Loss of control

Your analogy is not a valid one. In the case of the airline, safety was never compromised based upon assessed risk. Only insurability was affected. In the case of Nissan, it would seem that safety is being compromised in the interest of … cost, perhaps?. I keep remembering the Ford memo found during the discovery phase stating that the cost to correct the Pinto deficiency would exceed the financial risk of the likely number of people that would die in accidents.

I readily admit that I’m making this judgment without having seen the design, not something I’d normally do. But in light of the smidgen of information provided by eth OP, I wonder if I’m not right.

@TSM, you can see the design right here:

Don’t worry, there are plenty of lawyers lined up to sue Nissan/Infiniti if the design proves faulty. And given the critical nature of the steering system and the potential for huge lawsuits, not to mention reputation damage, I would imagine they’ve engineered it very carefully. Not that I would want to drive one.

I just don’t understand what amazing gains temporary uncoupling the mechanical linkage affords that makes up for adding a HUGE and obvious failure mode to the ensemble.

Granted, Nissan’s best and brightest can see the liability, too, and no doubt stayed up late many nights to make it (virtually) impossible to have both systems disconnect simultaneously, but it becomes at least theoretically possible for this car to fail in a manner no other car can at present.

Is “poorly modulated steering that lacks feedback” really worth the aggravation?

I’m thinking everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room.

The description makes it sound like the car was asked to brake, didn’t, and spun into the curb… Sounds like an “opps, it’s icy out!”.

@Capri, complaint report states “weather clear, road clear.” Driver said “the car quit responding.”

Thanks, jesmed.
I understand that the clutch is a “normally engaged” component, that automatically engages when a fault is detected or when electrical power is lost, but I still don’t like it. It assumes the clutch will always work properly. I’m uncomfortable with such a critical system being reliant upon proper function of a not-normally-in-operation component, the failure of that component causing catastrophic failure of the system. I may have mentioned before that I’m not an “early adopter”, not a risk taker?

I understand, however, that it would totally isolate the driver from the effects of road anomalies. I’m not sure I completely like that idea either, but I admit that’s a matter of preference.

@TSM, I totally agree. I’m cautious myself and wouldn’t want that type of steering in my car.

@jesmed,

You can’t always take everything people tell you at face value - particularly if they could possibly be the one at fault or they are going to be the ones having to pay for the damage. I’ve had a number of people tell me their tire blew out - and there was nothing wrong with the tires - no holes, no leaks.

If you look past what is stated and look at the big picture, I can easily imagine a situation where what happened could be caused by a simple change in one of the supposed “facts”. I’m always skeptical when a single change can make the picture entirely different.

In this case, the road could have appeared to be clear and “black ice” was present.

The shift lever, the throttle, the brakes are all just suggestions we make to a computer controlled system which ultimately makes the final decision on when we change gears, how and when we stop and how fast we accelerate. Like it or not, steering by wire will become common place and like the others, it will make for safer driving. Cars are on the verge of being COMPLETELY self sufficient as far as continuous input is concerned. The airplane is safer…because of it. It allows the pilot that one more cocktail before take off. See " Flight", the movie.

I disagree that it will make the cars safer, but I agree that it’s a step toward the automatic systems technologies that are emerging. I also wonder of it’ll make drivers feel like they can have another cocktail before driving home. Hopefully it won’t have that unintended consequence.

@the_same_mountainbike, I think safety is compromised to some extent with all vehicles. As you may remember, Top Gear paid homage to the Saab with a segment where they dropped a BMW hardtop on its roof and then did the same with the Saab. The BMW roof collapsed, while the Saab roof was crumpled but it’s integrity was not compromised. It was an illustration of how Saab built in safe systems when not required to. But it came at a cost. When GM took over, they tried to stop that practice, but the Saab employees would not comply. In the end, Saabs were too expensive because of the added safety features and Saab went out of business. I don’t think that the manufacturers want to produce an unsafe vehicle, but it may appear that way under certain circumstances. They just have to consider cost at every decision point.

I guarantee that that the system Nissan is using is not less costly than a traditional electrical assist system. In this case, they added cost and IMHO may have compromised safety both at the same time.