After reading the complete article, I have no specific objection to this. It's the same as posting "no trespassing" on a power substation; it stops idle curiosity from getting someone killed, provides a sensible safety precaution for high-voltage equipment, and is trivial for any motivated person (such as mechanics and HN readers) to overcome with basic tools. My car's gas engine does not consist exclusively of deadly high-voltage equipment in it that can kill me dead when my car is powered off, so I think it's fine to apply different safety processes to consumer-targeted electric cars than we apply to consumer-targeted gasoline cars.
I can't speak to why they chose not to provide a user-accessible storage area, but it certainly does simplify design and safety testing to not have a frunk that could pop open after a latch failure and obstruct the windshield. (I assume the trunk can still store a full set of golf clubs and an overnight duffel bag — it is a Mercedes, after all.)
Personally I would have liked to see the reasoning presented in that safety message. Something like "high voltage is present under the hood" or "only qualified personnel have the tools to safely open the hood".
Same applies for your no trespassing example. I would like to see "no trespassing, danger high voltage"
Plenty of people think they're "smart" - and assume they know better than a vague warning sign: When some people see a "Danger confined space" sign they're going to think the danger is banging your head on the low-ceiling; that's not the real danger of confined spaces: a bigger threat is unbreathable gasses, like CO2, that tend to pool at the bottom of confined spaces: that's often the real danger. But yet I've never seen a sign saying "Danger: confined space: CO2 pooling risk" or similar.
This. But the problem aren't the people, but the vague warning sign. Another example is
The problem is that many warning signs don't exist to warn people, but to prevent lawsuits. So they are phrased as generally as possible and often include false positives.
There’s no warning sign for CO2 risk that will work for a non-expert. You have to go for the basics (“risk of suffocation and death”) at that point, because no one knows that you can drown in CO2.
I disagree. I think that most of the population of United States would understand that oxygen deprivation is bad. I agree that coming up with verbiage for a sign that clearly communicates the correct intent would be difficult.
Isn't that kindof what the list of warnings below the message provides? I think you can click on them to expand them, and based on what's in the owner's manual I expect one of the warnings is about "components under voltage".
I don't think there are really any major risks to human life from the high voltage under the hood of an EV.
The electrical system checks for earth leakage faults all the time, and will switch off if it finds one. That means a baby can chew any of the big scary orange wires and still survive.
The only real dangerous bit of an EV is the battery pack - if you cut it open.
In your case it appears that Mercedes made the right decision. 400 V DC with for all practical purposes an internal resistance so low that it might as well be zero is about as nasty as it gets. Zero warning until you touch that live terminal and then no way to disconnect if you happened to grip it the wrong way, and when you short it out you're going to be in for a world of hurt.
The earth leakage protection only applies to the charging circuitry primary.
So, even if I don't agree with the principle it looks like for some users this actually applies, which I find somewhat surprising.
This is only about chassis ground current, not earth leakage, which is strictly the domain of the charging circuitry.
Seriously: if you do not understand the difference please do no not start messing with the HV side of an electric vehicle. Below 48 V is considered a safe voltage but can already - under the right conditions - cause you plenty of hardship and I'm aware of one death from a 48 V system.
Anything higher than that with voltages between 200 and 600V pretty much the nastiest range because it is too low to arc and high enough to kill you needs special precautions, tools and ways of working to keep you safe.
You can't rely on technical measures to keep you safe when diagnosing and repairing those circuits because those technical measures could be the cause of the fault.
The explosive Breakers would not help you in this case. Those Breakers likely blow in hundreds of amps range, you only need one 100th of an amp to stop your heart.
Definitely agree. My first thought was "but yes", after reading the article I am not so curious to peek under. Perhaps the marketing department doesn't like the idea of the car being "danger"-ous.
Oh, your car can kill you or injure you in so many ways when it's turned off. You could accidentally disconnect something from the coolants system before it cooled down and get third degree burns. You could accidentally start the engine when working on the electric system and kill yourself. You could start a fire in about a dozen different ways and kill yourself or someone else. You can also accidentally leak battery fluid onto yourself or blow up the battery, and breathe in toxic gases.
There are also a few dozen ways you could mess up a repair and die without warning while driving.
None of those are in the same “likelihood of death to a person who has common sense” risk category as the high-voltage Mercedes front compartment. See also the various other replies along these lines, such as:
Another way to look at this is, “are there any consumer-serviceable parts within the compartment?” and “are there instantly-fatal wires/terminals within the compartment?”. The pair of answers “no” and “yes” for the Mercedes demand a wholly different approach to risk management and safety design than a gas engine, whose pair of answers are “yes” and “no”.
EV high-voltage are not consumer-serviceable, as a regular consumer cannot be expected to understand high-voltage safety practices. Yes, some consumers know how to service them, but the necessary safety practices that are generally commonly understood for gas engines are not commonly understood for electric engines, and are regulated differently as a result.
That's stupid. If you're assuming common sense, common sense is to not cut open thick cables without ensuring they're disconnected. It's just as much common sense as not working on your car with it's engine on.
"Consumer-serviceable" parts don't exist. That being said, yes, you may want to replace the HEPA filter, or any other parts in the ventilation system, for example.
High voltage safety pracitces are simple in this case. Is the battery completely disconnected from the rest of the car? Yes? Then it's safe. No? Then the car is on, and it's not safe, just like any vehicle.
If Mercedes don't make available a way to ensure the main battery is disconnected and no high-voltage circuit is energized, that's on them, and they are 100% in the wrong. Otherwise, there is an easy, common-sense way to make all of this safe for your average Bozo to work on.
And by the way, this is a much higher standard than the one we use today. I can happily go an kill myself by fucking up my brake system. No one will stop me. Why is this off-limits, then?
"Consumer-serviceable parts" is such a stupid term. There are actually no parts that are "consumer serviceable", because a "consumer" is an abstract fiction that is only capable of continually buying new off-the-shelf junk. In reality, these devices are owned by people, most of them quite capable of replacing parts, especially when they're not being infantilized.
The main thing that has changed between traditional cars and EVs are the times. The specific hazards are different and some amount of warning is justified, but plastering something with useless signs that just attempt to discourage without describing the actual hazards should create the same legal situation as having no warnings at all.
