How hard is it to disable the “dead man's switch” for this feature? Can it be done without searching the forum for hours? Is it documented in the owner's manual?
The direction of my blame here kind of depends on the answer to those questions. Of course, it's technically the owner's fault, but a feature like this really needs to be 100% idiot proof.
This is a new feature to many people, and it's exactly the type of feature that people are going to “test” outside of the ideal operating conditions. It's not Tesla's responsibility to account for every stupid decision of its customers, but Tesla should have at least done everything in their power to ensure that critical safety features couldn't be disabled (which they may have done; I don't know).
Most critical safety features on cars can't be trivially disabled (ABS, airbags, automatic seatbelt locks, etc...). The only safety feature that I can think of that can be trivially disabled is traction/stability control, but there's a real reason for this (getting out of deep snow/mud). Also, disabling traction/stability control is a multi-stage process on many cars. On late model BMWs at least, pressing the “DTC” button once will partially reduce traction/stability control, but not completely disable it. To the average person, it appears to be completely disabled. However, if you do a little research, you'll find that if you hold it down for another 5 seconds, it disables completely (sort of). Even with it completely disabled, certain aspects of the system remain on. The only way to completely disable those portions would be to flash custom software to the car (which is well beyond the ability of the average person).
Single toggle in the normal Summon settings screen with a help message about the great convenience features it enables, apparently: https://youtu.be/Cg7V0gnW1Us It's like Tesla want people to disable it. (Their original version didn't even have a dead man's switch; they added one after Consumer Reports raised concern about its safety.)
The direction of my blame here kind of depends on the answer to those questions. Of course, it's technically the owner's fault, but a feature like this really needs to be 100% idiot proof.
This is a new feature to many people, and it's exactly the type of feature that people are going to “test” outside of the ideal operating conditions. It's not Tesla's responsibility to account for every stupid decision of its customers, but Tesla should have at least done everything in their power to ensure that critical safety features couldn't be disabled (which they may have done; I don't know).
Most critical safety features on cars can't be trivially disabled (ABS, airbags, automatic seatbelt locks, etc...). The only safety feature that I can think of that can be trivially disabled is traction/stability control, but there's a real reason for this (getting out of deep snow/mud). Also, disabling traction/stability control is a multi-stage process on many cars. On late model BMWs at least, pressing the “DTC” button once will partially reduce traction/stability control, but not completely disable it. To the average person, it appears to be completely disabled. However, if you do a little research, you'll find that if you hold it down for another 5 seconds, it disables completely (sort of). Even with it completely disabled, certain aspects of the system remain on. The only way to completely disable those portions would be to flash custom software to the car (which is well beyond the ability of the average person).
reply