Firefighters and emergency responders already consider robotaxis a pain in their backsides.
And Tesla’s gilded Cybercab, free of steering wheels or pedals, isn’t going to make their lives any easier.
According to new guidance posted by the Elon Musk owned automaker, a firefighter who has to deal with a Cybercab in an emergency or that had an accident might need to call not one, but two different Tesla support support hotlines and wait for an employee to assist them with their request — an awfully clunky procedure in a profession where time is of the essence.
The process is even more painstaking if a firefighter has to move the vehicle themselves. Recall that Cybercabs have no steering wheels or pedals. To control one, you have to first have to call support to gain control of the vehicle, according to the guidance. Then emergency responders can get access to its virtual onboard controls, which are of course located on a touchscreen. Try using that while wearing heavy gloves.
The unstated premise is that Tesla is basically expecting firefighters to intimately know these details and more about its vehicle ahead of an actual emergency — as if they needed any more on their plates. Tesla, thoughtfully, says it’s placed a QR code on the bottom left corner of Cybercab windshields in case emergency responders need to remember what to do.
There’re heaps of other details firefighters should know ahead of time: which wires to cut to completely disable the vehicle if necessary, how to open its doors that don’t have handles on the outside, how to pull it over, how to cage it in and stop it from moving. Or on the safety side of things, how the car might still be in autonomous driving mode even if it’s sitting still and the autonomous mode indicator is off, or that trying to start the car in low voltage power — so you can use its central touchscreen, for example — might start a fire.
This might be placing too much extra responsibility for first responders, former fire chief and the director of fire and emergency services at the University of Florida’s design college Jeffrey Lindsey told Fast Company.
“When you arrive on the scene of an incident, your main focus in the very beginning is scene safety to make sure everything’s safe. You’re taking in the whole scene. You’re trying to figure out what’s going on,” he said. In many cases, it’s just one responder arriving at a scene, and calling a support center for help adds another task to an already “full plate of things they have to accomplish.”
Waymo robotaxis have already shown how these self-driving vehicles can be a source of frustration for first responders.
Earlier this year, San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management complained that police and firefighters were being expected to act as glorified “roadside assistance” for immobilized Waymos that suffered malfunctions. The comments came during a hearing to discuss how the robotaxi company’s Bay Area fleet descended into chaos during a city-wide power outage last December, causing the confused robotaxis, with no traffic lights to guide them, to pile up in intersections and block traffic.
The Cybercab represents the most novel form of this issue, compounded by the fact that it has no traditional driver controls. Perhaps, as one expert suggests, robotaxi manufacturers might need to develop some kind of industry-wide standard operating procedures for first responders.
“The central issue, in my view, is the need for independent research to develop standardized, manufacturer-neutral emergency-response protocols,” Prabodh Panindre, a professor at New York University who studies technology and fire science, told FastCo. These protocols, he said, should ideally be developed alongside the emergency responders.
More on robotaxis: Bumbling Cybercab Gets Trapped in Hotel Parking Lot, Drops off Passenger Right Where He Started
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