A witness at the crash scene in downtown 海角社区官网in late October recalled the sole survivor聽of the Tesla was pulled out to safety after rescuers used a bar to smash her window. It鈥檚 easy to imagine that, with the car鈥檚 electrical system disabled by the crash, the other passengers simply couldn鈥檛 figure out how to open the doors to escape in time. The Tesla Model Y鈥檚 flush exterior handles would have been of no use to responders with the doors locked, even had they known to push their trailing edges to access them.
It is a growing fashion, particularly among electric vehicles, to use electrically operated door handles. No longer a purely mechanical operation, they now involve switches, actuators and a controller, and they require power to function.
Vehicles with these systems do have redundant emergency mechanical interior releases, but, as they are not always obvious, and they鈥檙e not used in normal circumstances, occupants may not be aware of them.
That can be fatal.
This has directly contributed to at least one death, in 2015, when a Corvette owner was trapped after his weakened battery prevented the doors from being opened conventionally or the windows lowered, and he succumbed to heat exhaustion. It鈥檚 not clear whether this was a factor in the deaths of the four people in the fiery crash of the Tesla in 海角社区官网last fall.
The Model Y鈥檚 mechanical backups are described in the vehicle鈥檚 manual. Dr. Birsen Donmez, professor at the University of Toronto鈥檚 Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, and a long-time researcher of human factors聽relating to transportation, notes, however, that typically 鈥 鈥 no-one sees聽the driver鈥檚 manual, so it鈥檚 not a reasonable expectation that your average driver is going to know what to do in that situation.鈥
Electric door releases are not found solely in sports cars or in Teslas and other EVs; Lincoln鈥檚 Continental sedan and Cadillac CTS Coupes are among the conventional vehicles that use them.聽George Iny, consumer safety advocate and president of the Automobile Protection Association (APA), a Toronto-based consumer advocacy non-profit, suggests that, much like the airbag warning labels on sun visors, “similar labels with a diagram are needed for vehicles whose doors may not unlock after 12-volt power is lost.鈥
Really, mechanical interior door releases should join red seatbelt latch buttons on the list of legally required automotive safety equipment.聽
Iny observes that, 鈥淲e may need tighter standards for other controls as well, but I don’t think there is any chance of a universal requirement 鈥. Canada would have to import a standard already written for Europe or the U.S. market. The U.S. won’t be adding regs like this in the current environment.鈥
Whether in the name of progress, convenience, or even fashion, we鈥檝e slowly ceded the control of many formerly manual or mechanical systems in our vehicles over to electronics. Functions that once had direct input/output relationships now are moderated by lines of code.
An automotive system not functioning in the manner that鈥檚 expected can have unintended and sometimes quite serious 鈥 even fatal 鈥 consequences. If skilled airline pilots can be taken by surprise when technology intervenes in the operation of an aircraft, imagine how easily an average motorist could find themselves caught-out when their vehicle doesn鈥檛 behave as anticipated.
We鈥檝e come to trust in the abilities of the advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) that many new vehicles are coming with, yet even the best of them still relies on the driver to be the final determiner of how the vehicle is operated.
This past October, Tobias Marzell was driving to work, using the lane-keeping assistance feature in his 2021 Subaru Crosstrek, when he claims it began tugging slightly to the left, according to a CBC report. He says that after he made minor corrections to maintain lane position, it jerked strongly to the right, causing him to collide with the vehicle in the adjacent lane. Although neither driver was injured, the approximately $20,000 in damage to the two vehicles is considered his fault, as neither Subaru, nor Transport Canada鈥檚 investigator, were able to determine a problem with the vehicle or its systems, post-collision. “Since 2020, Transport Canada said it has received聽70聽complaints related to lane-centring technology on different makes and models,” the Nov. 14, 2024 story reported. “The complaints were for different issues such as error messages, poor performance in icy and snowy conditions and abrupt steering correction while driving.”
Iny notes that the APA has received complaints of such systems making errors requiring 鈥渧iolent correction,鈥 but that, theoretically, it shouldn鈥檛 be capable of that, and no definitive cause has been identified to date.
