[Yaggo]

> Practically every single car has a freely rolling mode the operator can easily select, despite being, according to you, "very dangerous".

Yes, because traditional cars are not free rolling by default due to their mechanics, unlike electric cars.

Tesla does the only sensible thing in the scenario of possible power failure, it applies the electronic parking brakes when the car has stopped. Yes, you may not be able to push the car, but that's less dangerous than freely rolling car. The thing with power failure is that the car must prepare for a total lost of power in any moment.

And yes, Tesla has hydraulic brakes which works without power just like in any car, but that does not help in the emergency situation when the car has parked been without power. No one wants to sit in the car keeping the brakes pressed while waiting for the towing.

[pengaru]

> Yes, because traditional cars are not free rolling by default due to their mechanics, unlike electric cars.

What are you talking about?

Traditional cars have a neutral and yes it is free rolling by default.

If I don't personally set the hand brake in my mx-5 it will happily roll away, factory stock.

Edit:

And it gets even worse for an automatic transmission left in drive with the engine off. The torque converter hydraulics won't have pressure; it effectively becomes neutral. At least my manual mx-5 I can leave in 1st when off and it'll resist rolling a bit, not enough to park on an SF hill, but on level ground it'll generally hold still. But neutral in all cars is potential runaway car territory, completely unimpeded without manually setting the parking brake or for an auto explicitly putting the trans in park.

[Yaggo]

I mean that the traditional cars have either an automatic transmission with locking mechanism, or manual transmission which has significant resistance when coupled with the engine with a small gear. The traditional car is truly freely rolling only in specific configuration (neutral engaged).

Electric cars have none of that. The wheels are connected to the motor with a fixed gear, and the electric motor without power can't prevent the car from rolling. Thus you can say the system is "free rolling" by default. There are no mechanical configurations, just a fixed single one.

[pengaru]

An automatic transmission is effectively decoupled when the engine is off despite being left in drive. Without the engine spinning, there's no functioning torque converter. So the most ubiquitous ICE configuration, the auto with a torque converter, defaults to a neutral equivalent when the engine is off and the operator doesn't explicitly put the trans in park.

[Yaggo]

Yeah, we can argue about the semantics of "by default", but the point is that the traditional drivetrain has more backup options than electric car, which must solely rely on (parking) brakes.