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[–] 23 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Elon is an idiot that barely thinks about any functionality. For him if something looks cool and scifi, it is a good enough reason to implement it (like the self hiding door handles).

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  • [–] 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

    It's a stunt to impress your average Tesla investor.

    Musk made his fortune manipulating stock prices.

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  • [–] 26 points 3 weeks ago (22 children)

    That's the worst idea for a car ever, the cibertruck can't survive a carwash and you are telling me you are going to do Car kickflicks?

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  • [+] -14 points 3 weeks ago (21 children)

    It might be impractical, but I saw this and thought of the safety features. If you're in an accident and the car is uncontrollably rolling then these thrusters could bring it to an upright stop.

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  • [–] 28 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

    The extremely dangerous high pressure vessel right behind the driver's head seems like it's not worth the trade off there... Better carry a bomb around just in case the car rolls over. /s

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  • [+] -10 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

    Sure it's dangerous, but so is that giant tank of fuel that's in the car. I think we figured out pressure vessels pretty well

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  • [–] 13 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

    A fuel tank is not a pressure vessel (apart from being sealed to keep fumes in). If you get a puncture in your gas tank, it doesn't immediately and violently explode, it just leaks fuel out. Even if it does catch fire, it would not be as violent an explosion as a pressure vessel failure. In most scenarios it would burn, but not explode.

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  • [–] -3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    I know the gas tank is not a pressure vessel, I made two separate statements.

    My point is that we already do dangerous things. I don't think it's a huge jump to put a pressurized nitrogen tank in a car. Car manufacturers even tried putting hydrogen tanks in cars. It's possible to make it safe.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

    Fuel is necessary to the function of the engine. If cars didn't need it, they wouldn't have it. We've figured out C4 pretty well, but we don't stuff the doors full of it.

    These thrusters could maybe help you if you fell down a particularly short cliff. Otherwise, if you get in an accident severe enough to send you rolling, you do not want high pressure nitrogen tanks right next to your head.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    Bumpers are there for if maybe you get in an accident. We don't build safety systems for maybe

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago* (2 children)

    Bumpers also don't explode in exactly the type of situation where they would ostensibly be useful

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    Nascar manages to do that without thrusters.

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  • [–] -4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    I've seen those and would advocate for flaps being added to regular cars. Could they do it better with thrusters though?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Yes you can scare up some possible safety applications for this but you have to take it on the whole and balance the safety risks and benefits. They haven’t even answered how rhey are going to make the underbelly fan street legal when we know it shoots a lot of gravel out backwards at high speed. And understanding from MKBHD is that the model with all directional thrusters is only a high end demo which will never actually be sold. The one that might actually get sold only has thrusters in the back. Does that scream “safety” to you or “excessive speed?”

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  • [–] 28 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

    pretty sure it's propelled by compressed air.

    still very wasteful, but at least not burning dangerous chemicals for funsies.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

    I heard it's nitrogen, which I think releases co² during the production process. You're right though, could be worse; they could've used hypergolic thrusters.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    Do you mean nitrous (N2O)? Straight up N2 shouldn’t be changing to CO2 unless some very interesting chemistry is happening, haha.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    They said during the production process, not on release.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    I'm pretty sure the "production" process is just compressing atmospheric air and separating out the other gases. The atmosphere is 78% nitrogen.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago*

    I think what they mean is that when making liquid CO2 you use a cryo-cooler. That cooler condenses the gas out of the air. Air contains CO2 and nitrogen (plus some other stuff). The gases aren't created but rather just a state change. Cryo coolers also take energy to run.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago
    [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    Not to detract from the overall impact its probably had, because im sure they wouldnt bother if it didnt work on the whole, but I've lost 2 bottle caps since they implemented this, compared to my zero beforehand. I've become careless and no longer try to hold the lid.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    You know you can still just break the cap away if you have some imperative for it.

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