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Every single Onewheel is being recalled after four deaths
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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Four deaths over two years seems very low… I hope they are applying the same level of scrutiny to cars as they are here.
The reasoning for the recall isn’t necessarily operator error but overlooked safety suggestions. The OneWheel is billed as a self balancing electric skateboard and while it is the “feature” causing all of the issues is you can exceed the balancing limitations of the device while using it effectively causing it to stop balancing and ditch the rider at speed. See you lean to go faster. While leaning forward to speed up the board will sense a balancing issue and usually try and right itself by trying to nose the board back level again before slowing down. What’s happening in this instance is that instead of doing this the board will just shut off and nose dive into the ground throwing the rider.
Imagine if you would using the brakes on your bicycle only for it to decide you’re going too fast and just go “welp I can’t stop you so I better give up.. good luck!”
There's is a design deficiency.
"Some crashes occurred due to Onewheel skateboards malfunctioning after being pushed to certain limits. "
Cars get recalled all the time for faults.
Read the article. These deaths were caused by safety features that should have been installed but weren't. Like if an auto manufacturer didn't put a rev limiter or airbags in their cars.
The older ones are the repairable ones, so they're advising everyone to get rid of their perfectly repairable boards for $100 rebate. The new ones can only be repaired by future motion because of software lockouts.
“Throw away the ones you can fix, and give us back the ones we can fix.”
That’s some bullshit.
They found a way to make the recall good for them and bad for us
Yes, seems absurd. 4 death at 300'000 units over years, that is less than 1 per 100'000 per year. Cyclists are at that level - over the while population, not just those driving bikes! I would have expected at least 10x that number. Why are they recalling?
Sounds like there is could be legitimate software errors and if you're trusting the software to respond to stopping for example, and it doesn't, then that's a problem. Adding a warning buzz seems like a bandaid but i guess is better than nothing. Regardless of the death count statistics, if there are bugs in the systems people are relying on which impact safety, that's not something which we should tolerate being ignored so the manufacturers can save money.
It's not really a hardware error so much as ignorant people who can't judge their current speeds and don't wear helmets. You have to be creeping up on 20MPH and still in a heavy forward lean for the system to hard fail like that. The article was also written by someone completely ignorant to physics or how onewheels operate. The writer at one point stupidly says they could make the ow slow to a stop or disable the motor but keep the balance function powered on.
Wait so this particular failure mode occurs if you're in a forward lean when it approaches its top speed? And as soon as it isn't able to push hard enough to offset the lean the front dips so that it catches the edge and the rider flips off of it?
If simply exceeding the top speed leads to catastrophic failure, and there's literally no way to safely engineer in a speed limiter, that's an inherently dangerous design.
That is correct, of course. But if so, it should be the first thing mentioned.
I guess it depends whether they've identified a hardware fault and are preparing for potential litigation, though I'd be surprised as they haven't disclosed anything so far.
And it’s probable that they were “exceeding limits” and 3/4 didn’t have a helmet.
Natural selection.
Not wearing helmets is definitely a Darwin Award. But the OneWheel itself has a tendency to just shut off and nose dive when limits are exceeded. Usually at max speed. Even though it’s programmed and designed to be self righting it can sometimes not act correctly and just fling you off. So you could be cruising along just like you always do and when you start leaning too hard it will slowly nose back up and slow you down to keep you within the limits. But let’s say that’s happening for the 80th time and you happen upon a small rock at the same time only for the software to be unable to correct and nose dive into the ground instead. To the rider nothing would be different until the unit nose dived throwing them usually at full speed.
Odd opportunity to speculatively victim blame, but okay.
It was pretty clear in the article. Read it.
It looks to me like the article is about boards malfunctioning.
You: my car malfunctioned after going 150mph, it’s the car’s fault.
The solution was to add a more obvious warning, that can still be ignored.
You’ll hear whatever you want to hear though, and it has no effect on me.
Me: "My car malfunctioned while going some undisclosed and possibly reasonable speed. It's bad that it malfunctioned, and the product would be safer for everyone if it didn't do that."
I haven't seen anything to suggest that the victims were all behaving excessively recklessly, as in your "driving 150mph" example. "Certain limits" is pretty vague, and based on context, sound like they pertain more to hardware constraints than to dangerous behavior.