People in the notes of my post about Tesla removing the gear selectors from its new cars, asking how that's even legal, clearly have no idea just how incompetent and slow-paced the NHTSA is.
Halogen headlights weren't legal until 1979.
Composite headlights (the uniquely designed ones that aren't the old-school circle or square ones you see on older cars) weren't legal until 1984.
Adaptive High Beams (Matrix Headlights) were only recently legalized, in 2022; and the regulations and testing procedures in order to approve them are so haphazard and over-complicated compared to Europe's that not a single automaker has even made them available.
Side Curtain airbags still are not mandated in the United States.
Turn Signals can be red in the U.S., as opposed to the statistically safer amber which is mandatory in Europe.
Making that worse, those red turn signals are allowed to share lamps with the brake lights. This means if you have your turn signal on, 1/3 of your brake lights can’t do their job because they're too busy doing another job.
There is no law in the United States dictating that an electric car must put on its brake lights when Regen braking. In fact, the law specifically states that only the friction brakes are required to activate brake lights. You can bring a Hyundai Ioniq 5 & 6, Kia EV6, Genesis GV60, and many other EVs to a rapid, complete stop without ever activating the brake lights.
Early model Chevrolet Bolt EVs and some Mercedes-Benz EVs will activate the brake lights appropriately when slowing down, but will deactivate their brake lights once they've come to a complete stop, allowing the car to sit at a standstill in the road without any indicator that it isn't traveling at the same speed as you are.
It's completely up to the automaker to decide how (or even if) to implement regen brake lighting. EVs and Hybrids have been around since the late 1990s and this still hasn't changed.
The US government STILL only evaluates a vehicles crash safety by crash testing it at 35 mph into a flat wall and t-boning it with a barrier representing a 3,000 lb sedan. They don't do an offset frontal test or a truck-barrier side test like the IIHS has been doing for private insurance companies for over a decade.
The NHTSA performs ZERO pedestrian crash safety tests like EuroNCAP does.
Oh, and on the topic of gear selectors, those aren't regulated at all. Here are some examples from modern cars, both electric and not:
BMW i3 & Nissan LEAF (Electric):
Toyota Prius (Hybrid) & Honda Clarity (Plug-in Hybrid):
RAM 1500 & Cadillac Escalade (Gasoline):
The automotive rules of the American government are pure chaos, and that’s if they're even there at all. If you're seriously asking how Tesla can allow a car to select reverse on its own, and then put the manual override in the touch screen, I mean, that's just scratching the surface.
If you wanna learn more, Technology Connections on YouTube has some great videos on the Turn Signal issue, the EV Regen brake light issue, and the history of the headlight regulations. I highly recommend you check them out because it truly puts into perspective just how awful the NHTSA is at doing its one job: keeping safety standards up-to-date.
165 notes
·
View notes