Please forgive the insult of my choice of wording — I made up a phrase on the spot and it is clearly unacceptable. I’m sorry. In any case, we disagree, so I won’t try to offer a replacement as the intent of my viewpoint has already been conveyed adequately.
I didn't mean to pick on you directly, but the wider consumer-serviceable / user-serviceable meme. I've seen far too many labels asserting such nonsense.
> None of those are in the same “likelihood of death to a person who has common sense” risk category as the high-voltage
High voltage in cars is actually very safe. The car constantly checks for leakage current and switches off if any is seen. That means you could cut through a high voltage cable while driving with uninsulated pliers and survive.
Warning:. Many of these safety systems are single-use explosives. After doing this, the repair will be expensive...
Indeed. You don't want to rely on these, though, and it is a design failure if the manufacturer doesn't make available a way to safely disconnect the HV systems to the user.
I feel in that case securing the hood with bolts in the grille or whatever would do a better job of discouraging random motorists from poking around there for a spare tire while still allowing the slightly mechanically inclined to open it and discover the EQS's "secret" of poor HVAC routing. Having the UI actively berate you about safety is both demeaning to the customer and toxic to repair culture as a whole.
There is no liability component to a car's engine compartment.
For a hundred years car engine compartments have been dangerous as hell.
Hazards in an ICE compartment:
* temperatures hot enough to melt/set fire to your clothing (the exhaust, which in modern engines can be found in all sorts of weird places; Audi and others now use turbochargers inside the engine banks, instead of outside them. Exhaust gas recirc systems can be in weird places, too
* moving components which could easily dismember digits, deglove your hands, descalp you. Lots of cars have stuff that isn't moving, which can unexpectedly start moving (like electric cooling fans.)
* scalding hot fluids which could geyser if released (ie the coolant expansion tank)
* battery acid, used engine oil, etc
Hazards in an electric car engine compartment: none, if you don't cut through the insulation of the bright orange HV cables or drink the fluids.
The big difference is that ICE compartments are a known measure, society has been dealing with them for almost a century so the "common sense" on it is well established (we know what mistakes an average stupid person will do and what mistakes an average smart person will do). But Electric is a whole new context, with a completely different set of safety rules, so it will take time to develop a new common sense compatible with those rules, until then there is a very big risk that people may incorrectly apply old safe common sense rules to the new context and get hurt.
It boils down to: "I have been [doing something] my entire life and it was always safe, then I got an EV, tried to do the exact same thing and got hurt". From the customer perspective the EV manufacturer turned a safe operation into an unsafe operation, so it is the manufacturer's fault.
> My car's gas engine does not consist exclusively of deadly high-voltage equipment in it that can kill me dead when my car is powered off, so I think it's fine to apply different safety processes to consumer-targeted electric cars than we apply to consumer-targeted gasoline cars.
Your car's gas engine, no. Your car's gas tank, however, absolutely can.
Probably not much. Fuel tanks are usually made of plastic now, so you aren't likely to create a spark and ignite something.
Petrol fuel in liquid form is hard to ignite, so if it leaks not much is going to happen other than giving your driveway a good clean (it's a solvent) - it's the gas form that is much more flammable. When petrol enters the engine combustion chamber it is mixed with air to form a flammable gas - there should be no liquid.
Diesel fuel is much harder to ignite, heck, you could probably use diesel fuel in place of engine oil and it probably wouldn't ignite.
I can’t parse this objection. One of my failed attempts reads “My gasoline tank should have the same safety processes as electric cars”, which is obviously not a valid interpretation. My gas tank isn’t deadly for me to touch, so I’m quite lost if that’s what you meant instead.
The parallel being drawn was that gas cars do not have components which can kill you when they are turned off: "it that can kill me dead when my car is powered off,", and so do not require stringent safety controls. My counter was that gas cars absolutely do have such components.
>My counter was that gas cars absolutely do have such components.
They do? From your previous message I'm guessing you're referring to the gas tank. While it's technically true you can kill yourself with a gas tank, I don't think it's anywhere near the danger of electric car batteries. For a gas tank there's a clear sequence of events needed to cause injury/death. You need to either puncture it and then expose it to an ignition source, or throw an ignition source directly into the tank. The first is likely to be noticed because gasoline has a distinctive smell, and is physically visible. It's also surprisingly to light gas on fire[1] even if there is a leak. The second is so implausible to happen it's not even worth considering.
On the other hand, it's very easy for someone to touch the wrong wires under the hood of an electric car and get fried. There's no warning, you just get zapped. You might need to expose some wiring/connectors to get shocked, but there's nothing that tells you that this particular exposed wire is going to kill you.
A 12V battery can kill you or seriously harm you. The entire chassis of the vehicle is the return path, and can make a short circuit or exposed wire exceptionally dangerous. Working around high current paths like the wire from the alternator can be a special hazard.
The battery can also release explosive gasses if charged or used improperly or if other parts of the electrical system are damaged. Combined with a spark and again death and serious injury are possible.
Pulleys and belts are under tension. It's probably not as lethal, but it's a stored energy hazard and has hurt plenty of technicians.
Suspension systems contain many stored energy hazards.
Tires with air pressure are a stored energy hazard, even if they're not attached to the vehicle.
You are vastly over estimating the hazards under a hood. When opening a hood and looking for a problem, filling up a water tank, checking oil or topping up the radiator the greatest danger is probably somehow not propping the food open correctly or forgetting to let it cool down first and touching a hot part or fluid and getting a minor burn.
Opening a car hood is miles less dangerous than changing a light bulb on a desktop lamp, it's probably even less dangerous than driving the car on the road.
People wear metal jewelry and use metal tools. And dry skin resistance is not the same as wet skin resistance. Aside from these, admittedly, far fetched cases.. batteries can explode if serviced improperly.
A modern fuel tank has two basic connections beyond sensors: fuel line and electrical supply for the fuel pump. When the pump isn't active, the only thing that comes out is a dribble of residual fuel from the fuel line. A full tank is not an intimidating thing on a motorcycle, where you're a lot more likely to remove it, it's not even that heavy.
I'd be more worried about crush injuries working underneath a car.
