Tesla's "Brake Gate" revelation 2: How human society can get along with smart electric vehicles

The debate and even controversy caused by Tesla's "brake gate" is evolving from a simple rights protection incident to a public event for the entire society.

It involves not only the safety rights and interests of consumers, but also the capacity of third-party supervision, as well as how each country's market can neutrally manage electric vehicles.

Therefore, while there is still no conclusion as to whether Tesla can stop, it is precisely from Tesla’s current experience that we can see the problems that the entire smart electric vehicle industry urgently needs to face and solve.

It actually involves two core issues?

1. How do consumers drive and use highly intelligent electric vehicles? Do ordinary people need to undergo certified training to purchase and use intelligent electric vehicles?

2. How do relevant management departments such as automobiles manage smart electric vehicles? After an accident dispute occurs, are there sufficient technical capabilities and authority to determine the responsibility for the accident?

A derivative question is, as car data becomes increasingly important at all levels, how can car owner data and personal privacy be coordinated? Where are the management rights and boundaries of car data?

As for the sensation Tesla has caused in the automotive industry in recent years, there are several specific problems with Tesla:

1. Is electric vehicles’ excessive pursuit of acceleration limits one of the causes of electric vehicle braking accidents?

2. What are the differences between smart electric vehicles and fuel vehicles? Are Tesla’s courses for training electric vehicle consumers sufficient?

3. Is the special driving mode of single-pedal kinetic energy recovery mode likely to cause traffic accidents? Is Tesla over-innovating in terms of ignoring traffic safety?

4. The direct sales model allows car brands to face consumers directly. Does it easily lead to disputes? What are the disadvantages of the direct sales model?

To be more specific, these questions require that modern society is ready to live with smart electric vehicles in a legal manner?

Let's go back to the first specific question. In almost all of Tesla's accidents, there was no slow-speed collision brake failure. Most of them were sudden acceleration. If Tesla's final conclusion is that there is no problem with the car, then the most likely possibility is that the accelerator was mistaken for the brake.

If the assumption is true, then the direct cause of so many serious consequences is that electric vehicles accelerate too quickly, causing many novice drivers to be unable to adapt. Of course, this is not a problem for Tesla alone, but a problem for the entire industry.

Electric vehicles’ blind pursuit of acceleration limits is a disease and must be treated!

We can see from Tesla's official website that the official acceleration of the new Model S Performance Edition from 0 to 100 km/h is less than 2.1 seconds, which means that no fuel supercar can surpass Tesla in acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h, and the price is only 1.2 million.

If we take into account Tesla's latest sports car, the Roaster, which has not yet been launched, its acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h is said to be an astonishing 1.8 seconds.

If the Roaster is not aimed at the general public, let’s take a look at the Model 3.

The Model 3 Performance version currently available for purchase only costs RMB 330,000 and can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in just 3.3 seconds, which is as fast as the Porsche 911 Carrera 4s, which costs more than RMB 1 million more.

Electrification has brought the acceleration performance of supercars directly into the price range of mid-size sedans, allowing more people to enjoy the exhilarating feeling brought by acceleration. However, such high horsepower with no threshold is bound to bring greater risks, after all, the consumer groups are completely different.

Most families who buy supercars are not buying their first car. Instead, they are enthusiasts who pursue the ultimate. They have a better grasp of the performance and status of the vehicle. In the 300,000 yuan range, there are more family users. The users of the vehicles include young people, beginners, and female drivers with poor skills. They cannot easily master such a high-horsepower vehicle.

In addition, the throttle response of electric vehicles is different from the acceleration of fuel vehicles. Fuel vehicles need to increase the speed before they can fully release the power, while electric vehicles can reach maximum torque in an instant with almost no delay. That is, after the accelerator is used as a brake, it is basically in a full acceleration state, and the fault tolerance rate is very low.

It can be said that it is precisely because of the characteristics of electric vehicles and the low prices of high-performance models entering the market that more users who are not capable of affording high-performance vehicles have been able to buy high-performance vehicles. It is questionable whether the current Tesla accident has a positive correlation with this.

In many articles, Zhijiajun has called for speed limits on the acceleration performance of electric vehicles for the mass market.

