Deaths in Tesla Model S crash might have been prevented by common safety system

Pretty hard to argue against any of your points. In my active career, I was involved with several automotive safety systems, and I remember how it sometimes took an incident to get a management team focused on the need for improvements. There in nothing evil going on; it is just where things come on the list of priorities. Thus, I feel certain that Tesla - as of an hour ago - has accelerated their efforts to add a some or all of the features you highlighted. After all, they seem to have done many, many things very well in their design.
We have an S on order, and I am hopeful that some of these improvements will make it into our car before delivery.
Thanks for being so vocal.
Ed Hart

Government safety officials should also investigate and study the Tesla crashes. The Tesla & it's driver rear-ended a car, killed three people and set their car on fire burning them alive.

There should be transparencies & honesty in the studies & investigations. Tesla needs to be more transparent & honest. Tesla needs to stop cherry picking, spinning & suppressing information that shows safety problems with Tesla. Tesla needs to start making safety a top priority.

"Safest" & "highest rated" car keeps catching fire, exploding, injuring people and killing people.

Tesla is known to have many safety problems that may have contributed to these deaths & fiery crashs. Tesla is known to have problems with the brakes. Tesla's cockpit layout & controls have been scrutinized for safety concerns. Tesla drivers have often had problems operating the controls. Tesla drivers are often get used to the regen braking, thus become unfamiliar and uncoordinated with using friction brakes. In panic braking situations, Tesla drivers often don't respond properly. The displays can also contribute to driver inattention.

How did the thieves steal the car that crashed in West Hollywood? Didn't the Tesla service center secure the keys? Did thieves find a security vulnerability to exploit? Do Tesla's have security exploits that make them easy to steal? If Tesla really cared about safety, it would make its cars harder to steal.

I think the high-speed pursuit & crashes were reckless and unnecessary. Didn't the Tesla have GPS tracking enabled? If so law enforcement could have intercepted the thieves which would have likely been a lot more safe, then a high-speed pursuit. Tesla needs to make public safety a higher priority, it should cooperate more with law-enforcement and emergency responders.

If safety was a top priority of Tesla's, they would have a secure way to wirelessly disable their vehicles, if the vehicles are reported stolen or fleeing from police at high speed. Simply disable the drive unit, so the vehicle coasts to a stop, When the vehicle stops engage the parking brakes. In most cases that ought to be much more safe, then a high-speed pursuit. It would probably save lives & property. Tesla needs to catch up with technology, it is lagging behind. Tesla needs to make safety a top priority.

The stolen Tesla crashed disintegrated and erupted into an inferno, with explosions, shrapnel and toxic fumes. The Tesla's drive battery broke into several burning pieces. Battery cells were exploding spreading fire and toxic fumes. The exploding batteries were shooting up in the air about 60 feet like roman candles, but with toxic fumes. Tesla should work to make its batteries safer.

The Tesla crash put the public and emergency responders at risk.

Modern metal light poles, are typically designed to breakaway during a high-energy accident. So the fact that the Tesla split in two, suggests that the Tesla has a structural weakness.

In real-world conditions, Teslas kill people, injure people, suddenly quit, brakes fail, catch fire, explode, etc. yet Tesla fan boys say that is safe. The facts prove that Tesla is unsafe. No wonder Tesla is nicknamed the Toaster. A Tesla killed three people in this crash, yet Tesla fan boys are spamming comments claiming it is safe. Tesla fan boys have no respect for the dead, public safety, truth or science.

Tesla have been warned repeatedly that the Model S brakes are defective.
They chose to sweep the problem under the carpet.