It's quite definitely not the same thing. I can't trespass on property I own. If I owned a substation, then it would be appropriate for it to warn "Danger! Risk of fatal electric shock!" but a "No trespassing" sign simply wouldn't apply to me and therefore provide no advice.
As others have said here, it would be far safer to warn owners of these cars "Danger! Risk of fatal electric shock! No user serviceable parts! Service must be done by a qualified engineer."
In fact without those warnings, I suspect that they would be legally liable, though IANAL, on the grounds that any reasonable person would know that "You must not open your own property" is not enforceable or reasonable, and when they do so, and die of electric shock, that is unexpected. "Risk of injury from moving parts" isn't going to put off anyone who has ever wrenched on a car, either.
> My car's gas engine does not consist exclusively of deadly high-voltage equipment in it that can kill me dead when my car is powered off, so I think it's fine to apply different safety processes to consumer-targeted electric cars than we apply to consumer-targeted gasoline cars.
You're making it sound like EVs are more dangerous than ICE vehicles, which they're not. Also, no other EV manufacturer has said or done anything like this.
It's still weird to me, as it's not uncommon for things to happen that you might want to check on. Like squirrels or other animals getting in there and building nests. Or allowing an owner to check on an odd noise that could be coming from the area, etc. A hood prop being absent seems dumb.
> "there’s no gas struts or prop, so something has to be jammed in there to prop the hood up.”
I bet if you bitch at the dealer hard enough they'll include a bit of 2x4 when you buy the car.
They're going for the cellphone model of ownership. Pay large for the thing, pay monthly to keep it working, and when it breaks: fuck you, buy another.
I know some folks still puttering along with their 80s Mercedes diesels pushing for or past the million mile mark. Don't think that kind of thing will happen again, not from this company anyway.
>> They're going for the cellphone model of ownership. Pay large for the thing,
Except this isn't the cell phone model. That would be "zero down; only $xxx per month on a two year contract, then get a new one." Being a car it can probably go 5 years.
>> I bet if you bitch at the dealer hard enough they'll include a bit of 2x4 when you buy the car.
> "zero down; only $xxx per month on a two year contract, then get a new one."
Volvo did exactly this for one of their small SUVs (an inch or so shorter than my Prius, but a couple inches taller, about the same width). It was $600 a month, which included insurance (!) and at least maintenance. Don't know what happened with that experiment. I believe you had to commit to at least one year.
There are a bunch of manufacturers doing "subscription" models now. I believe Porsche, Lexus, BMW and Audi have either offered or are still offering something along the same lines.
I imagine they're not propping it up with a piece of wood in a service center. Hard to tell from the video, but it's possible that it has some kind of a service position like older Mercedes-Benzes (it's been around since at least the 80s from what I know).
He says the "not permitted" is evidence of our receding risk tolerance.
I agree. Warn me of the chance of sudden painful death, sure, and thanks. But to forbid me, presumably an adult, is a different thing. I prefer to own my own property.
Honestly, as much as I like the tech that Rossmann shows, the trappings he wraps his videos in makes it very hard to digest.
I feel his arguments always miss the simple fact that he has no idea how much trouble not-including such restrictions actually cause, and he over-estimates his audiences' skill/underestimates his own skill, muchless over/under-estimating his willingness to accept responsibility compared to most consumers.
The software I work on has a simple database we use to manage the configuration, and it's a CONSTANT battle with "knows enough to be dangerous" DBAs/IT persons to argue that we're not going to fix the DB after they went through and did their own edits to try to fix an issue and the end result was they only made the situation worse.
The argument of "well, publish more info on the DB" falls flat for me as we constantly published information on which program versions and what specific issues the edits applied to, and our clients simply didn't care; our clients aren't just average users, they're allegedly IT professionals like anyone you might imagine reading HackerNews. We had cases that lasted for months over who was responsible for the issue when the client clearly admitted they just hacked the DB with a chainsaw.
Rossman has some great knowledge and I absolutely do agree with his position on Apple making it too hard to repair their stuff. (Based on the most recent MacBook Pro, seems Apple also agreed...) But I think Rossman fails to appreciate the scale that many companies are dealing with and the sheer volume of customers who absolutely screwed up such rudimentary repairs and then try to blame the company for [the customer's] own ineptness, and how a lack of legal language to specifically protect the company from such behavior opens up very long and difficult legal and PR battles.
Rossman has good knowledge, but I don't feel he's giving a good faith interpretation as to where such policies and ideas come from, and he'd be far more effective in his communication if he simply left his videos at the point where he demonstrated the simplicity of the repair without the tirade. I don't know what Rossman's liability policy looks like for the repairs he does, but I don't get the impression he takes on a lot of liability compared to what I've dealt with across many different products.
Addendum (adding as a separate post), but I want to respond to this specifically:
> But to forbid me, presumably an adult, is a different thing. I prefer to own my own property.
I appreciate you accept responsibility for yourself, but please understand that it's a real legal argument to say "well, nothing specifically said I __couldn't__ do $thing, so I assumed it was safe to do so. I never imagined $thing could be so disastrous! Why didn't you include a warning?"
Such matters always boil down to a fairly protracted argument, sometimes of the legal persuasion depending on the country of residence for the customer. It really is a case of a few bad eggs ruining the bunch.
No one will stop you from hacking the car (e.g., the Mercedes police aren't gonna roll-up and arrest you for opening the hood), but for sure if they find your attempted repairs actually exacerbated an issue, the clause helps back that they tried to warn you "don't mess with this stuff it's not supported".
There is a real difference between a) refusing to deliver a database "manual" with your product and b) actively and continually obfuscating or engineering your product to block your customer's attempt to fix things at their own risk. IMO.
Yeah, the "not permitted" language is bizarre. Not permitted by who? Is there a law? No. Did I sign a contract? Presumably also no, although I wouldn't be completely surprised to find out that dealers are getting people to sign this right away.
I had the same feeling when I read that as I do when I hear people say "it's not legal, it's just not illegal." First of all, this is nonsense. Things not being illegal is the literal definition of them begin legal. But I just don't understand this attitude at all. Like, do you think you need explicit permission to do anything? How sad is that?
All that being said, I wouldn't open that hood. :)
That's nonsense, though, and assumes that the dangers posed by an electric car are roughly the same as by an ICE car. 400 or 800 volts is no joke, and nothing that you find under the hood of an ICE car is anywhere even close to being as dangerous as that.
