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307 points MBCook | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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bunderbunder ◴[] No.42151125[source]
I'd love to see some sort of multiple regression or ANOVA on this, instead of singling out a single variable. Is car brand really the best independent predictor? Or is it specific design decisions you tend to see in certain brands?

(Like, say, maximizing driver distraction by consolidating a bunch of essential controls and information displays into a touchscreen display that's really difficult to operate when it's sunny outside. Just to pick something at random, of course.)

Somewhat related, I was recently shopping for refrigerators, and fell down a data rabbit hole. If you just look at the overall style of fridge, French doors look like a terrible option from a reliability perspective. But then, digging in a bit more, it turns out that's kind of a spurious correlation. Actually it's the presence of bells and whistles like through-door ice dispensers that kill a refrigerator's reliability. And then perhaps on top of that the amount of extra Rube Goldberg machine you need to make a chest height ice dispenser work in a bottom-freezer French door refrigerator creates even more moving parts to break. But a those problems don't apply to a model that doesn't have that feature.

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jdietrich ◴[] No.42151582[source]
The Tesla Model Y is a two ton SUV with the performance of a Porsche 911. The base RWD model is fast and the Performance model is stupidly fast. I don't think anyone would be particularly surprised to learn that Porsche drivers get into a lot of fatal accidents.
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Freedom2 ◴[] No.42151738[source]
Don't the aerodynamics severely limit the cornering performance of the Model Y? How can it have the same performance? Or is there only one metric of performance that is being measured?
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1. larkost ◴[] No.42152206[source]
I would suspect that it is the weight of the vehicle that is the primary driver there. There is some additional negative effects of the vehicle being taller (increasing roll), but that is probably mostly mitigated by the battery pack pulling down the (vertical) center of mass. But certainly the aerodynamics creating less down-force would play some role.