In the article " Electric vehicles' blind pursuit of acceleration limits is a disease that must be cured! " published by Zhijia.com in 2017 , we introduced that in 1947, Dr. John Paul Stapp began to conduct various human overload and impact endurance tests on himself.

In 1954, Dr. Stapp set the fastest acceleration and stopping record in human history in New Mexico, USA: 46.2G.

In order to study the damage of windshields during high-speed flight and the pilots' ability to withstand strong airflow, Dr. Stap conducted experiments on a rocket-type sled without a windshield. For the experiments, Dr. Stap suffered various injuries many times, including multiple fractures of ribs and limbs, retinal detachment, multiple blood vessel ruptures and complex multi-organ injuries.

*Crazy doctor and his severely congested and deformed face

Dr. Stapp brought us extreme data. However, ordinary people will experience severe dizziness, nausea and vomiting under 3G acceleration conditions. Under 5G conditions, the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems will be severely damaged and life-threatening, unless you are a professionally trained astronaut or pilot.

Taking Tesla Model S P100D as an example, under ideal conditions, it can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in about 2.3 seconds. The initial velocity is zero. Substituting into the acceleration formula a=v/t, 96km/h is about 26.7m/s, and the acceleration is about 11.6m/s⊃2; equivalent to 1.2G.

Similarly, the Model 3 High-Performance Edition with a 0-100-kilometer acceleration of 3.3 seconds is equivalent to 0.84G; the new Roaster with a 0-100-kilometer acceleration of 1.8 seconds is equivalent to 1.54G.

Don't underestimate this 1.54G. Ordinary people can feel discomfort under such acceleration. Although the injuries suffered in the above experiments are not as severe and the body feedback is not as obvious, for an untrained person, this discomfort can threaten the complete driving.

At such a high speed, the difficulty of braking naturally increases exponentially.

It involves a person's reaction time and a car's braking distance.

There are two processes during each emergency braking: one is the reaction process, and the other is the deceleration process.

Studies have shown that the average person's braking reaction time is 0.4 seconds, which means that during this 0.4 seconds, your car is still driving normally.

To give a simple example, when a Tesla Model S P100D is accelerating by flooring the accelerator, assuming it has accelerated for one second, then your speed has reached 11.6m/s, or 41km/h. Suddenly someone rushes out at this moment, and your reaction time is 0.4 seconds. During this time you have no time to take any action as you are still accelerating.

In this 1.4 seconds, your car will travel 1/2*11.6*1.4⊃2;=11.368m, plus the braking distance, this will be a very long journey, which poses many hidden dangers to safe driving.

The current number of Tesla Model 3 in China has reached nearly 200,000 units.

For a period of time, an average of one braking accident was reported on the Internet every day. This is certainly related to the increase in its ownership, but Tesla and management departments need to be vigilant as to whether it is related to its overly fast acceleration performance.

However, the pursuit of acceleration performance in electric vehicles is not an isolated case, but a common phenomenon in the industry.

Currently, there are many car models and brands that claim to have better acceleration performance than Tesla. The reason behind this is of course to show off their skills and to serve as a marketing gimmick.

Zhijiajun believes that on the one hand, as a brand, it is completely possible to use software to limit it, and more thresholds need to be set to allow car owners to fully release the power, while hiding such violent performance in daily driving.

On the other hand, automobile management departments or traffic management departments should establish regulations to prohibit cars that can accelerate from 0 to 100 kilometers in less than 2.5 seconds from being driven into ordinary roads.

It is urgent to limit the speed of electric vehicles. This is not to restrict innovation, but to set rules for electric vehicles.

At the same time, innovations such as single-pedal mode, autonomous driving assistance, and touch control of common functions have only been tested for too short a period of time and used by ordinary adult consumers, with too little data. As for innovative inventions such as the cancellation of the manual gear position in Tesla's new Model S Plaid version, regulators need to play a role in determining whether they are overly innovative, and whether they can be put on the market for sale requires advice.

For consumers, these innovations mean that the threshold for car awareness will be further raised. Tesla has an obligation to strengthen owner training when selling new cars, rather than simply posting a video introducing the functions and calling it a day.