> an ICE car isn't anywhere close to as dangerous as an EV
I fundamentally disagree with the premise that just because something is dangerous that the owner of said property is 'disallowed' from operating on it.
I can own a house, and do all the electrical work myself. That's 120v AC for you North American households, or in rare situations 240v AC for certain appliances. I serviced an electric range just two months ago.
If you understand how something works, what the requirements are to repair it, then you should understand the caution you must take when repairing those objects.
I work on my own vehicle all the time. Yes, it is a gasoline powered vehicle. But the brakes on both an electric car and gas car must work. Something which is an easy repair and maintenance item is an object of which I know numerous drivers who would dare not touch, "because I don't want to break it". Which, is absolutely okay for those who would not want to work on it. But when someone who has the skills, knowledge, and abilities to work on a vehicle is told "no, you can't touch this brake because it requires a special RFID screwdriver to remove"
That's the crux of the argument. If something so dangerous is refrained from the owner being enabled to even inspect or maintain/repair such an object, then it's likely that said consumer item is not for consumers, and shouldn't be sold.
The power in your house is significantly less powerful than that in an electric car. There are also clear ways to disconnect the power when working on things in your house, which is not at all as clear in a battery-powered car. They are clearly more dangerous than home electrics.
Also, nobody is "disallowing" anything. You can still open up this car. There is just no reason to.
Agreed. I work on my own cars but they're all ICE. Once the car is jacked up onto jack stands, I feel pretty safe working on my car because there is nothing moving nor live (except for the 12v, which I can disconnect). I don't know if that's the case for EVs.
An EV car has high / deadly energy in its high voltage side. If you are going to do hundreds of volts and hundreds of amps to get a heavy vehicle to 60mph in 3 seconds, you simply must have some pretty high potential energy ready to go.
I'm kind of surprised they don't have warnings for folks like first responders as well - imagine cutting through a tesla - seems if you go through a HV cable you could just create a big problem.
If you cut through a HV cable while wearing basic protective equipment, you will trip the BMS and be fine.
In the same way you have to disconnect a few things to make an ICE vehicle safe to use, you have to simply disconnect the battery, and it will be safe. This can be easily engineered.
Louis Rossman isn't an idiot, he worked on EVs with voltages high enough to injure you (and so have I), and he's correct.
He is clearly an idiot if he can't open that front but claims he is technically skilled enough to work on HV. That doesn't work together. Either you are able to do some basic mechanical and thinking work (in which case you can easily open the front) or you can't figure it out - in which case you really should not be poking around in there.
You literally just have to remove a plastic cover. If you can't figure that out there are many youtube videos showing you how to do this. If you are too dumb to figure that out, then you shouldn't be under there.
Note that "you have to simply disconnect the battery" - is not as simple as you make it sound. I think they even pulled the window washer fluid out from under there.
Anyways, the outrage over this is totally ridiculous and folks who can't figure out how to open this hood - yes, probably idiots.
There is a new sort of thing - "learned helplessness" is maybe a good term? It's like critical thinking skills are disengaged. I'm reminded of small children who sort of flop around even when the thing they want is right there for them to grab. If folks would engage critical thinking skills a bit more I think a lot of these issues would diminish in terms of being barriers AND you might also understand why a company selling a luxury car to owners who in most cases do NONE of their own servicing might take this approach.
He can figure out how to open it. That's not the issue. The issue is the car telling that you're not allowed to do it that's the issue. I can't think of a car telling me that I don't have the permission to repair it before.
As far as disconnecting the battery, I agree that on many EVs it's needlessly complicated to know that the HV circuit is de-energized and to put it in that state. That's the fault of the manufacturer, and it shouldn't be acceptable.
The car is not designed to be serviced by the user under the hood. If you and Lois don't understand what it is trying to tell you I don't know what to say. They've made a series of design choices here.
You can try to anything you want. The car is not designed for that.
The liability / warranty claim risks in the US far far outweigh benefits in allowing folks to tinker with stuff. If you read all this stuff imagining they are in a courtroom facing a claim for $20M because someone died doing something the vehicle was not designed around - you'll understand a bit more I think why these things get written this way.
Most consumer equipment / basic power tools come with literally pages of warnings before you get to any actual contents.
The future is the iphone. The industrial equipment model. Maybe farm equipment is movng that way. Mfg control / profit / risk reduction / integration. Cars will get there too one day. When apple starts making a car or google, my guess is even more handles will have plastic covers. They may even take away your steering wheel. And yes, people will buy these things and like them.
It should not be legal to make a car that is designed specifically not to be serviced by the user. It is a massive failure on the part of the manufacturer.
If the issue with the car is that there is a risk from the HV system, then it is negligence on the part of the manufacturer not to allow for the user to disable it.
Cars kill people that repair them. All the time. No one has been able to sue Ford because they put their hand in a running engine or fucked up their brakes. It's a false concern.
Mercedes is not at their first attempt. The model is to make the car artificially difficult to repair, in order to make revenue from repairs.
An EV is not inherently more dangerous than an ICE to service. We allow people to fix their ICE vehicle, and they are designed to at least be immediately safe to work on. There is no reason this wouldn't be the case with EVs.
Cars are routinely designed not to be serviced by users.
The ECU / ignition elements of my german car are not user serviceable. In fact, even the mechanic I use (fully authorized specialist) had to get the car to a dealer, who had to talk to the mfg to override something in the system so it would start (my odometer rolled back to zero as well as part of this).
User changes to auto systems are a common warranty dispute item - your claim that it is not is a total and absolute lie.
In fact, many mfgs have started to do a lot of security in the ECU to handle issues here.
Interestingly, here is a lawsuit involving tesla that DIRECTLY involves the front trunk! I wouldn't be surprised if tesla has had some major payouts as a result on things like this.
"Another issue was that the car's fuse blew on numerous occasions. Each time, our engineers explored all possible explanations and were never able to find anything wrong with the car. Still, just to be sure, we replaced several parts that could have been related to the alleged problem – all at no expense to the customer. When the fuse kept blowing despite the new parts, and faced with no diagnosis showing anything wrong with the car, the engineers were moved to consider the possibility that the fuse had been tampered with. After investigating, they determined that the car's front trunk had been opened immediately before the fuse failure on each of these occasions. (The fuse is accessed through the front trunk.) Ultimately, Tesla service applied non-tamper tape to the fuse switch. From that point on, the fuse performed flawlessly." - Tesla
This was part of some active litigation.
