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?
