Tesla Black Box?

android04

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For those that might not know, Tesla's "black box" is the RCM (Restraints Control Module) and is located in a pretty secure location. It's at the bottom of the center console, mounted to a bracket on the floor. Obviously fire and water can still get to it, but I'm not sure how resistant it is to either of those. By the way, the RCM is made by Bosch on all vehicles except for Model S made before February 25th, 2019. Those earlier Model S use a module made by Delphi.

Also, while all the RCMs are located in what I would consider pretty secure locations, the exact location varies a little between models. Model 3/Y have it below the center console under the area where the cup holder is located. Model X has it located forward a bit towards the firewall, but still under the center console. Model S has it even more forward towards the firewall, where it is actually to the side of the accelerator pedal. For more detailed info on the RCMs, you can download the official PDFs from Tesla's EDR page https://edr.tesla.com/help
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Crissa

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All sensors can just be circumvented.

Or, like Consumer Reports, you can hold down the button while you futz around.

-Crissa
 

Tinker71

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When a car crashes into a thicket of trees, it's not uncommon for the doors to be held shut by the spring tension of all the green branches the car just crashed into.

Of course this was a very hot fire that left a burned-out circle devoid of vegetation around the car.

There is also a high likelihood that the car was initially hung up in the tree, nose pointing straight up. This is evidenced by the large fresh, white vertical scar in the bark extending 10 feet off the ground. It's also evidenced by the second 911 caller who said she saw a car burning "in a tree". It's very difficult to open a car door when gravity is fighting the door and it's blocked by green branches. But you might fall and/or climb down into the backseat to try the back doors.
Help we need Sherlock Holmes. Maybe someone hacked and activated FSD, then defeated the overrides and the driver took two seconds to unlatch the front seat belt after the crash, in the hope of a huge settlement because he had some gambling debt. Was there a stick in the car to push on the pedal or something hanging on the steering wheel.

Personally I like HaulingAss theory. The car was hung up in the tree with the front doors pinned. The driver unlatched and climbed up or down to try the rear doors and had a heart attack in the effort. Then the branches burned and the car dropped so it looked like there was no reason a conscious driver wouldn't just open the front doors.

The media really sucked on this. There are definitely some pro oil/Tesla haters in Texas so the "journalist" reported an incendiary headline to stir up the negative sentiment and get the most clicks. I wish there was some sort of punishment for poor journalism. Most of the world won't remember the name of the journalist or the paper they represented, just that Tesla Autopilot killed someone.
 


HaulingAss

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That was one of four things they had to do together to override the basic cruise control, yes.

-Crissa
I thought so. Even regular old cruise control can't be activated without the driver's seatbelt buckled. This is an extra safety measure above and beyond any ICE car I've ever owned.

This morning I did an experiment in my Model 3 to see what happens when I have regular ol' cruise control activated and I unbuckle my seatbelt. Guess what, it alerts you that the seatbelt must be buckled to use cruise control and immediately starts slowing down.

And since seatbelts are designed to not unbuckle themselves even in a violent crash, and the Texas car was found with all seatbelts unbuckled, combined with all the other evidence, we know the car was not driving itself with no one in the driver's seat.

I know, I know, now someone is going to dream up an imaginary scenario, one that breaks every rule in the book regarding human behavior, especially 60 year old doctors socializing on a Saturday night, one that breaks every rule about how Autopilot normally works, one that contradicts the wireless data transmitted immediately following the crash, that ignores the bent steering wheel, just to accomodate one elected cop with no training in crash analysis who spoke irresponsibly. A wildly unlikely scenario involving advance planning, gross negligence, intrigue, unbelievable stupidity on both the driver's and passenger's part, a poorly chosen test road with no lane markings but that somehow magically allowed the car to accelerated to a high speed, and that assumes after this violent and fatal crash the last thing the owner thought to do before he was overcome by smoke was to reach forward into the front seat and unbuckle the seatbelt so investigators might conclude that he was actually in the driver's seat when the accident occured.

Yes, and I've trained our house cat to do all the laundy for our household every Tuesday and Thursday. It's great! You should see how dedicated he is! He even carries each item upstairs when it's dry and folds it neatly on the bed. ;)
 

firsttruck

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more on Consumer Reports unfairness regarding Tesla AutoPilot driver assist.
Bagging on Tesla while giving competitors a pass.

Consumer Reports lied about Tesla: AutoPilot vs Ford Co-Pilot 360
May 8, 2021
Sam Alexander
 
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Quicksilver

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I've said it before and I'll say it again.......it is impossible to "idiot proof" anything due to Mother Natures inherent ability to upgrade the common idiot.
YouTube is full of "hold my beer and watch this" videos where Darwin Award winners are featured.
 
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FutureBoy

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I've said it before and I'll say it again.......it is impossible to "idiot proof" anything due to Mother Natures inherent ability to upgrade the common idiot.
YouTube is full of "hold my beer and watch this" videos where Darwin Award winners are featured.
For all of time, evolution has used the rule Survival of the Fittest to remove the idiot strains from the gene pool.

Then we developed the technology to protect idiots from actually being culled. This slowed the evolutionary movements.

But now social media has begun to highly select for idiot by providing the idiot strain with popularity, $$, and respect. This has effectively reversed the evolutionary push. Now the local idiot has access to preferential lifestyle, reproduction, and support.

God help us all. At this point the extinction of the human race may just come down to a literal race between the spread of the idiot strain vs the ability of the idiot strain to maintain the current lifestyle/technology that maintains the idiot strain.

Hopefully the human race doesn’t end in a hold my beer moment.
 

Sirfun

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For years, camera's have had the effect of lowering my intelligence. My favorite story was when I used to race Motocross. One time, I had a pretty healthy lead in a race and some guys were hanging out near a jump with a camera. On the last lap, I tried to show off and ate crap doing a big cross-up. The damn bike wouldn't kick start and I had to push start it down a hill and ended up about 5th. Later on I rode over there to talk to them and all they had was an aluminum can, no camera. :eek:
Now everyone carries video cameras with them everywhere they go(cell phones). It definately has an effect on our intelligence as a whole.
 

AMTT1

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If the vehicle truly had a black box (I hear on airplanes they are actually yellow and red) with all the video, telemetry, and sensor data, then it should have been a matter of hours before the full set of data was available to responders and probably Tesla. I wouldn’t expect the public to see that data within even weeks. But there should be next to no confusion for Tesla and responders about what happened within hours.

In this case it is pretty clear that this data was not easily available after the crash and possibly won’t ever be available.
If the vehicle truly had a black box (I hear on airplanes they are actually yellow and red) with all the video, telemetry, and sensor data, then it should have been a matter of hours before the full set of data was available to responders and probably Tesla. I wouldn’t expect the public to see that data within even weeks. But there should be next to no confusion for Tesla and responders about what happened within hours.

In this case it is pretty clear that this data was not easily available after the crash and possibly won’t ever be available.
The "Black Boxes" in airliners are actually a high visibility bright orange
color.
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