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posted by janrinok on Thursday September 08 2016, @05:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the speed-kills dept.

WBTV, CBS television affiliate for Charlotte, NC reports

Tesla Motors says the Model S sedan involved in a fatal crash in the Netherlands wasn't operating in the company's semi-autonomous Autopilot mode and was going more than 96 miles per hour when it crashed.

The 53-year-old driver of the electric sedan died [September 6] when his car smashed into a tree in the central Dutch town of Baarn and burst into flames, police and firefighters said. Police are investigating the cause of the early morning accident in the town 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Amsterdam.

Tesla said the car's logs show Autopilot wasn't engaged at any time during the man's trip, and that he was driving at more than 155 kilometers per hour, or 96 mph. The speed is consistent with the damage the car sustained from hitting the tree, the company said. Tesla sent representatives to the scene of the accident.

Electrek adds

The driver was reportedly dead by the time the firefighters were on the scene.

[...] The fire was difficult to extinguish according to the firefighters. They reportedly didn't know how to approach the vehicle without being electrocuted--leaving the body of the driver in the vehicle.

[...] Apparently, the problem wasn't due to a lack of knowledge on how to handle a crashed electric vehicle, but because of the state of the wreckage. [...] "This car is completely destroyed, hampering the recovery. In this situation, you never know what can happen."

Some of the battery modules reportedly fell out of the battery pack after the crash and subsequent fire.


Original Submission

[Eds Comment: The speed limit on the road was 90 kph / 56 mph. The vehicle is assessed to have been travelling at 154 kph/ 96 mph
See also: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15392&cid=398721]

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @03:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @03:13AM (#399476)

    Most cars after ~2002 have a good amount of logging. The CAN bus has a ton of data flying around on it.

    This case sounds like someone got on the peddle and put into a tree. I am guessing that a tesla could be a very squirly car. 0-60 in under 3 seconds is pretty good. But also a recipe for disaster if someone does not know what they are doing. Most people dont.

  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Friday September 09 2016, @07:24AM

    by ledow (5567) on Friday September 09 2016, @07:24AM (#399516) Homepage

    I have to say, I've been waiting for the day when cars are:

    a) Restricted to the top speed of the country they are sold in. Sorry, why do you need anything else on a road-legal car?
    b) Restricted to a sensible acceleration rate.
    c) Recording everything - pedal position, location, local distances to objects, driver ignoring or acknowledging warnings (e.g. tyre pressure) and so on.

    There's no point having rules on speed if they are ignored.
    There's no point having a car that accelerates dangerously fast with the tap of a pedal.
    There's no point having this and then going "Oh, we don't know what happened" when people are killed.

    Pretty much we're there with the bottom one. The next one seems to be even more necessary now that we have electric cars. And the top one could have been done at any time, and is on trucks and vans in my country already.

    I think it's only a matter of time for all of them to be in place. And, if you think about it, most new cars have the capability to know what the speed limit is (GPS and/or traffic sign recognition), the ability to apply it, and the ability to log / report when it's violated.

    Soon, you really aren't going to be able to do anything out of the ordinary - and I think it's at that point that everyone will say "Well, I might as well have a self-driving car if I can't legally override it".

    • (Score: 1) by Noldir on Friday September 09 2016, @07:58AM

      by Noldir (1216) on Friday September 09 2016, @07:58AM (#399526)

      I don't disagree, but knowing how fickle technology is and how crap it's implementations generally are I hope it stays away for a long time. I do hope they get cruise control up to a level that it can read the signs posted and adjust accordingly though.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @08:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @08:32AM (#399535)

      I disagree completely with a "sensible" acceleration rate.

      If you make a mistake or are put in a situation where you've got a truck or train coming at you at a high velocity? You WANT to be able to accelerate fast.
      I have been in a situation like that in a Corrola and a speeding truck almost rear ending us.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @09:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @09:07AM (#399545)

      Restricted to the top speed of the country they are sold in. Sorry, why do you need anything else on a road-legal car?

      1) I live two miles from the German border. The speed limit her is barely enough to pass a Tractor on the German Autobahn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TELNIG1_NR0 [youtube.com]

      2) My car is from 1991. The speed limit here has been raised twice in that time.

      3) Imports. Living in a country with 180% tax on cars (except for micro-cars), only rich people buy a nice new car. Everybody else buys a car with one or more previous owners. We don't have enough rich people to fill the needs of the used car marked, so a lot of used cars get imported. Ok, in our case, that would just mean no limits, because most of our used cars are imported from Germany.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @12:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @12:59PM (#399587)

        Well, the EU rules would probably be, restrict to the highest speed allowed in any EU country. Followed by strong pressure from EU institutions on Germany to actually impose a general speed limit on the Autobahn.

        Note that built-in speed limitations would likely be subject to automatic updates. So don't think just because you can drive that speed today, you will be able to still drive it tomorrow.