Plenty of mechanics working on fords (using your example) have sued and won major $$$. During the absestos claims period it was extremely common for these claims to be made.
"He came into regular contact with brakes, gaskets, clutches and original equipment manufacturer replacement parts, which allegedly exposed him to asbestos." - $8M+ verdict in that case as an example. Ford has been sued by mechanics who have come into contact with Benzene contained in ford vehicles (from the gas)
So you are lying. I could keep on finding these things - folks "servicing" parts of their car not designed to be end user serviceable, with poor results. They then go to make warranty claims and/or sue car companies over the issues they (may) have caused through their "servicing".
I mean, I literally found a case involving someone opening... the front trunk of an EV vehicle!
Apple has had tons of issues here too despite locking their phones down ten ways to Sunday. My understanding is they've had to modify things for their hong kong market given the fraud levels despite their efforts to really lock things up.
It's a good question. I assume there's some amount of consistent design that allows safe assumptions on the part of emergency responders. Like not running fuel lines through doors and pillars. I have no idea if such a standard exists.
Here's the first quack, looks like some fire departments actually do train on Teslas. Not sure if they also train on other models.
Cables aren't fuel lines. If you short a HV cable, the battery BMS WILL trip, and the battery will be disconnected. If it doesn't, it's gross negligence on the part of Tesla.
You mean like the ignition system which is over 20,000 volts?
Moving parts that can chop off digits, deglove limbs, descalp, break limbs when clothing is caught and wrapped into them?
Hydraulic hoses with enough pressure that a leak can cause injection injuries, which can be fatal?
Pressurized coolant systems well over boiling that can severely burn a significant portion of the skin on your torso if opened, because many car companies use caps that completely release at a certain point, allowing them to blow off and gallons of coolant to come out?
You won't find high voltage anywhere on an EV except in the battery pack until the vehicle is switched on and the drivetrain computer closes the high voltage contactor inside the battery pack. Ie: you could literally jam two steak knives in to the HV connector on an EV battery pack and lick them, and the only thing that would happen is that you'd cut your tongue.
Every EV has very clear instructions and procedures for how to physically lock out the HV system for service. On many, it's a physical plug you pull.
God, I wish HNers would not talk about subjects they know nothing about.
For the unaware, an ICE car is an “internal combustion engine” car — one that’s fueled with gas.
(Cross-boundary terminology issues with gas/electric combination engines are solved by calling those “hybrids”, as a shorthand for “dual-engine ICE & EV hybrid” which no one ever says but is technically correct.)
As a non-native English speaker, I've always wondered why the term 'internal' is included in ICE.
Is it because the combustion takes place in a chambers somewhere inside the engine?
I see this, and it makes me think of an idea that has spooked my mind again and again...
Please allow me to for for one moment ignore all shortcomings of the USSR and its products. I do realise that for some of you, this must be quite a stretch.
USSR products often breathed a design language much closer to modularity, maintainability and repairability.
I would love to see an affordable, simple, modular, maintainable, repairable electric car. One can dream...
> USSR products often breathed a design language much closer to modularity, maintainability and repairability.
I think it’s just any old products are less intricate thus more repairable.
E.g. Nokia phones are more repairable than iPhones.
Older laptops are more repairable/upgradable than say latest XPS or a MacBook where everything is soldered on.
195x Ford Mustang is more repairable than a new one full of electronics.
Hopefully, brands like Fairphone and Framework have some level of impact in the industry. I have decided to never buy a conventional phone or laptop again that is not modular and repairable like this, as long as brands like these exist.
> I would love to see an affordable, simple, modular, maintainable, repairable electric car. One can dream...
I applaud the dream, of course. As someone mentioned, pretty much all older vehicles were infinitely more repairable than current designs, so, no USSR tech required. For the first ten or twelve years of my driving history I bought used cars with at least 80K miles (128 K km) in the odometer. This means I spent my weekends and some evenings under the hood or under the car. This is to say, I get it.
The problem with electrics is that they are very far from "grease monkey" territory. When one starts dealing with high voltages and high current discharge capability, one very quickly leaves the domain of what the average person can and should be able to touch. In fact, lots of EE's lack the experience to safely deal with such devices.
The good news is that they are much simpler (in the sense of the modules that make-up a vehicle) than the internal combustion version. First order repairs should take the form of changing modules. The factory can then deal with component level repair (think: motor controller).
An electronics tech can repair a random failed motor controller. That information should absolutely not be limited to just factory. When I fix cars, most of the time I have to fix broken wires and faulty ground. Occasionally, I have to fix a failed component in the ECU. They are extremely easy to work on for someone skilled at microsoldering, which is not a hard skill to attain.
It isn't about being able to solder components. It's about just how dangerous it is to work on high power circuits. High voltage makes it even worse. And then, you need specialized test equipment and fixtures.
Source: I used to own a company where we designed manufactured high power DC brush and brushless motor controllers. As a simple example, every motor controller had to be tested for short circuit protection under full load. The power supplies alone were outside the realm of anything normal. The motor controller, power supply and storage capacitors had to be in a custom explosion-proof enclosure for the test.
The reason they were repairable and maintainable was because they shit products and were nightmarishly unreliable. One could not simply own a car and drive it, you had to be an amateur mechanic to be able to drive one. And let's not forget that they were also very very expensive and few could afford.
This is true of cars, but OP talked about "products" in general. And many Soviet products were extremely reliable (but shit for other reasons, like horrible UX).
Not in my experience. Electronics, even though most were clones of Western/Asian designs, suffered from faulty components (leaking caps, disintegrating PCBs) and faulty soldering, misplaced wires, broken insulation etc. And the mechanical things had all kinds of issues from the broken tolerances and faulty materials to the braindead designs that would just destroy themselves unless hacked around.
Even in the 1990s, when the soviet cars had been freely available, a lightly used Lada (Jiguli in its own country) costed more than a brand new one since it's been proven to work more or less reliably and the first owner had addressed the most serious issues already.
and if they could afford it there was a looooong waiting list. it was my parent's turn to get their landline phone connected in 2013 ... sadly communist poland collapsed before that and they have to live with smartphones instead.