Defective brakes THE SMOKING GUN
Dr. Bob Reinke | 26 MARS 2014
Have several times complained to the Chicago service center about this life threatening problem and been told that the brakes will always disable and overcome the the go-peddle. There are several problems with this false statement: I have tested the sequence on my P85 and found that if you are on the brake and enable the go peddle, the car goes. If you have enough brake peddle left, you can slow the car. The reason I say, "Enough brake peddle left," is because my brake peddle fades to the floor in about 5 to 20 seconds, depending on the previous brake use. The fading is worst in heavy stop and go traffic. The brake and go-peddle have a little over an inch side clearance in my Tesla and I can normally stop the car with my foot 7/8 on the brake peddle; however, that leaves enough of my size 10s hanging off the brake peddle, and over the go-peddle. Enough to depress the go-peddle when the leaking brakes bleed down to allow my shoe to engage the go-peddle. At that point, pressing harder on the floored brake peddle only depresses the go-peddle harder. With no further brake force, the Tesla rockets into whatever is in front of you.
when complaining about this problem at the Chicago service center, I was told that the Model S brakes don't bleed down. I found that the brakes in 6 of the 10 cars in for service all bled to the floor in less than 20 seconds. Then I was told that I was pressing too hard. How hard does Tesla think the driver is going to depress the brakes while it is charging into the rear of the car in front of him.
The unexpected acceleration is caused by several Tesla faults: The close proximity of the use diametrically opposed peddles---My 56 Oldsmobile had about 7 inches between. Perhaps they were smarter then? The brakes under NHTSA are supposed to override the throttle. Tesla brakes leak-down making them worthless, and let the shoe push the go-peddle. The Gong is ineffective because it sounds incessently over inconsequential alarms. Who is listening for a gong while your car is pushing the car ahead of you into the car in front of him. I now drive wothout shoes, so I can feel my foot on the break, or touching the go-peddle. The right fix would be to move the peddles, or perhaps make the return spring on the go beddle stiffer to telegraph to your shoe it is on it; however, if Tesla is too cheep to fix the peddles the cheaper fix is a keyboard stroke to properly softwear shut-down the go-peddle while the brake peddle is off the home proximiry switch.

I was told by the service tech that the brake always overrides the go peddle. Then he held the brake while he floored the go peddle, the rear of the Tesla humped up like a bull in heat and burned two black marks under the rear tires. Just like my Toyota did before the fix. Then he said that the brakes actually reduced the power of the drive motors. Obviously, it didn't reduce the power enough to prevent the Model S from taking off after the brake peddle bled to the floor in stopped traffic.

Perhaps the most relavant question should be can Elon afford to pay 4 billion dollar penalty (GM) for failing to respond to a clear safety problem? All the ridicule and smart remarks on this thread only iritate and resolve nothing of the problem. Apparently, those who are having the Uncontrolled Acceleration problem are the only who understand the danger.

Undoubtedly, there are the smart elete reading this who can never make a mistake, who will pick this entry apart, and solve nothing--but that prevents no deaths caused by an easily softwear mended malfunction. The fix costs is so little to save one life

Dozens more similar complaints from owners.
It's a disgusting scandal that children had to die before anything was done to fix the problem.
Recall this death machine NOW before other innocent lives are lost.

Since you mention it, John - the Eyesight that is available on the Subaru Forester is still Gen 1, and basically adds about $800 to the cost of the car. (The All Weather Package on a Premium Forester adds $500 to the MSRP - the bundle of AWP plus Eyesight adds $1295.) The Eyesight on the 2015 Legacy and Outback is Gen 2, and on the Premium Legacy is available in a bundle with Blind Spot Detection and Rear Cross Traffic Alert for $1295. (The Outback adds $1695, because it also adds in the power rear lift gate.)

So we're talking $26,362 MSRP for a nicely equipped 2015 Premium (cloth seats) Legacy - WITH Eyesight. I realize that Eyesight may not have prevented the collision - but as the IIHS points out, it should reduce the collision from, say, a 40 mph crash to a 15 mph crash - and guess what? It MIGHT have prevented this crash.

I cannot believe the hypocrisy going on in both this article and some of the replies below. There are 200,000+ auto fires causes by crashes reported in the United States. Yet, Tesla has three or four of its cars involved in crashes resulting in fire and the entire world of Fossil Fuel Paid Trolls run out and dump on Tesla, like it was producing something equivalent to the 1970s era Ford Pinto. Remember, the Ford Pinto, with its "exploding gas tanks?" Of course, you don't.

The reason the Model S has not been tested by IIHS is because IHSS had decided not to. Tesla, has requested IIHS testing (to include the Small Overlap Test) multiple times. You will have to ask IIHS why it refuses to test the Tesla Model S. What are they afraid of? Are they afraid of having to give the Model S, their coveted Safety Pick + designation based on the outstanding NHTSA crash test results that Tesla and its Model S obtained?

In all Model S accidents, not one Tesla owner/driver was fatally wounded or even seriously injured. Is Tesla, now responsible for Thieves and their law breaking behavior? The Tesla driver was at fault for rear-ending another vehicle, but that would be the case regardless of which vehicle the Tesla rear-ended. When you rear-end someone, you will 99.99% of the time be deemed "at fault."

