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Air bags, antilock (ABS) brakes (note: that is a report from back in '98), steering wheel locks (too old to find easily on Google)... etc. Just about everything that has had to do with removal of operational control from the driver.

And here they are, from the 2-hour training session for first responders to Chevy Volt accidents. It's necessary to open the trunk and cut 12V cables at two points with heavy wire cutters. The cut points are marked with yellow tape printed with a firefighter hat and wire cutters. Here is GM's official instruction sheet for this. There's also a battery disconnect switch inside the center console of the vehicle, where a big plug is turned and removed. That's the normal procedure for disconnecting power during service.

So that's the documented "protocol following the crash". That's what GM says to do, and what a first responder or a tow company would have done if they did everything right. It would have had little effect if a battery had an internal short.

The Prius, Civic, and Ford Escape each have completely different battery disconnection procedures. The first responder community is not happy about this. They want a standardized, easy to get at way to quickly disconnect the high voltage battery in an emergency.

"The same problem exists, to us, for cars like the Prius. Lots of very high voltage cables running through parts of the car we would usually cut through to get someone out."

I see you missed the Prius training film on the HV system. I have never seen a firefighter cut through the center of the floor of the car to ever get anyone out. The HV cable goes under the center of the floor of the car in place of the driveline from between the rear wheels (battery pack) and the inverter in the engine compartment. The battery cutout usually has the power cut off before the air bags deploy.

Unless you do rescues through the trunk and seat backs, the center of the floor, or through the engine, your chance of contact is slim.

Cutting the pillars, roof, doors, fenders, etc are all away from the battery circuit. Do some research. Seldom does a firefighter ever need to pull the battery service plug. It is never under the seat. Only one Honda has the switch behind the rear seat back requiring the removal of the seat back cushion. Many models simply require removal of the 12 volt battery negative lead. This disables the relay at the battery disconnecting it.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/hybrid_hazards.htm

Your Honda isn't as robust as you think. It's an interference engine design and if you don't keep replacing the timing belt, it will catastrophically fail.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/2003/us70343.htm

You know what? Fuck Apple. Fuck the living room. And fuck Forrester Research. Where's my flying car?

Also, more awesome predictions from PopMech

Shouldn't flying cars be VTOLs?

Yes.

CC.

Granted it's a single-source and I haven't tried to verify it, but http://www.aa1car.com/library/trtu796.htm would seem to indicate that the ban was overturned and it's still used in a few things.

Not 'make'...'develop'. But this has already been done. Once humanity has blazed the trail to a new technology, there is a route, if you like, left behind making it much easier for others to follow. Tactical nuclear weapons _could_ be constructed by a lone person using the knowledge already accumulated and available to our species - and lots of ingenuity. Modern car engines are _not_ beyond the technical comprehension of a single human, however the trend is that it is becoming harder to understand its function by simple observation. So, you may need to construct an interface to onboard electronics and learn the data structure to home repair your vehicle, but then again, there's already paths available here too http://www.focushacks.com/index.php?modid=14 | http://www.easesim.com/J2534/ | http://www.aa1car.com/library/2004/us10430.htm etc etc etc. If you fail to appreciate that the technology has changed and you approach the job expecting it to be auto mechanics circa 1973 for ever, you are going to be confuseded by the dense, wireclad, evolved plastic thing in the front of your car these days. (I don't mean you as in parent poster, I should rewrite that in some bland third person style.)

Not everyone can do this...but that's why you're here, right?

TFF ctl + / ctl - i couldn't slash without you