I have a different issue with the "cabin overheat protection": claiming that it is to "protect dogs and children" when, even if working as intended, it could allow a car to reach a temperature dangerous to children, is highly irresponsible -- even if Tesla also said that you should constantly monitor the temperature to ensure that it is safe. There's no justification for this sort of dissembling.
>Tesla appeared to mostly fix this problem with its "cabin overheat protection" feature (which it sold as being to protect dogs and children, despite the fact that it held the temperature at +40C which is about the temperature where a child's organs will start shutting down)
But as the linked explanation says, +40C is the internal temperature which becomes dangerous. This is not the same as the dangerous air temperature. Humans both produce heat by metabolism, and remove heat by sweating. Danger is a function of temperature, humidity, duration of exposure, hydration, clothing, general health, etc. and although I don't know exactly what is safe for children, I point out that a great many people live in climates where air temperature routinely exceeds 40C for several hours at a time.
Cabin Overheat Protection is separate to Dog Mode.
If you want to express outrage about abdication of responsibility at least be talking about the relevant feature.
Cabin overheat protection is there to protect things left in the car like electronics, and theoretically requires no user interaction.
Dog Mode allows the user to dial up the desired temperature and then walk away. This is the actual dangerous feature, because the belief is that the air conditioner will keep the temperature at the level you want it. This despite a history of at least one police dog dying every month in the USA due to equipment failures, and theirs dog cars have specially modified environmental controls to maintain and monitor the temperature, including opening windows as a last ditch temperature control effort. Even those systems fail sometimes.
And here is Tesla setting people up for failure using a single air conditioner that is monitored remotely using an internet connection that is flakier than filo pastry.
The temperature is tracked locally, I assume you mean if the AC fails it notifies you remotely?
It is a good question if, while in dog mode, if the car detects the temperature exceeds the set point, will it lower the windows or try to notify the owner?
Leaving your dog in the car for an extended amount of time is not a good idea, and in many places is illegal. And yet, sometimes the safest place for your dog is in the car.
Personally I haven’t used it yet, but I like the option of a big display showing the interior temperature of my dog is in the car without me for a few minutes.
Yes, monitored remotely through the app on your phone, which may or may not reflect the actual environment in the car at that moment.
FWIW is typical failure mode for an air conditioner is for the condenser to fail, so the conditioner ends up over-heating air that hasn’t been cooled by the condenser yet, resulting in the interior temperature hitting 60C in minutes, so eg a police dog (typically a large-ish dog like German shepherds) will be dead or dying when you come out to check on it fifteen minutes later.
The systems used in police dog vehicles include redundant components, temperature monitoring and emergency actions like opening windows to allow cool air to flow. Police around the USA still lose about one dog a month with those specialist systems in place.
It’s only a matter of time until someone posts on the Tesla reddit that the car killed their dog and the fans will dogpile on the poster telling them it’s their fault for leaving the dog in the car in the first place.
People will leave their dogs in cars on occasion. I believe there are plenty of times you have to do that actually as a matter of safety, where there isn’t another option or a second person to stay with the dog in the car.
But a car isn’t perfectly safe for dogs, and perhaps hundreds of dogs die each year in hot cars. (Apparently a million dogs are killed in collisions each year, but I guess that’s besides the point)
So as a feature to keep dogs comfortable and safe, it’s a feature that is likely to protect dogs’ lives on hot days.
Yet, as you say, and I agree, it’s entirely possible a hardware or software failure will result in a dog’s death.
So they are protecting dogs lives, but in doing with a general purpose automotive AC could also risk a dog’s life in the event the system fails. In addition the existence of the feature may also contribute to a complacency around leaving dogs in cars that otherwise could have safely remained with the owner.
Does that mean it’s wrong to ship the feature? FSD, in a similar sense, has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives a year. It will also undoubtably cost some number of lives a year as well.
If we are unable to tolerate catastrophic failure of a system, you necessarily lose all the benefits of the system. To me it seems morally wrong not to ship the system which will save orders of magnitudes more lives than it might cost. That’s true whether we’re discussing dogs or humans.
It’s funny it’s hard to draw a precise line, but I’m sure for example the FDA has dealt with this exact calculation. No medicine is without risk, and to win approval is not to show a medicine is risk free. Their is some threshold where the risk is worth the net benefit.
In the case of an AC system in an automobile, it is already a mission critical system which is highly reliable by the way. When I had a cooling fan die on my last car a couple years ago I was unable to use the AC in my car on a 100°F day. It was amazing how hot the car got, and how quickly. If I was on a remote highway it would have been life threatening, to go from 72°F climate control to 100°F+ with no water on hand.