Regarding this so-called "Forward Crash Prevention Technology" that Tesla allegedly refuses to implement in their vehicles. No matter what you call it: Intelligent Break Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Warning, etc., the DRIVER is ALWAYS the best "Safety Device" in the vehicle. Following too closely (less than 1 vehicle lengths distance from the vehicle directly in front of you, for ever 10 mph that your vehicle is traveling) is something that I am 100% the writer of this article did on his way to work today and will be something that he does on his way home after work today. 90% - 97% of drivers on U.S. roads today are not just Tailgaters but CHRONIC TAILGATERS and should be cited by law enforcement and dealt with severely. Tailgating is the Number #1 cause of crashes and it drastically decreases safety margins at ANY speed (highway or street driving). No automobile manufacturer should be held responsible for Chronic Tailgaters. Those people need to be taken off the road, but if you did that - nobody in the United States of America would be driving. You would shrink traffic down to 10% its normal density, if you took car of all the CHRONIC TAILGATERS.

Lastly, I'm not arguing that installing a Radar coupled to a Camera in the front of a vehicle and then designing an algorithm to slow the vehicle down to reduce the impulse force of an imminent collision is not a good idea. In fact, it is a wonderful progressive safety feature that all automobiles should have. I am 100% behind any effort to reduce collisions and no one should be against that. But, to sit here and pontificate on the physics behind this particular collision and then take the leap of faith in logic to conclude that "if" this particular Model S had anti-frontal collision technology, that the occupants of the Toyota, would not have suffered fatal injuries, is way over the top and holistically decoupled from any real empirical evidence.

You DO NOT KNOW the kinetics of this particular collision. You CANNOT say with any degree of certainty that such technology would have increased the probability of preventing fatalities more than Toyota, building a car that withstands rear impacts more effectively with less deformation. The fact of the matter is that the Model S, has received stellar marks from NHTSA. No vehicle as ever received higher marks in the history of NHTSA testing.

So, yes - Tesla, would do well to include anti-frontal collision technology, but let's not sit here and pile on a car company that has defeated all the naysayers who said that the government would never get its money back because Tesla, was doomed to fail right from the beginning. Not only did the government gets its money back, but Tesla, paid off its loans way ahead of time and became a profitable car company in record time as well - debunking all the critics stories about how the company would never make it and ultimately fail as a concept.

- Get the damn Tailgaters off the road.
- Build more Five Star Safety Rated electric cars with as much appeal such as the Model S.
- Stop making hugely ugly electric cars as a Freakish Sideshows to Fossil Fuel Dinosaur products.
- Teach United States Drivers HOW to "think and behave" on the roads of America.
- Include Crash Prevention Technology that actually works and make it Standard Equipment.

These are some of the critical keys to making our highways, streets and roads a safer place to travel. Sitting back blaming an outstanding new electric car company, merely because it successfully extracted its driver/owner from another collision without major injury, is definitely NOT the answer.

Either it's the safest and most advanced personal mode of transportation on the planet , or... It's not. Sitting this (high speed) accident aside, I believe the Tesla S to be an under - equipped luxury sedan.

As mentioned above in the book length diatribe, it's not a mater of $. Get on it Musk, the world is watching.

John, you fail to understand the major security aspect of the Model S is in the. architecture. Trust me I have been in collisions like this before.The front of a cheap Ford Focus was smashed, engine block moved forward and crushed, penetrated the body of a friend killing him in few minutes. You talk about an accessory like collision detection. Good news is that has been adding more and more features fast and it has stated it will be the first to make available auto pilot systems which has potential to be more relevant than your anti collision system. The Model S damage seems really minor when compared to the destruction witnessed here. Incredible, unique, clever and safest architecture.

How about this for a headline "Toyota Corolla Death-Trap Kills Three in Gasoline-Fueled Fire" Toyota should be forced to make their cars safer. This accident could have been easily created by any medium/large SUV on the street. Tesla gets the safety awards because their drivers are still alive after every accident. The other car makers should strive to match Tesla's safety. We all know that if this was a Suburban hitting the Corolla and causing the fire, it would have not even been covered on national news outlets. But, because a Tesla is involved, it makes international news. And for all those that are unaware, the Tesla is already "braking" before the driver even touches the brake-pedal, it is called regenerative-braking and can easily qualify as a passive forward crash-prevention system.