breath and then you should be able to open the door easily and swim out.
Of course the automatic window breaker will be electronically controlled.
Haha good one
RE: “one of those “break a window hammer” contraption thingy hanging from her rearview”
They make a keychain thingie, too, it has a seatbelt cutter as well.
Been thinking of getting a few.
…$$$spent on devices, to deal with so-called, safety devices.
Such technological progress, it’s mind-blowing.
Make it subscription based – no release of the hammer unless you have paid the monthly fee.
*desperately tries to punch in credit card number, as in-rushing water reaches his knees*
Login/Sign up?
We’ve sent you a one-time passcode to your email…please wait 5-10 minutes for it to arrive
Space X powered ejection seat?
Pug,
Try explosive bolts , just like how Dave fixed HAL in 2001…..
OK, I forgot ….explosive bolts could, potentially be, in a hypothetical situation a Saaaaaaaaaafty Hazard.
Scratch that.
It wouldn’t have worked. Tesla has laminated glass on side windows. It is the same type of glass in windshields. Those little hammers won’t break laminated glass. Side windows used to be tempered glass but a couple people were ejected from cars in accidents through side windows. So now more cars have laminated glass on side windows. I believe it is a regulation that will apply to all cars soon. If your car goes into the water, your best chance is to open the window in the first 10 seconds before the water shorts out the mechanism. Swim out within 30 seconds and you’ll probably survive. If you wait, your chance of surviving falls dramatically. Technically you can wait for the car to fill with water until the pressure is equalized so that you can open the car door but realistically, most people cannot do this. The car can be upside down and deep in the lake/ocean by the time this happens. Most people will drown in this scenario.
I cannot imagine the horror suffered by both the victim, and those attempting to rescue her as they watched her slowly go under, and probably exhibit a great deal of frantic effort to escape.
I wonder if the thought ever crossed her mind that acquiring a Tesla was a bad idea. Let us hope and pray that she did not die in vain, and lots more folks are now “hesitant” about EVs in general.
Hi John,
I am with you. I am sorry to hear she passed and it was a terrifying way to go. I am not a fan of Mitch and Elaine, but I feel for their loss.
Personally, I don’t believe someone was out to get her, but I could be wrong. The electronic devices on these cars are interconnected. If something glitches you cannot override it. I speak from experience, which is why I will NEVER buy a car made after 2014. New cars are the unsafest things on the road. I believe this is just one of many occurrences to take place in the coming years.
I just bought an almost 20 year old Suburban last week. It runs well. We put new tires on it, changed the oil, no WiFi, no Blue Tooth, and plenty of room. I would not take a new car today if I was given one for free. They are that frightening to me.
I doubt Mitch has driven a car in decades. He rides in the back of a limo. Which is a major reason he gives not one shit about destroying the auto industry. And so he does.
Along with the rest of the limousine riders. If he, or any other of the limousine riders had been caught in this situation, it would have given me a big yawn.
Not that I’m the most informed guy in the room but, I hadn’t heard about this latest Death By Tesla.
The only Musk-related news I’ve seen is of the latest Space-X launch that crashed back to Earth after taking a few pics from high above. This was called a “success” by Teslarati news organizations as they regurgitated the Musk Rat’s press release.
Don’t think for a minute that this woman’s death will change the direction of all things EV. She’s just another egg…the omelet will be ready soon.
Hi Mark,
I saw that news item about the Space-X rocket as well, that’s three in a row that have blown up, I guess the -X is shorthand for “explodes”. 😆. Seriously if that’s a “success” what does a failure look like? Wouldn’t want to be an astronaut riding on that rocket.
‘there is an icon on the touchscreen that the user taps to select forward and backward and so on.’ — eric
User interface (UX) design is critical in potentially dangerous equipment. This has been confirmed in post-mortem analyses of nuclear power plant accidents, in which the emergency cooling valve controls didn’t do what the operators thought they did. AND in the two Boeing 737MAX crashes, in which the elementary maneuver of pulling back the stock to climb failed to move the elevators, because a computer (MCAS) overrode the command.
Even if a gear selector no longer moves a mechanical linkage, it is intuitive and relatively mistake proof. Whereas tapping a screen icon to shift produces very random results, for reasons ranging from ‘fat fingers,’ to confusing one icon with another, to confusing one menu screen with another.
Lack of mechanical door linkage is obviously unsafe — as has been discussed here for years. It was only a matter of time till someone drowned. By chance, it was the scion of a wealthy, politically-connected family. Let’s hope they sue Tesla into the ground for its poorly designed, patently dangerous deathtrap EeeVees.
Since the EV has no transmission, I suspect reverse is simply a polarity reversal. Nothing about it mechanical.