It seems the story, as written, is a little misleading. From other reports I’ve read, the car itself didn’t freeze at 83mph, the screen did. The driver was still able slow down and speed up, turn, and stop. It just wasn’t registering on the screen.
Disclosure: I drive a 2018 Model 3, having no problems.
I was kind of wondering that too. He was afraid to use the brakes because he was worried he wouldn’t be able to speed back up to highway speed? How long did he run video before pulling over… He didn’t even make it to the side and a cop had to push him off? I don’t think we have enough of the story.
Alternatively, there are jobs like pilots who continually train for every known failure so their reactions will be quick and appropriate. I can appreciate the panic and confusion this guy must have been under.
Say what you will about traditional auto makers but they’re really, really good at making technology that protects the driver over anything else it does. A modern car will not fail in a way that endangers you at any speed if it isn’t significantly compromised by outside forces and even then it will try to fail as gracefully as possible. It is full of redundant systems and early warning mechanisms.
This is a mindset that has grown over decades in that industry. Tesla is essentially a software company with an entirely different approach.
If you move fast and break things, sometimes those things are your customers.
ETA: That said, if, as others here are saying and the video seems to indicate, the brakes and steering still worked then it did fail gracefully and as safely as can be expected and all he would have needed to do was to pull over to the hard shoulder rather than wondering whether he could keep up with other cars (!?)
As a German I fail to see the problem. That’s pretty much exactly the recommended speed on the autobahn.
The Risks Digest is the go-to weekly dose of computing terror since 1985. This reminded me of one from a couple of decades ago, Saturn had this built in as a feature:
I have a 1-year-old Saturn. As a safety feature, my Saturn will prevent me
from going faster than is safe with my suspension or tires. When I first
got the car, I had to try this feature out, so I found a long straight road
and floored it. When I got to 105MPH the engine lost power and I slowed
down. Experimentation revealed that I couldn’t regain power until I dropped
below 100, then I could accelerate again.
A couple of days ago I drove through a fairly steep chasm with a road
straight down one side and up the other. I figured I needed as much
momentum as possible, so I pushed the clutch in and coasted down. Somewhere
along the way I hit 105MPH. Just as I was starting up the opposite side I
noticed that virtually all of my warning lights were on, and the engine was
at 0RPM. A still engine means no power steering and no power brakes. I’m
quite glad there weren’t any turns or traffic that might have forced me to
turn or brake.
The problem was the assumption that I got to an excessive speed by using the
engine to accelerate. The default action works great when the clutch is
engaged. In my case, I ended up with a car that suddenly became very hard
to control when I was already doing something unsafe.
tbf, going 160kph on a depressed clutch is something no one could have foreseen someone being stupid enough to do. Obviously the “safety” feature still shouldn’t have kicked in but woo boy is that an unsafe thing to do in the first place.
Yeah, he should be gong at least 90 to keep up with traffic.
Most new cars these days don’t have a physical e-brake lever you can “pull,” but instead have an electric switch that will theoretically engage or disengage a parking brake. Based on this video I wouldn’t count on it working if the computer crashes. It definitely needs electric power to engage, which the lever-type e-brakes don’t.
I’ve got a Model 3, and I can reboot it while I’m driving with no ill effects. Worst thing as far as actually driving goes is that I can’t tell what my speed is anymore until the reboot completes. You can still accelerate, brake, use your turn signals, and look out your windows to see what’s around you (including the back - it’s bizarre to me that some people rely so heavily on rear-facing cameras and don’t also look out the actual physical rear window just to be sure). I can also start the car while it’s rebooting - one time I was out running errands and came back to the car and it looked like everything was dead, but I just put it in drive and went off on my merry way. Eventually it finished gathering its thoughts and my displays came on.
Sounds like this guy didn’t know his car well and freaked out and didn’t try anything to help himself until it was almost too late.
My husband has had both a Ford Escape and a Toyota RAV4 have their electronic systems totally barf on him while he was driving and stop displaying helpful info/freeze up and he was also fine. Not really super-unique to Teslas in this regard.
But I’m also old enough that my first car had a manual choke, so I guess I see the pretty displays in my car as just that, pretty displays, and still rely on my old-school knowledge of cars to assume that it’ll still brake and stuff without them.
Rear view mirrors are available for a monthly fee.
Also (and the reason why I came here was to say) shouldn’t incidences like these just sink a company and brand?
“I was nervous that if I were to brake a whole lot that I wouldn’t be able to gain the speed again to keep up with traffic and get around cars. I was nervous somebody was going to slam into me.”
I guess the idea of STOPPING his car, that he felt was broken, never crossed his mind? But getting out his phone to video the event seemed logical? “Oh, poor me, what if I couldn’t pass people in the car I think is broken?” Jackwagon. This driver should be a walker. He’s too dumb to safely drive.
Not that it’s common, but this has happened to my dad’s 1984 Ford F-250. The cruise control stuck on, and the vacuum pump which holds the throttle in position (that’s how it worked on that model- vacuum) sucked the pedal to the floor. We were doing 65mph at the time and the truck started accelerating out of control from there. We couldn’t shut it off because we’d lose steering and brakes at highway speed. My dad cleverly stood hard on the brakes to bleed down as much speed as possible, while simultaneously flipping the transmission into neutral with his elbow, then turning off the key just before the engine over-revved itself to pieces. That got us going slow enough that he could then ease on the parking brake with the engine off. He went under the hood, pulled the fuse for the cruise control pump, and we resumed our road trip. My dad is a clever and fearless man.
My Chevy Bolt had a persistent bug where the seat heaters would fail to disengage. I would have to “reboot” the car at a light, or arrive at my destination sweating like a pig with a red bum. But that was never dangerous per se. 
For perspective, Tesla would not be the first. BMW has had Active Steering for many years. It’s not fully steer-by-wire, but there’s a differential in the linkage that gives the computer full servo control of steering when needed as part of the collision avoidance system. The computer can apply 100% opposite lock when needed. I’ve not heard of software malfunctions in this system, but if they happened it would be very bad and very scary. There’s nothing in principle stopping the computer from throwing the steering hard-over at speed for no reason.
Throttle by wire is also common in all newer cars now, so there’s nothing theoretically stopping the computer from slamming the throttle down and locking it there at any moment.
I don’t know if any cars have done full brakes by wire yet, but most “emergency” brakes are no longer mechanical and certainly electric cars have mostly electrical brakes (there’s no source of vacuum in an electric car so the brake assist is an electrical servo).
Sounds like a pretty scary failure, but I bet even in that case your dad’s turn signals and emergency flashers probably still worked.
Yah for sure- just the one thing failed and the rest of the truck (including the transmission and mechanical parking brake) were invoked to salvage the situation. It’s scary to think a car could fail system-wide all at once (if that’s what happened here- it’s not clear to me if this guy lost control of his Tesla or was just an idiot).
It occurs to me that one of the huge drawbacks of going fully steer-by-wire (aside from the possibility of an electronic/software failure steering occupants to their doom) is that you wouldn’t be able to move a dead car at all, even to push it to the side of the road or guide it onto the back of a flatbed tow truck.
It’s weird to think that the same guy who builds these problematic cars also does space ships.
“Never mind the frozen controls. Earth out.”
That’s already a problem with security systems that lock the steering. Tow trucks generally use dollies in this case, and will also just drag the car with the winch. I’ve loaded a few cars with flat tires this way too- the tires don’t have to roll to winch the car, it’s just less pleasant.