Chevy's Bolt is pretty simple and easily maintained/repaired.
Chevy was actually selling the $35k car Musk wouldn't fucking shut up about - the base Model 3, which never existed except on paper.
Now you can have your choice of Bolts in the mid teens, and they've now got eight year warranty on the batteries (eight years from this year, when the battery recall was performed.)
And to have a VIN number they haven't blacklisted, because their parts hotline will demand your VIN before they'll even start talking to you, and stop talking to you if they don't like your VIN.
There's also the small matter of just being able to get parts, period. Tesla parts availability is terrible because they're under such a production crush. People go months for body repairs, and the prices for the parts are sit-down-first levels.
The crazy man smiled at her. "My shop project, Louise. I've had enough of 'no user-serviceable parts within.' Let's take a look." He leaned over the car's front hood and ran his finger down the printed words forbidding customer maintenance ... Gu sighted along the edge of the tray, then glanced to his right, at the Radner brothers. "You really don't want to be standing there." — Rainbows End
The BMW i8 is just as complicated as the EQS, if not more. It requires two people to open the hood without damaging it. Here's some technician training on opening it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxe_b2GRwok
Wow, this was quite something. The fact that the emergency door latches are on the inside only raises many questions, as does the fact that the hood is so unwieldy. It's confusing to me that the hood was designed to be opened by 2 people and also that during "normal" operation it can easily damage the bumper. I realize they don't want people doing it themselves, but even for the mechanic this seems extremely annoying. Serviceability is clearly not a top value for these cars but it seems like it's not even considered at all.
This is giving me a distinct feeling of dejavu; didn't VW do something in this vein decades ago on the New Beetle when it came out?
ISTR people being up in arms about the engine cover being labeled with something along the lines of warranty void if removed by unauthorized service personnel.
It was especially memorable at the time because us Libre software folks used to use the analogy "you wouldn't buy a car with the hood welded shut" to try explain the difference between open and closed software to non-tech folks in the 90s. Then in 1998 VW shipped a car very much in the spirit of welding the hood shut.
So I got to spend a few days with a not-quite-production EQS over the summer. It's pretty obvious from the design language that it's not really a hood at all. For example, it extends all the way down to the wheels - the front side fender does not connect to the body panel in front of the doors, for example.
Ok, so maybe there is dangerous sparky stuff that can be reached in there - but it just shows poor design that they weren’t able to incorporate a frunk and/or isolate/insulate those components to not make opening the hood deathly dangerous.
> and/or isolate/insulate those components to not make opening the hood deathly dangerous.
But... why?
From the article, there is literally nothing under there that is "user servicable"--everything requires the HV system be placed in servicing mode first: HVDC inverters/converters and the motors. All user-serviceable components (e.g., fluid fill) are located elsewhere.
Basically every vehicle design process is about value engineering. Who wants to pay extra for a car with extra safety features in a compartment that they will never open, have no reason to open, and can't do anything with once they open it?
Not to mention, even if the car was designed with a frunk, the high-voltage components would still have to be serviceable somewhere - so there would still be a panel/door somewhere on the vehicle with a "Don't Touch" sign on it.
Whether that's the hood of the car or somewhere else seems immaterial?
I mean it would be pretty funny if they let you open the hood and had another layer of flat steel directly under it covering all the non-user-serviceable bits. Just to increase the weight and cost slightly and allow people to uncritically think “at least I can open the hood.”
The EQS has a much larger and higher-performance HEPA air filter than most other cars available on the market, which is a standout feature in important target markets for the car (much more so than a frunk is standout, or lacking one for that matter). It's located under the front cover. It's also a hatch with a very sizable trunk (larger than the equivalent S-class). I'd say we're talking design trade-offs. :-)
Every other manufacturer in the world has hot pipes & spinning fans & hand-grabbing belts under the hood with little done to prevent personal injury and it has worked fine for decades.
The EV market just wants everything to 'trend Tesla', so they expect a 'frunk' and for everything to be totally unlike any other ICE car on the road.
That's not right, the frunk is a very natural feature given the design constraints.
You need at least some space in front of the console, because the wheel wells need to be forward of the cockpit so the front seat occupants have a place to put their feet. Traditionally you put the engine there, because it was an obvious empty spot. Cars that didn't generally made significant tradeoffs (like two seats) to accomodate a different engine placement.
But if you've got no engine, what can go there? Not the battery, that works much (much) better as a flat planar thing at the very bottom of the frame. You can put the motor there, sure, but an electric motor is tiny. Add in the random electronics and wiper fluid and whatnot and you still have a ton of space.
So you make it cargo. It works great. EVs that don't have a frunk (the ID.4, ahem) end up feeling like they're missing a feature.
And it’s not just that the wheel well needs to be in front of the passengers, but also the front crumple zone is very important to passenger safety in many of the most common crash scenarios.
It doesn't really look like there's any exposed HV. I'm curious why they bothered to cover up the hood latch at all. I think there's a certain tradition wherein blokes will stand around a car with the hood open and poke at it, perhaps they're trying to discourage that.
The customer of a mercedes EQS is not losing a lot of sleep over missing a front trunk. their current s-class doesn't have one either and they somehow carry on.
Right, but "carrying on" is pretty much apt, to anyone who's driven a car with a frunk. I mean, no, it's not like it's going to solve world hunger or create billions in value for a new startup ecosystem. But a frunk really is a pretty great idea.
The frunk in my Tesla Model 3 was too shallow to use to store anything (because the front motor was underneath) and the metal on the hood was so thin it felt like I was going to bend it every time I shut it. Pointless.
Some cars with frunks also have issues with them being an additional vector for road noise to impact the cabin, which is already an issue in EVs due to nothing being masked by ICE noise. That's certainly a solvable engineering problem (and Tesla has made changes in successive generations to try and improve the situation, for example), but the insulation/padding required further impacts the usable space. In any case, the EQS likely has the quietest interior of any EV to date.
Yes the metal is thin which is why Tesla advises not slamming it but rather letting it down gently and then pushing it closed with the palm of your hand.
