I could see a safety feature where it launches itself into the air to avoid an imminent crash (providing the area above is free)
I suppose I can see this also. It sounds horrifying. A head on collision is a pretty terrible thing but having one of the cars suddenly fly 30 feet in the air and crashing into on coming traffic does not sound like a great option. Reminds me of the cybertruck "this would make the perfect post apocalyptic vehicle."
you might have a better chance of surviving that 30 foot launch than a head on collision with a pole or a semi truck. don't get me wrong it seems wildly impractical but there may be rare situations where it's useful. ejection seats on fighters frequently injured their pilot but that is better than being dead.
This whole thing is incredibly stupid and yet, people are bending over backwards to defend it. There is not a single traffic situation where the ability of a car to suddenly launch itself into the air doesn't have more downsides than it staying put. This includes overhead wiring, other people nearby, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, lampposts, traffic lights and other street furniture. With a little luck you will survive the impact of your toy when it lands but the party that you land on does not. People have a hard enough time predicting trajectories with everything constrained to 2D, if cars start jumping around like fleas that is not an improvement. From a standstill with other parties around you this is already a serious problem, if it were moving forward at highway speeds in traffic it would be utterly irresponsible to trigger this kind of launch.
What, you don’t think the solution to a situation with too much out-of-control kinetic energy is to inject a whole bunch more semi-randomly-directed kinetic energy?
You see, when you are about to have a crash, and you only have a few milliseconds to react, the best option is to put more energy into the event.
How about rockets towards the front of the vehicle to stop it?
As the saying goes: The more energy the goes into the crash, the better.
They’ll have a special edition with hypergolic propellants.
You are delusional if you think more than one Rocket Roadster will be within miles of another one on a public road.
The image of a chain reaction of RRs popping up like popcorn when another appears to be about to land on it pretty hilarious, though.
That depends on the landing zone being available in a way that's hard for the onboard safety system to predict. But if the car is, say, spinning out you could use these to restore stability or try to recover from the other sorts of disasters that overpowered cars can end up in even on clear roads.
once your wheels leave the road, its hard to slow down. Just getting to zero mph before flipping 100 times and rolling over would be immensely useful.
The Rocket model should never spin out - traction control using thrusters should make it impossible.
The thrusters are primarily pointed rearward and to the ground. It's not capable of doing much at all for a flat spin, the typical scenario of a car spinning out
Incorrect - the Rocket trim (if it ever exists) has four thrusters pointed downward at the wheels for lift and they can rotate 180 degrees and two thrusters at the front pointing outward for use control.
What goes up...
Perfect rich asshole vehicle. Add a ‘safety’ feature that wildly endangers everyone around you.
That sounds like a surefire way to make a bad situation worse.
The car launching itself in the air would also launch anything in the road - debris, rocks, soil - at dangerous speeds in all directions.
I think every buyer should receive a complimentary nomination for the award.
The award is reserved for people who actually died, you can only be nominated posthumously.