Toronto, Ontario — In this weekly electronic and autonomous vehicle report, emergency respondents raise concerns over the safety of Tesla vehicles in a collision after a collision in Toronto last month; while Toyota teaches self-driving vehicles to do doughnuts in the name of improved road safety.
Tesla trials
Emergency respondents have voiced concerns over the awareness and access to Tesla vehicles’ emergency latches following a collision in Toronto last month that led to the death of four people inside the vehicle.
According to a recent report from CTV News, when the collision occurred, “the first people on the scene knew there were occupants inside, but couldn’t immediately get them out.”
“You couldn’t open the car,” Rick Harper, a Canada Post employee who saw the flames, told the news source. “The car was locked because of lack of battery power.”
A similar crash also occurred last week in Wisconsin when a Tesla crashed into a tree.
Mike Klimkosky, who helps first responders prepare for electrification further told the news source that electric vehicles have a latch inside the vehicle that can manually open doors.
This latch is usually on the driver’s side and there is also sometimes one in the back seat of the car. Industry professionals are urging consumers to know where emergency apparatuses are in their vehicles—especially when access to vehicle exits are dependent on motive power.
Doughnut demands
Toyota is working on teaching autonomous vehicles stunt tricks with the goal of enhancing performance safety.
In a video from New Scientist, vehicles can be seen deliberately skidding sideways at high speeds while still safely navigating a closed figure-eight course raceway.
The vehicles used in the video are the Toyota GR Supra and a Lexus LC 500. The reason for this stunt training is to help the vehicle more safely navigate normal driving situations.
While the automaker notes that these techniques won’t be used on the road directly, they could give an autonomous vehicle the ability to recover from skids in an emergency situation.