More serious crashes have occurred as a result of drivers putting excessive trust in ADAS, among them numerous fatal crashes attributed jointly to failures of both the systems and the drivers to correctly identify and avoid hazards; in many cases, data-logging determined that the drivers had maintained at best minimal oversight of the systems鈥 operation prior to the incidents. Tesla鈥檚 Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems have come under particular criticism for being lax on their driver-attention monitoring and enforced disengagement strategies.聽A California judge rejected Tesla’s聽bid to dismiss claims by a top state regulator accusing the automaker of overstating its vehicles’ self-driving capabilities, according to a Reuters story.聽Tesla鈥檚 Autopilot and Self-Driving systems were investigated by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and a recall was initiated Dec. 12, 2023. Part of the NHTSA鈥檚 concerns were insufficient driver monitoring: 鈥淚n certain circumstances when Autosteer is engaged, the prominence and scope of the feature鈥檚 controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse of the聽SAE Level 2聽advanced driver-assistance feature.鈥
In a July, 26, 2023, Special Order to Tesla, the NHTSA wrote that it “is concerned about the safety impacts of recent changes to Tesla鈥檚 driver monitoring system. This concern is based on available information suggesting that it may be possible for vehicle owners to change Autopilot鈥檚 driver monitoring configurations to allow the driver to operate the vehicle in Autopilot for extended periods without Autopilot prompting the driver to apply torque to the steering wheel.”
Clear messaging is key. Says Iny, 鈥淚n 2022, when the APA shopped a Tesla in Ottawa, posing as an actual buyer, the product specialist suggested we let the car drive itself to a local destination and back.鈥
Drivers may not comprehend how systems that are even simpler in their operation work. A 2021 study undertaken by the U of T’s Donmez and PhD student Chelsea A. DeGuzman underscored how poorly understood the functional limitations were of a basic driving aid: adaptive cruise control (ACC). Respondents whose vehicles lacked the system correctly identified seven specific limitations less than half the time on average. Worryingly, those who owned vehicles with the systems fared nearly the same. Clearly, better education is required; Iny agrees, noting that, unlike pilots, 鈥渢here is no driver training on the systems 鈥 the automated safety features are invisible and their operation is a mystery to some drivers.鈥
Even when the electronic system, itself, is merely one used to control a familiar, frequently used basic function, things can go awry.
Automaker Stellantis 鈥 FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), at the time 鈥 found itself caught out by this kind of confusion when the electronic gear selector used in many 2012-2015 Chrysler 300s, Dodge Chargers, and Jeep Grand Cherokees became the subject of a May, 2016 recall.
Although resembling a traditional console shifter, the 鈥渕onostable鈥 selector for the affected models鈥 eight-speed automatic is a spring-loaded device that always returns to a central position after being operated. Gear selection can be performed linearly or sequentially (shift one position, release, repeat to move two positions). Counterintuitive, and for no discernible benefit, this design eliminated all tactile and visual references of position, relying on the driver observing instrument cluster graphics or lit indicators on the shift knob (easily obscured by sunlight) and a generic warning chime if their door was opened while not in Park. Far easier to get wrong than a conventional gear quadrant, particularly in a multi-vehicle household.
Says Donmez, 鈥渨ith consistency, we don鈥檛 have to consciously think about 鈥 the actions that we鈥檙e taking. If the 鈥 things that you鈥檙e doing in addition to driving become automatically done and don鈥檛 require much cognitive resources, it鈥檚 safer.鈥澛(This type of unconscious operation is best illustrated by the nearly universally implemented left-side stalk controls for turn signals 鈥 beyond choosing to indicate, next to no mental resources are required to actually use them.)
The Stellantis recall modified software in four modules, so that, if the driver opens their door (at speeds below approximately two km/h) with their seatbelt unfastened, the vehicle will automatically select Park.
Unfortunately, this recall had not yet been performed on Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin鈥檚 2015 Grand Cherokee, and the 27-year old was fatally pinned by it when he inadvertently failed to put it in Park and it rolled back and trapped him against the gate of his home鈥檚 driveway in June of 2016.
The parents of Anton Yelchin were reported, by the CBC, to have settled a lawsuit they brought against carmaker Fiat Chrysler over their son’s death.
What can you do to make yourself safer in the face of these new technologies? If you own a vehicle with any of these systems, take a moment to read your owner鈥檚 manual, which is likely to highlight the limitations and correct use of the controls or assistance systems, and will describe how they can be overridden or disabled should the need arise. Learn how the automaker intends the electronic shifter to operate, and be aware that these systems have foibles.
And, if you鈥檙e a regular ride-share user or frequent passenger in vehicles such as a Tesla, go online and familiarize yourself with the emergency release locations, so, if you find yourself in unfortunate circumstances, you鈥檒l have the knowledge that could save your life.
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