Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article does not make any speculation and judgment on the out-of-control case of Tesla in Chaozhou. You can rest assured that you can eat it or abandon it.

More than a year later, "Tesla out of Control" once again hit the front page. And please note that the situation is different from Ms. Zhang in Henan in 2021 and Mr. Chen in Wenzhou in 2020: this accident in Chaozhou directly caused 2 deaths and 3 injuries to passers-by.

Because the brake lights of the vehicle were not on in the surveillance video, and the owner said he had been trying to hit the brakes, some people pointed the doubt to the "single pedal" mode of the electric car before more details were disclosed and confirmed. That is, it is suspected that the car owner encountered a failure in the single pedal mode, and in the panic, he mistakenly put the accelerator pedal as a brake pedal.

However, according to the interview with the car owner in Dahe Daily, the owner repeatedly mentioned that "the brake pedal hardens after stepping on it," which is not quite in line with the situation of stepping on the wrong accelerator pedal, but the above speculation is based on "miscalculation in panic"....

As mentioned at the beginning, we do not want to talk nonsense beyond the thousands of miles of network, and we are noncommittal about the speculation that a single pedal is wrong. But putting aside the accident, if you look at the single pedal and a series of new car operation modes that have emerged in recent years, the hidden risks may indeed be underestimated.

Single pedal mode is a new function that has appeared in some electric vehicles in recent years. In this mode, releasing the accelerator pedal is equivalent to pressing the brake. In most cases, it is no longer necessary to press the brake pedal.

In fact, Tesla does not have a "single pedal mode", which actually refers to the strong kinetic energy recovery function. Tesla originally provided "light" and "standard" two gears with adjustable kinetic energy recovery, but at the beginning of 2021, Model Y no longer provided kinetic energy recovery adjustment option, but forced to maintain it at a strong intensity.

Compared with the single pedal model that other car companies really use the name of "single pedal", the kinetic energy recovery of Tesla's "single pedal" is actually far less than that of those real single pedals which are really named for the purpose of single pedal operation. In other words, it can not really achieve the "single pedal" effect which does not need to hit the brakes at all.

Targeting the single pedal mode or Tesla's strong kinetic energy recovery is only one of the possibilities for this accident (and the existing information is not "likely"), but what this article wants to say is that there is a logical reason for this concern.

The real single pedal mode, which can achieve almost no need to step on the brake pedal, has completely changed the driver's driving habits: braking on the left, throttle on the right, moving the foot to the left when braking and moving the foot to the right when accelerating. From the first day of driving school, every driver begins to implant it into muscle memory.

Prospective drivers who do not have a successful implant will not get a driver's license at all, while those who do not have a deep implant will have a ticket and a car repair shop to help ta.

From the first day you really touch the steering wheel, this habit and memory deepens for every extra minute you drive. And now suddenly a car tells you, brother, you quit in Lanzhou for so many years, and you will smoke this from now on.

Even if most real single-pedal modes are not turned on forcefully, the emergence of this option itself provides the possibility or temptation of an "anti-driving habit". Even if the driver takes the initiative to choose, the car company should be held responsible for providing this option.

Where on earth is the border? There are two blurring here.

First, to what extent can car companies change the mode of operation of car driving? Because, if there is really a car company to the concept car what rocker drive, button drive mass production, then what is the point of driving school? What's the point of a driver's license? where is the boundary of "you can adapt directly without re-examination"?

Second, the car companies provide drivers with non-traditional optional operations, to what extent do they deviate from habits and common sense and begin to be responsible for them? If a car provides an unprotected co-driver eject button, although it is up to the owner to decide whether to press it or not, it is difficult to say that it is reasonable for the car company to provide this option.

Not only the single pedal mode, but also the basic driving function of the car has appeared frequently in recent years. For example, the screen sliding shift and yoke steering wheel of Tesla's new Model S (different from the one with full lap by line steering); for example, many new forces have crammed rearview mirrors, headlights and even wipers into the deep menu of the touch screen.

If these can also be said to be "less basic" and less frequently operated functions, such as the single pedal mode, it touches the more fundamental common sense that acceleration and braking are separate-people may know that they can't drive in childhood.

Of course, you may not remember which side it is when you are young, but if you look at the questions of many adult prospective drivers about "which is the throttle and which is the brake", "the brake throttle is at least not the same pedal" is much more popular common sense.

There is a lack of awe to challenge and change this operational logic, which is close to the common sense of modern people (accelerating brake separation), or, specifically, rashly changing it without any public education. Modern Homo sapiens have known and used "throttle and brake are separate" for decades and hundreds of years.

Simple things can be complex does not assert whether the new or the old is better (at least not discussed in this article), but our consensus should be that the new mode of operation does not bring about any revolutionary change, but is an exploration and attempt of a more user-friendly way of operation-the difference is just whether the attempt succeeds or not.

Whether these changes are really innovative or fart by taking off their pants is debatable, but what is certain is that they increase "the complexity and diversity of the way cars are operated on the market". In other words, you can drive your car, but not mine.

As a kind of qualification, driving school and driver's license are based on the premise that "cars that can be on the road are about the same." Therefore, C2 photos are specially designed for automatic gear models, and drivers who can drive automatic gear may not be able to drive manual gear, which is based on the obvious difference between the two modes of operation.

So do you want to get a "single pedal mode photo" now? A driver can legally drive a vehicle with a single pedal mode only if he passes the test. Should car companies be forced to provide training for new car owners? If society had to pay the above costs, would these new modes of operation of vehicles emerge in endlessly as they are today?

The more fundamental question is that these new vehicle operations have brought little qualitative change, or whether the changes are still ambiguous-but certainly add to the confusion and discomfort. But so far there is no evidence that the chaos has increased to such an extent that it can lead to serious consequences.

The only benefits of the new driving mode are probably cool effects and different experiences. For many features that do not affect security, innovation really does not need a reason, even if it is useless, cool and different is also a value. But the basic driving operation is different, if there are hidden dangers and costs, is it still worth being cool and different?

As far as the single pedal model is concerned, proponents say it also has a functional change: avoiding "stepping on the wrong pedal". However, it is important to know that a single pedal only transfers "stepping on the wrong pedal" to "step / loose confusion". It is also possible to distinguish between forward and braking operations, but the trigger mechanism is different from that of the traditional mode.

Both single pedals and double pedals have the same problem of "stepping wrong", which is actually a problem of adapting to the crowd: single pedals are more friendly to novice drivers who do not have a deep muscle memory of double pedals. but it is not friendly to the old driver who has formed psychological and muscle memory, and this is only relatively speaking, many novice drivers at least have a good idea of "left brake and right oil".

Since this is not a progressive innovation, but a way to curry favor, compromise and reduce the difficulty of a certain group of people, should we shift our driver's license and driving test to people who can't tell the difference between the throttle brake and the throttle brake? or should we simply differentiate between "single pedal" and "two pedal" driving qualifications?

We have fallen into the strange circle of useless innovation. Good luck to everyone.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: autocarweekly (ID:autocarweekly), author: ao'hu

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