OT: Gas shortage

It is not in place of a mirror. It is in addition to a mirror.

Given that their cars are imported and subject to safety inspection, it seems unlikely that they would get away with "skirting the feds".

Note that Honda and Hyundai have similar systems.

No DVDs, but Tesla's main screen will show Hulu, Netflix, and some others. Only while the car is parked though.

...because running over a kid on a bike at 11.9 MPH is acceptable.

And the Tesla Model S has at least two types of steering wheel; the Yoke style may look deformed to someone expecting a standard round steering wheel.

Only prohibited in VA and DC. CA does not allow windshield mount.

Which state impounded your car for having a detector? Thought it was Maryland.

That's weird but governments are that way. My wife's car has the light dimmer in the windshield, behind the mirror that's a lot larger than today's radar detectors. There is no requirement for clear view area, either. Like I said, governments are weird, though really it's about banning radar detectors without banning them.

The dumb kid should be able to pedal faster.

You're the one who brought up the plastic cup simile. I was just pointing out that it wasn't a very good one.

I knew it. You have too much common sense to spend $6-700 on a shop vac, unless...

It's actually is a very good simile to use as an example of impact deformation, heat deformation and a combination of both.

The problem with your "1000F for an hour" statement is twofold:

If you were building a 1/16 scale model Tomahawk missile, would you power it with a full size engine or would you scale it back a bit?

Subjecting a plastic cup to *any* amount of heat for an hour would not be an accurate recreation of the original incident.

Once again you've proved that all you are doing is reading these posts and slamming them without having done any actual research.

I'm pretty that sure that Tesla?s vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy, would not be "expecting a standard round steering wheel."

He was the one that said the company found the steering wheel of the vehicle to be deformed.

LOL, That multi hundred dollar shop vac, let's call it the dust extractor, has run every time and as for as long as my 4 Festool sanders, Domino mortiser, Festool track saw, and Kapex miter saw all combined. Plus a few other tools. It is 13 years old. I'd buy it again with out much thought.

When you look at the price of a high-end house vac, it's not all that ridiculous. Sure, it's a lot more than a "5.5HP" Crapsman shop vac but a $99 Hoover isn't a decent household vac either.

You just proved my point.

Once again, you prove my point. If you were going to scale a Tomahawk missile (how do they get away with that name, today), you'd scale the engine's thrust appropriately. It would still have to get nearly as hot to prop ell it, though. Not 16x less heat. 300K/56C exhaust isn't going to prop ell much. You also wouldn't expect a 1/16 scale missile to fly the same as the full size model (Reynolds number, and all that).

Actually, it would. Temperature is not heat.

About 30 years ago I bought a Ricar home vacuum cleaner. Still own it, and it was similar in price to the Festool vac. Lite weight, built to last, could suck up and digest a quarter. But we switched to a Roomba 13 years ago, on our 3rd now, and do not use the big vac anymore.

IIRC a wider angle.

Give it up. It was just an example. Did you even see the word *if*?

Give it up. That's exactly what I meant. "Scale it back a bit" is just an expression.

You're just nit-picking numbers when the only point I'm making is that the deformation of the steering wheel (or plastic cup) caused by impact would not be the same as a deformation of the steering wheel (or plastic cup) caused by a fire.

You don't need a hours worth of 1000°F heat to illustrate the differences in deformation, just like you don't need to throw the plastic cup at a tree at whatever speed the Tesla was going.

Less impact and less heat would still illustrate the *difference* assuming the test material is not as robust as the steering wheel.

Moving on.

And more speculation, the crash was at 30 mph. One would think that if there was some one in the drivers seat that the air bag would have gone off and prevented the driver from deforming the steering wheel. And the vehicle was not to be badly damaged from the crash so much as from the fire.