My Model Y frunk is where I keep a variety of charging cables, adapters, extension cords, tools etc so I can charge from just about any source of electricity on long road trips. Plus a tire inflator, windshield squeegee, and a portable 12v Li-Ion jumper box (so I can help other cars and it's also very handy when camping).
All that fits in my frunk with a bit of room to spare.
The fact that the shape is irregular, and the hood metal is so thin, also increases the chance you will accidentally bend the hood by trying to close it on an object that doesn't fit.
Literally all of them have gone in my Y, which isn't more than an inch or two deeper. Honestly you're overstating this. If you didn't like it you didn't like it, but don't tell me you can't get useful stuff in there.
My practical experience owning a Model 3 for three years was the frunk was too shallow and irregularly-shaped for me to ever bother trying to put anything in there. Thus, the frunk was, in practice, useless. That is what I'm telling you.
Yes, if you decide that you absolutely must put something in the frunk, you certainly can. It obviously has a non-zero volume. But in all circumstances I found it more convenient to put things in the rear trunk, the rear footwells, or the (super useful) storage area under the rear trunk floor.
I thought the Model 3 was a fantastic car by the way. I loved it. I just thought the frunk was a useless novelty.
(The frunk in my Porsche Boxster, on the other hand, is deep and rectangular and very useful, in part because the engine is in the rear).
If there is no reason to open the hood, why would they waste time and money to design a system that makes it (more) accessible? Calling it a "poor design" makes it sound like it's inadequate, which I disagree with. I wouldn't call a car door "poorly designed" just because I can't take it apart without tools.
People like opening the hood and looking at the bits under it. It's kind of weird that a premium car would go out of their way to prevent people from looking at it.
So, it seems like the answer here is, you open the hood exactly the same as you open the hood of any other vehicle, but with a plastic cover over the latch and some extra stickers and warnings?
Point of comparison -- I can open the hood of my Prius, and would need for various fluids, but everything else is covered by a plastic cover that warns of the high voltage bits underneath.
Since when do I need permission from the manufacturer to do with my property as I see fit? Legally, we (in Germany) already have the case that opening up a device not necessarily voids the warranty, so I wonder why they go with that.
It's likely just a matter of persuasive messaging. They might not be able to void your warranty, but they might be able to lead you into thinking they can.
> they might be able to lead you into thinking they can.
I can't help wondering if there is or should be some sort of law against corporations doing this. If they are trying to mislead you into not making use of a right which is legally yours, that feels a bit like fraud, or practising law without a licence.
I'm reluctant to suggest that the government should limit even corporate free speech so much that companies become afraid to put warnings on things, and corporate lawyers would probably just come up with even more convoluted ways of phrasing things to technically comply with the law (or maliciously comply with it to make people hate the law), but perhaps some well-funded consumer body should be able to name and shame companies that do this.
The FTC in the US has gone after companies that literally tell their customers that something invalidates their warranty, when under law, it wouldn't.
But I feel like "you are not permitted" is an entirely different thing. It is so vague that it doesn't really have a clear meaning, and it leaves the reader to fill in the blanks.
Splitting hairs here, but Mercedes would argue that it is meant to signal to leasing/rental cars that the user is not allowed to open (based on the rental agreement) so in those cases at least, it is not complete missleading.
Ever since the "you need to lock out tag out a circuit to change a cosmetic cover plate in your own home and you're just asking to be killed if you don't wear arc flash gear while doing it" crowd grew up and became PMs capable of "adding value" to design decisions that didn't really need any thought given to them in the first place.
This kind of crap is just a reflection of the affects of modern culture that prizes risk aversion after you filter it though a massive corporate bureaucracy (like Mercedes)
I don't buy the "it's too dangerous because of high voltage" argument. Ice cars have literally a bomb chamber within along with an assortment of fans and belts and hot liquids that will burn and maim you if you don't know what you're doing. But regular users have survived for a century with cars.
Most service techs turn off the car (ICE) before working on it. So it's usually very clear if your hand can be caught by a fan belt or not (and not deadly if it is). When turned off and 12v battery disconnected, a car is pretty darn safe.
Are you sure you can sense high voltage / high amperage as well?
Great story from my mechanic about how that one time they started a diesel and couldn't get it to stop. They even tried throwing rags into the intake. Then there was that time I had a rusty gas tank that we discovered when it leaked gasoline all over the shop till we got a drum under it. Or that time my car fell of its jacks (don't ask) and nearly broke both my legs.
Still nowhere near as dangerous as high voltage, especially given that an ICE has a very clear "engine is now on and angry" state, which doesn't exist in the same way for an electric car.
Working on an EV with the batteries connected is like working on the fuel system of an internal combustion engine with a lighter for illumination. You've got the massive pile of potential energy _and_ the means to release it at your literal fingertips
EVs have airbags too, which are also pointed at your face.
If by a "bomb chamber" you mean the engine cylinders, I'm not an expert, but many people say that burning fuel is technically "deflagration" or rapid burning, and if fuel explodes whether in the engine or elsewhere that is abnormal. Also see: detonation.
Apart from that, when engines blow up real good, isn't it usually at some time other than when they are turned off or idling as a mechanic looks under the hood?
I'm not saying they can't be dangerous, but there are some qualifications that mitigate the comparison to high voltage, I think.
It would be quite hard to kill yourself with an internal combustion engine. I mean... it's probably possible (somehow spray yourself with petrol, and then ignite it?) but it wouldn't be at all likely. The same can't really be said of electric car guts.
Perhaps a solution is to put a detailed description of what is under the hood into the owner's manual (photos, block diagram, schematics, ...)?
After all, the main reason for opening the hood is probably curiosity, to have a look. Sate the curiosity in advance and the need to open the hood, and the associated risk, goes away.
> “It’s an all electric car, nothing under the hood is user serviceable without special equipment to place the high voltage system into servicing mode.”
'no user serviceable parts within' from rainbows end
I dont have any issues with this. Modern petrol and diesel engines should be serviced every 100-300 hours depending upon how they are driven but Brushless Electric motors have no such requirement and can run for many thousands of hours, the failure point on most electric motors are the controllers and bearings if in inhospitable environments. A well designed EV coolant systems can work without servicing for the life of a vehicle
If I can’t service the vehicle then don’t try to sell it to me, just lease it to me. I’d happily lease a non-serviceable vehicle as long as it had an all inclusive service contract for the lease duration.
