True Story or Not?: "Frunk opened at 115mph and caused $20k damage on brand new P85"

[markb1]

I do not understand what you mean by that statement. Surely you don't mean you want to be able to but the car in gear while the charging cable is connected? And I think you can drive with the charge port door open?

That could be useful in some situations. For instance, you are sitting in your car while charging, and someone with ill intentions approaches. You have to weigh risk to your safety with damage to the car. But if I judge the risk high, the damage would be totally worth it.

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Still not clear on why a secondary, manually released latch is not utilized. Every other car I'm aware of has this on the hood, and I thought it was a mandatory thing. Sure, I get there's a bit of inconvenience opening the frunk with such a system, but I think I'd prefer that to a hood that could catch the wind if not latched properly and fly open.

Tesla's logic seems pretty clear. There is a secondary latch on older cars, that is there solely for the manual release lever. All other ways of unlatching the frunk can be locked out electronically. The manual release lever cannot, so it needs a backup.

Evidence: On newer cars, both the manual release and the secondary latch are gone.

 

[mknox]

Evidence: On newer cars, both the manual release and the secondary latch are gone.

Interesting. I did not know that. All I've ever seen (admittedly, a small sample) have a manual release inside the car that pops the hood open, and then you have to reach under the lip and release the secondary latch before raising the hood.

 

[Rheazombi]

That could be useful in some situations. For instance, you are sitting in your car while charging, and someone with ill intentions approaches. You have to weigh risk to your safety with damage to the car. But if I judge the risk high, the damage would be worth it.

The solution to this should be some kind of charge cable quick release, NOT allowing people to cause massive damage to unsuspecting property owners, possibly causing an electrical fire and burning down an entire neighborhood.

 

[ecarfan]

That could be useful in some situations. For instance, you are sitting in your car while charging, and someone with ill intentions approaches. You have to weigh risk to your safety with damage to the car. But if I judge the risk high, the damage would be totally worth it

The situation you describe is extremely rare, based on the fact that every day thousands of Teslas charge at Superchargers and yet in th past three years there is only one news report of a Tesla being stolen at a Supercharger. So it's a one out of a million occurrence. I don't think Tesla should spend any time redesigning the hardware and firmware in an attempt to introduce an extra measure of safety into that situation.

 

[tga]

Tesla's logic seems pretty clear. There is a secondary latch on older cars, that is there solely for the manual release lever. All other ways of unlatching the frunk can be locked out electronically. The manual release lever cannot, so it needs a backup.

Evidence: On newer cars, both the manual release and the secondary latch are gone.

Well, my 911 has an electrically operated frunk release button and a key/fob release (which are locked out when the car is rolling), yet it has a manual secondary release. There is no manual primary release.
There is growing evidence of people inadvertently driving off with an open frunk, despite warnings.
Not having a secondary mechanical release means you are relying on software to be bug free, which is somewhat foolhardy (especially with frequent update).

I can't find a compelling reason to not include a manual secondary latch, and more than one reason why it should have been kept.

 

[Rheazombi]

Well if we're going to overhaul the entire frunk closing mechanism, then I vote for an auto closing button as well, like the trunk has. I would even pay extra for that feature!

 

[morbot]

I'm still not sure we've seen a properly documented (pics, service records, etc) case of this actually happen. But it seems like 2 conditions should be considered:
1. The frunk should not be able to be opened via any method (except maybe the latch inside the frunk like if someone is being abducted) when the car is in Drive, Reverse or Neutral
2. If the frunk is not latched and the car is put into Drive or Reverse, in addition to the existing warnings the car should have it's speed limited via software so you cannot exceed a certain limit (this way you could safely move the car if need be, while the frunk is intentionally unlatched)

#1 is the implementation already existing right? Haven't read though this entire thread to see if all options have been tested.
#2 could be done via software update.

 

[rogbmw]

And you, like them, are forgetting the part where the car beeps and displays warnings telling a driver that the frunk is open and warns them about it nonstop.

Thanks - I in fact have never had this happen to me. But, is someone can put it in dive instead of reverse, and drive into a building, then I guess someone who is new to the car might not realize (or take the time to look at ) the alarm. I just wish that the secondary latch would always engage, but it does not.

 

[martinwinlow]

Your opinion gets my vote - he is very lucky he didn't crash and die - or worse, take anyone else with him. Idiot.

 

[green1]

The point isn't to be able to drive away with the charge cord plugged in, the point is to be able to drive away if the car THINKS the charge cord is plugged in but it is not. Same with the frunk. I wouldn't want to drive with it open, but I also don't want to be stranded somewhere with a defective sensor.

If a sensor is defective I should be able to verify for myself, acknowledge the warning, and continue driving. Not wait for a tow truck. As a responsible adult, I want my car to treat me like one, I don't want my car to treat me like a toddler.

 

[ItwasME]

Do you guys want to know what really happened with the OP?

 

[AMPUP]

True Story or Not?: "Frunk opened at 115mph and caused $20k damage on brand n...

Do you guys want to know what really happened with the OP?

Yes???

 

[yobigd20]

True Story or Not?: "Frunk opened at 115mph and caused $20k damage on brand n...

Do you guys want to know what really happened with the OP?

You mean the guy who posted this in priuschat? He probably got spanked by his mommy and daddy for getting threatened with legal action by tesla for a made up story. Although didn't we have one or two other people on this thread or forum say it happened to them too although if I recall it was there fault to unlatching it while driving or didn't fully latch it in the first place?

 

[3mp_kwh]

Well, my 911 has an electrically operated frunk release button and a key/fob release (which are locked out when the car is rolling), yet it has a manual secondary release. There is no manual primary release.
There is growing evidence of people inadvertently driving off with an open frunk, despite warnings.
Not having a secondary mechanical release means you are relying on software to be bug free, which is somewhat foolhardy (especially with frequent update).

I can't find a compelling reason to not include a manual secondary latch, and more than one reason why it should have been kept.

Grow by one more. Cars feature warnings, when hoods are "on the catch". The catch with my 2014, is there is no catch. In my case, I was t-shooting a rubbing noise up front and had the hood popped to verify the rubbing wasn't contact between the hood and the body/trunk. Fortunately, I was going slow enough that the hood's rise could be stopped by getting off the throttle. It's very reasonable to expect across the majority of OEMs, that you will get both a dash notification and be "on the catch", when you first release the hood. For Tesla not to do this, and expect people are aware of their unique warning gets dicey. We've already seen aluminum body repair price tags, on TMC, and that's ignoring the danger.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

Do you guys want to know what really happened with the OP?

Your first post on this forum...

So, what really happened to you?

What happened to ICEWOMAN...who may also be the OP?

 

[wycolo]

I'm so rarely going into the frunk that tying a rope or clipping a leash to the lid is easy enough to do each time. If you hang the lead/clip forward over the nose you will never forget to re-hook before closing lid.
--

 

[dsm363]

Agree. Two posts by Icewoman then disappears as well.

Did we ever get an independent confirmation any of these events actually happened?

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Agree. Two posts by Icewoman then disappears as well.

Did we ever get an independent confirmation any of these events actually happened?

Nope.

 

[dsm363]

Nope.

I believe we asked Icewoman to post a copy of the repair order but it was never done. I'm thinking none of these events actually happened.

 

[jerry33]

I believe we asked Icewoman to post a copy of the repair order but it was never done. I'm thinking none of these events actually happened.

Agreed. If the frunk really opened at 115 mph, the car would almost certainly be in the ditch by the time it was stopped. Even at 60 mph going from infinite to zero visibility in less than a second with no warning (think ice fog) is scary.