I know a few engineers that are/were at Tesla, and not only did they do environmental chamber tests, but also Alaska and Death Valley in winter/summer. I don't know any other particulars. However, No amount of testing can cover every situation of course, and there is a difference between how a new car acts in extreme environments and how it acts in those after it's aged somewhat.
I think Tesla made a mistake on the door handles on the Model S, but I'm pretty happy with the ones on the Model 3 (same as Y). One easy fix Tesla could make on these is to add door open command from the app, that way if the handle is covered in ice, you could still pop the door without even having to touch it. The exterior door handles are literally just a switch, and a grab handle to pull on the door. If you are a California engineer who has never lived in areas with poor weather, it's hard to imagine all the requirements as well as one from Detroit. I also lived in suburban Detroit in my younger years, so I know what it's like. I'm glad I don't live there anymore, and I'm glad I don't have to engineer automotive closure systems. =) I'm glad I live in a good climate, and in the rare instance it's not, I have a garage. On Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 11:44 AM Lee Hart via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: > On cold-testing cars... > > I grew up in Michigan, at a time when the US auto industry was king. > Friends of mine worked for various automakers. They each had huge > environmental test chambers that could be adjusted for anything from -40 > deg.F deep freezes to 140 deg.F deserts, howling winds, blizzards, driving > rain, and altitudes from Death Valley to Pike's Peak. That way, they could > find out how their cars would fare with weather in the real world. > > This headed off many problems, at least when the cars were new. But as you > might expect, there were cases where the environmental chambers were > over-booked, or someone changed a part without re-testing, or testing one > car didn't reveal that 50% of that model would have problems. > > A friend related one incident where there was a blizzard and -40 deg.F > temperatures forecast for Houghton MI. GM had engineers drive a few cars up > there for testing. They stayed at a motel, and the next morning, none of > the cars would start. Not from a battery problem; but because the emission > control computers were dead. My friend opened up the emission control > computer, placed his hand on the chips to warm them up, and the car > started. It turned out that a one hour at -40 deg.F wasn't long enough to > cool everything down; but overnight was. > > Big companies only tend to learn from their own mistakes (not others). The > traditional automakers have learned their lessons over a very long time. > The engineers would complain about stupid tests that only held things up, > but that were mandated to prevent past mistakes. > > Tesla is a young company. Perhaps they don't yet see the reasons to do > much environmental testing. So it's going to take them time to make their > own mistakes, and learn from them. > > Excellence does not require perfection. -- Henry James > -- > Lee A. Hart https://www.sunrise-ev.com > > _______________________________________________ > Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org > No other addresses in TO and CC fields > HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/ > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20240121/feeb57aa/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org No other addresses in TO and CC fields HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/