Yup, at which point it is no longer the manufacturer's problem other than reputationally (i.e. if the car is extremely prone to problems after the initial 3 year lease/warranty period).
I am of the opinion that the majority of modern cars produced today - especially as you go higher up the price/luxury spectrum - are disposable appliances designed for obsolescence. The base mechanical bits might continue to function fine, but all the fancy technology won't be so fancy after 5 years, and certainly not 10 years.
I think Teslas actually let you upgrade the CPU on the infotainment system (correct me if wrong)? Plus wider spread and use of CarPlay/Android Auto bakes in a little bit of future-proofing.
>Yup, at which point it is no longer the manufacturer's problem other than reputationally
I think typically lease returns are sold as [brand] certified used, at least they used to be.
Even if they weren't, you really don't think used car values affect new car prices or lease terms?
BMW seems to do all right despite absurd depreciation and maintenance/repair costs on their used cars, but I think surely there is an extra cost to building cars that are appealing enough to convince customers to be irrational.
An undesirable infotainment system doesn't make a car disposable though. As long as the intra-car systems function for the design life of the components, an uncompetitive infotainment just reduces the potential resale value.
Component failures are definitely a concern though, and incidental or intentional software failures via OTA, since either may be unrecoverable.
Which is why it’s really nice that you can still buy mass market reliable cars from 2008-2015 that come with zero “electronic bits” (or if they do it’s the kind that just pulls out of the dash.)
>mass market reliable cars from 2008-2015 that come with zero “electronic bits”
Cars with zero electronic bits other than the radio? Like what models? Cars from the 1980s that come to my mind were extensively computerized.
After I checked the history, it appears that electronic (vs. mechanical) fuel injection came into vogue starting around 1980.
I have a late 80s car, that while primitive in many ways has lots of computers, which can have solder joints fail, so electronics repair is becoming a part of maintaining a "classic car".
(P.S. I am equating your use of "electronic" with "digital", but I think there may have been early examples of analog electronics - Bosch L-Jetronic for example)
Y'all are on Hacker News, I think you can figure out how to remove a plastic cover over the hood latch if you really want to stare at some electronics housings. This is a lot more innocuous than the new habit carmakers have developed of charging subscriptions for basic vehicle functionality.
The article explains how they pretty much have to do it for legal reasons. Similar to microwave warnings. It has nothing to do with keeping the rightful owner from doing what they want with their car. The company does not benefit, judging by what the article explains, apart from having the legal disclaimer in case somebody who has no business (because of lack of knowledge) touching battery or electric parts gets hurt.
In a fuel powered vehicle touching fuel related parts at most gets you dirty. Even touching fuel does not hurt you. Electricity is different. Merely touching the wrong part can hurt you. Guess who would get sued if that happened and the company did nothing or even just not enough to prevent it.
While fuel powered cars can have sharp, moving (or rotating) or even very hot parts, all of those can be seen or sensed. Electricity cannot be detected by human senses, so here too is more reason to prevent access.
This isn't actually all that new: Quite a few of luxury automobiles have had non-serviceable engine compartments for many years. It's not uncommon particularly with high-end sports cars, where engine covers may only be removed by licensed technicians. Those tend to be held by special screws requiring non-standard tools or similar. Ironically it's often the engines one might want to marvel at the most.
Half joking, of course, but seriously I think this sort of design choice just reinforces the idea that the manufacturer, not the buyer, owns the product. Locking the hood closed, the symbolic innards of your car, isnt the only way to build a car safely. I fear moves like this will just further alienate people from the tech they rely on.
I know exactly what you mean: I'm fond of pointing out that I probably wouldn't be a software engineer today if the computers I grew up with had been as locked down as an iPhone. It only sort-of works in a world that today also features a Raspberry Pi, but is not sustainable on its own. In my brain I refer to this as "educational sustainability" somehow (then again, isn't all education motivated by sustainability of civilization and culture?), but I'm sure smarter folks have discussed and given this a better label.
That said, luxury sports cars are an oddball market with non-obvious concerns and economics. A lot of the limited production run cars these restrictions apply to are essentially too valuable to actually drive. They're collectors' items, or acquired as speculative goods that will increase in value. It may be that making them more "tamper-proof" is in a strange way in the interest of the buyers.
Are there really "special screws" that are difficult to deal with these days? Any hardware store carries sets of what used to be obscure security bits. Torx (innie or outie) and hex don't even count as "special".
I had read that the reason for the plastic covers on fancier cars, while partly for appearance and to discourage amateur servicing, also are there for a substantial reduction of engine noise. But I never heard anything about owners not having permission to remove them.
I've speculated that one reason for making it a hassle to service modern cars is that if an owner has been messing with their car, screwed it up, and brings it to the dealer, it's more likely there will be clues that warranty coverage should be denied.
E.g. a recent 911 GT3 or several Bugatti models, for example the Divo. It's often mid-engine sports cars, also because not designing them to make the low-mounted, mid-positioned engine accessible saves a lot of complexity and removes design constraints.
Which precedent do you view as being set by Mercedes here? There are a variety of possible interpretations, but it’s impossible to guess without more details.
I don't know if it applies to modern microwaves, but years and years ago, I learned a secret to keeping a microwave running long after its normal lifetime, and without paying a professional repair person.
It would start arcing eventually, and the solution was to "replace the waveguide". Someone not physics-illiterate could explain more about how that functions, but practically speaking, it involved getting a flat sheet of special material (mica I believe?) and cutting a small panel out to match an existing one on the inside of the cavity.
A little off topic but I have to say that the design of this car is very disappointing. It looks like a formless bar of soap. If I glanced at it on the road I'd think it was a Toyota or something
Its an innovative process where you deposit money from your bank account to a Mercedes dealership, and then a certified washer fluid technician ensures that premium washer fluid is calibrated to optimal levels.
I can't speak to why they chose not to provide a user-accessible storage area, but it certainly does simplify design and safety testing to not have a frunk that could pop open after a latch failure and obstruct the windshield. (I assume the trunk can still store a full set of golf clubs and an overnight duffel bag — it is a Mercedes, after all.)