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I commute on this part of the road every single day, and every day there are people whipping and and out of the two hov lanes as they approach the flyway fork. The model X was probably trying to make it into the flyway at the last minute or continue down the 101 part at the last moment, cut across thinking they had time, and fatally misjudged.

NTSB should look into this in the event that the person was under autopilot at the time, or if there was some flaw in the design of the model X that should have helped or mitigated the death of the driver. I would love to see better guidelines for tesla and for emt/fire staff as the road was shut down for about 6 hours while they tried to deal with the battery. Someone from tesla eventually came down and helped the fire dept deal with the fire...

So, sure, this is a tricky and maybe even dangerous fork, and caltrans will probably put in those dividers like the ones on southbound old middlefield road, but its okay and smart to look into the driver, the model x and the subsequent 6 hours of delay and blockage to improve safety across the board.

> "NTSB should look into this in the event that the person was under autopilot at the time, or if there was some flaw in the design of the model X that should have helped or mitigated the death of the driver. I would love to see better guidelines for tesla and for emt/fire staff as the road was shut down for about 6 hours while they tried to deal with the battery. Someone from tesla eventually came down and helped the fire dept deal with the fire..."

This is explicitly what the NTSB mentioned in their tweet (included in the article) announcing the investigation:

> "2 NTSB investigators conducting Field Investigation for fatal March 23, 2018, crash of a Tesla near Mountain View, CA. Unclear if automated control system was active at time of crash. Issues examined include: post-crash fire, steps to make vehicle safe for removal from scene."

https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/978651644417265664

There was someone on page 6/31 who said the barrier was there at 5:30 pm on the previous day. That theory is over if he is correct.

edit: correction this photo evidence from the day before shows the barrier not replaced. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-knows-fatal-model-x-030...

"the X suffered a direct impact with a narrow slice of concrete."

Does anyone know if that sort of impact would be what the IIHS calls small overlap frontal crash? IIRC when they added that test in 2012, many previously very safe cars were found to do poorly in that specific test because so much energy is concentrated into a very small area.

I was watching videos of that test and I actually laughed as a Volvo s60 abruptly careened off to the right as the overlap object hit a deflection bar/panel in the engine compartment, thereby protecting the passenger area. Living up to its reputation as very safe vehicle.

Volvo has publicly said that their objective is always years ahead from the testing bodies, so they have done (and designed for) the small overlap scenario for years.

Got a link?

probably this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSYLE55iYj0

or the more recent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnRIwQn9SA8

the latter is imo even more amazing

There is also one with an Tesla, and I think that it looks worse than any of the two Volvos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMcuiFmIQTo

Yup it was something very very similar to these, by the same organization.

I believe it was this organization, from maybe the year 2015. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings

Caltrans? Really?

I'm not referring to this particular case, but similar cases in general: There are a lot of people merging right on that place in the last minute, just like there are a lot of people merge left on an exit only lane on any other highway exits. It's not because they are poorly marked, it's because the exit only lane moves faster and they want to cut other people. Even if the lanes are poorly marked (I don't think the side-by-side carpool lanes are poorly marked, there are plenty of signs indicates that the left one is exit only) and they are on the exit only lane by accident, they should still have a common sense about what's safe to do. They can always exit there and come back to the highway on the next entrance. They just decided that their time is too valuable to do that so they are just jerking around. How is that Caltrans' fault?

Ah, I was wondering how there could be so much velocity relative to a "lane divider".

Interesting. I've not seen those before, but I wonder why they weren't able to make it automatically reset itself (providing it hadn't been damaged enough to prevent that).

They are destructively consumed in a crash, just as a car's crumple zones are.

The whole point is it can be reset in ~45 minutes with $40 of parts. There are some bolts which shear off but a typical collision will not actually destroy it!

Informational sheet describing the benefits:

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/oe/project_ads_addenda/06/06-0Q...

That's pretty great. Its still destructive (just less destructive than I expected), and not automatically reset.

Who needs NTSB when we have the Tesla Motors Club.

No, you can not drive into a wall, even if that wall has been missing it's safety cushion to protect those stupid enough to drive into a wall.

I think what's being massively overlooked in many crashes that involved Tesla is the insane inferno caused by the impact on the batteries. I mean, the guy died from the burns from the inferno, not from the actual impact of the crash.

