Automatic doors of any kind are a big hazard. I saw a Tesla SUV’s gullwing door slowly closing with a little boy playing underneath. The tip of the door was about to come down right on the child’s mushy cranium when he looked up, saw the door, and darted out of the way.<p>(This is not satire — it actually happened.)
Mechanical engineer here-<p>In the video clip at the top of the article, the carrot is placed at the location closest to the window. Given the location of the hinge for the closing mechanism, this is the place where the hinge has the maximum mechanical advantage. The torque imposed on the motor from the load required to smash the carrot is minimized at this location, and any load-sensing feature designed to prevent this sort of injury would have the most difficult time detecting the load here.<p>The best comparison for an automatically closing tailgate on other cars would be at the very top of the tailgate. I would like to see this comparison. Comparisons made with carrots placed in other locations are not quite as similar.<p>Still bad safety, just an interesting aside.
When you have a billionaire CEO who fires people at random like cartoonish figures, espouses antisemitism and conspiracy theories reminiscent of Henry Ford, and names their kids random letters, you know they don't care about fit, finish, quality, or safety... only about being "right".