A man says he was ‘‘kidnapped’’ by his own runaway electric car - forcing him to dodge red lights and roundabouts and call police to ram it off the road. Brian Morrison, 53, says his new posh motor started driving itself - and he had to dial 999 from inside.
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Didn’t something like this happen with ICE Toyotas or Hondas a few years ago? IIRC, the gas pedal was getting stuck under some carpeting.
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There is a rash of “unintended acceleration” accidents every decade or so. It is caused by people sincerely believing their foot is on the brake when it is actually on the gas.
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I had a case of "unintended deceleration." Most of my cars had manual gear shift. I was driving my girlfriend’s automatic Mustang. Since it did not have a clutch pedal it had an extra wide break pedal. As I stepped on the non existent clutch pedal the Mustang decelerated violently. This was before seat belts and my girlfriend hit the windshield. Thankfully there was no more damage than a headache and a bit of embarrassment.
BTW, this is what happens when you mess with the user interface!
The Captain
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In a different kind of EV rampage:
The UK’s biggest chain of motorway service stations has started recruiting marshals to break up rows between electric car drivers over limited charging points.
DB2
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Carefull where you park them, you could bring the house down:
Multi-storey car parks across the UK could be at risk of collapsing due to the weight of electric vehicles, experts warn.
Electric cars, which are roughly twice as heavy as standard models, could cause serious damage to car park floors with especially older, unloved structures most at risk of buckling.
EV = joke
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I still have no idea what happened, but when the RAC [mechanic] got to me about three hours later he plugged in the car to do a diagnostic check and there were pages of faults.
‘He said he had never seen anything like it, and decided he was not willing to turn the engine on to see what was wrong.’
DB2
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It’s amazing the absolute nonsense that is published nowadays. Journalism is truly dead.
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Do you think EVs don’t weigh more or that old parking structures don’t collapse?
DB2
There are certainly a lot of problems that are now becoming apparent with EVs
For a start, concerns are now being raised about multi-storey car parks, which were not built to take the weight of electric vehicles. Here and in the US, experts are worried about the impact of their engines, which can be at least 400 to 600kg heavier than their petrol or diesel equivalents…
…One British structural engineer has said there is “definitely potential” for high-rise car parks, if they are in poor condition, to collapse under the strain. Additionally, if they install a charging point bay the problem grows more intense because the heaviest vehicles will be concentrated in one spot.
They are very damaging to our roads as well:
A new study shows EVs put 2.24 times more stress on roads than petrol vehicles, possibly worsening the UK’s pothole crisis.
EC’s will cause more deaths and serious injuries in crashes as well, all due to the weight:
Video of the incident:
Can’t understand why people buy them
The sentence that I quoted and responded to … stated one, and only one, thing. And that thing that was stated is clearly utter nonsense.
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Yes.
DB2
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All good children go to heaven
Average car weights have increased significantly over the years with length, width, interior volume, safety, NVH and quality improvements.
EVs weigh more than the average car.
Those parking garages aren’t getting any stronger with time, either.
This is partially car weights in general. Partially EV additional weight. Partially facility upkeep (<- not even really a thing for some locations)
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Very good point. Is ANYONE contemplating this at the local level with engineering permits, building inspections, etc.? I suspect many rules of thumb for construction design and safety inspections assume that many parking garages have short floors which typically prevent tall trucks from using them, which would keep average vehicle weights down. But what if the average Accord or Corolla grows from 2800 pounds to 3800 pounds with electrification?
As an example, a base trim ICE Camry weighs about 3000 pounds. The top level hybrid weighs about 3500. The all-electric BZ4X is 4464 pounds. Not exactly the same car style but they are both 4-door, 5-passenger vehicles. Adding 1400 pounds to every car in a parking garage with 100 cars per floor? Oooooof.
WTH
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EV vs. ICE is just another trumped up wedge issue.
https://www.jdpower.com/business/resources/america-grows-increasingly-divided-ev-adoption
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My petrol Q5 has a curb weight of 1,835 kg. The e version is a whopping 315 kg heavier!
It’s causing concern:
The Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) has said UK car parks could collapse under the weight of electric vehicles (EVs) unless weight limits are imposed or the buildings are strengthened.
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Usual safety factors are 3:1 to 5:1. With car weights double what they used to be, you are down to 1.5:1 to 2.5:1. As cars have gotten larger, this is mitigated somewhat we had to repaint our structure twice in the last 15 years because of complaints of tight parking and door dings. Regardless of reasons, that 15% reduction in car volume makes up for part of the added weight.
Now, on the subject of structural upkeep: many structures are modular precast structures with welded plates to stabilize the modular sections together.
As the concrete ages and the steel corrodes, inspection, recertification and remediation should be part of the process.
It seems that we have coincident processes that would bring that safety margin much closer to 1:1 and too close for comfort as time progresses with recent trends and natural decay.
This is a common theme with infrastructure: changing conditions and natural aging.
<–Desires for bridges and structures to visit the fountain of youth from time to time.
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Ahem. Technically speaking, concrete continues to cure forever . Therefore a parking garage made of it does get stronger with time.
*Yes, pedantic, because the improvement over time decreases logarithmically making the increase less and less perceptible, but what is the internet for if not for posturing and making irrelevant arguments and trying to sidetrack threads?
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Goof,
I’m 100% with you. It’s the weathering and the fracturing that gets it. In a place like the UK, that’s not insignificant.
For the northern US, similar concerns are apparent where freezing rain and icing are prevalent.
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Ayup. Water gets into cracks in the concrete, freezes, and opens the crack wider. Repeat the process for a few years, and the thing collapses.
News report of a ramp in Detroit, built in the late 70s, had a collapse a few years ago. This same ramp had another collapse a couple months ago.
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