The picture shows the front side of the car completely incinerated. Not to mention, the cleanup of the crash took much longer than it should've because of the EMS had serious concerns about the melted batteries.

Tesla cars are great until you get trapped inside a battery-fueled inferno. Youtube it, those batteries literally create a meteoric fireball.

> ...the guy died from the burns from the inferno, not from the actual impact of the crash.

Incorrect.

“Witnesses were able to extract the driver before the flames posed any threat to him.“

Here is VIDEO of the Tesla immediately after the crash, taken by one of the guys who helped pull the driver out of the car:

https://youtu.be/RlQTeF45aIE

The battery is only just starting to ignite at this point after suffering catastrophic damage. (You can see individual cells torn apart). I would say this is significantly safer than a dozen gallons of gas which surely would have exploded in the same scenario.

What IS true is that the aftermath is harder to cleanup because the damaged cells can pose a threat for reigniting.

The fuel tank is usually located at the back not the front & generally survives intact in a frontal collision & there are shut-off valves in the fuel lines to the engine so that fuel doesn't leak everywhere in an accident. The system isn't perfect, but I suspect that in this particular incident had the vehicle been a modern petrol fuelled one there would have been no fuel leak.

Look at the Tesla in that video - the rear of the car is pretty much intact.

isn't it easier in this case to pour gasoline over the whole car, ignite it, wait for it to burn out, and then move it?

At least then you know everything burnable is already burnt, so it's not going to reignite.

Gasoline under normal conditions doesn’t explode, it burns. I’m not denying that a fire was the likely outcome in either case, but neither gasoline nor batteries detonate, they deflagrate. Gasoline in particular, despite what Hollywood would have you believe, isn’t like nitroglycerin.

It depends hugely on the conditions. Fuel tanks (car or otherwise) containing petrol are most dangerous when nearly empty, and even then the air/fuel ratio needs to be exactly right. If it is, though, it's possible to get your movie-style explosion... just not very likely.

The Las Vegas shooter hit the airport's avgas containers and nothing happened.

Also IIRC Mythbusters did an episode on this.

Thanks for the correction!

Actually I'd sooner blame video games, which often assert that a single bullet to the gas tank door will cause an instant car-flipping fireball.

That’s not video games; that’s Hollywood

I sincerely can't remember the last time I saw a hollywood movie where a single bullet could cause a car to fireball.

Well unless the front of the vehicle simply evaporated I don't see how what I said is incorrect.

You can clearly see at 30s the outline of the inferno on the tire. It completely incinerated all the shreds of car were destroyed from the crash.

Even at the beginning of the video, where it shows where the front of the vehicle should've been, it too is barely there because it was incinerated but the batteries.

It takes first responders hours to deal with, sounds like Tesla has traded gasoline for a much more lethal battery. Once again, cost externalization.

I'm by no means sure of the relative danger, but plain old gas cars can also have pretty big fires. Is it actually worse with batteries? The energy density is if anything lower.

At least with liquid fuels, the job of a fireman can be as simple as extinguishing the existing flame and cooling down anything that is hot.

It's not so simple to stop a damaged lithium battery from continuously self-igniting. Read about the recent incident with the Rimac Concept One—it kept catching fire for five days!

> At least with liquid fuels, the job of a fireman can be as simple as extinguishing the existing flame and cooling down anything that is hot.

As a firefighter, I think you and I likely have different ideas of what "simple" looks like in this case...

EVs definitely pose unique hazards, but there is nothing "simple" about a car fire.

That is fair.

But I suspect your training and experience with car fires is substantial compared to EV fires. I suppose I didn't meant to say they are simple but rather well understood.

I wonder when there are literally hundreds of unique popular models of EV on the road, whether there will be issues arising from having innumerable unique designs for battery packs, first responder lines etc.

In many ways EV fires are easier (gas or gas vapors from a ruptured tank can flow quite a ways away from the vehicle, potentially unnoticed, before igniting; batteries don't tend to flow well...). It's just water, water, and more water...

Tesla in particular is actually quite good about providing training materials for dealing with their vehicles, including facilitating the production of some excellent videos on hazards during extrication.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntK3rvVl2Qw

As well as the standard safety manuals car manufacturers provide (though Tesla makes their especially easy to access).

https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders

Are you shorting tesla and spreading false rumors ?