He is clearly an idiot if he can't open that front but claims he is technically skilled enough to work on HV. That doesn't work together. Either you are able to do some basic mechanical and thinking work (in which case you can easily open the front) or you can't figure it out - in which case you really should not be poking around in there.

You literally just have to remove a plastic cover. If you can't figure that out there are many youtube videos showing you how to do this. If you are too dumb to figure that out, then you shouldn't be under there.

Note that "you have to simply disconnect the battery" - is not as simple as you make it sound. I think they even pulled the window washer fluid out from under there.

Anyways, the outrage over this is totally ridiculous and folks who can't figure out how to open this hood - yes, probably idiots.

There is a new sort of thing - "learned helplessness" is maybe a good term? It's like critical thinking skills are disengaged. I'm reminded of small children who sort of flop around even when the thing they want is right there for them to grab. If folks would engage critical thinking skills a bit more I think a lot of these issues would diminish in terms of being barriers AND you might also understand why a company selling a luxury car to owners who in most cases do NONE of their own servicing might take this approach.

He can figure out how to open it. That's not the issue. The issue is the car telling that you're not allowed to do it that's the issue. I can't think of a car telling me that I don't have the permission to repair it before.

As far as disconnecting the battery, I agree that on many EVs it's needlessly complicated to know that the HV circuit is de-energized and to put it in that state. That's the fault of the manufacturer, and it shouldn't be acceptable.

The car is not designed to be serviced by the user under the hood. If you and Lois don't understand what it is trying to tell you I don't know what to say. They've made a series of design choices here.

You can try to anything you want. The car is not designed for that.

The liability / warranty claim risks in the US far far outweigh benefits in allowing folks to tinker with stuff. If you read all this stuff imagining they are in a courtroom facing a claim for $20M because someone died doing something the vehicle was not designed around - you'll understand a bit more I think why these things get written this way.

Most consumer equipment / basic power tools come with literally pages of warnings before you get to any actual contents.

The future is the iphone. The industrial equipment model. Maybe farm equipment is movng that way. Mfg control / profit / risk reduction / integration. Cars will get there too one day. When apple starts making a car or google, my guess is even more handles will have plastic covers. They may even take away your steering wheel. And yes, people will buy these things and like them.

It should not be legal to make a car that is designed specifically not to be serviced by the user. It is a massive failure on the part of the manufacturer.

If the issue with the car is that there is a risk from the HV system, then it is negligence on the part of the manufacturer not to allow for the user to disable it.

Cars kill people that repair them. All the time. No one has been able to sue Ford because they put their hand in a running engine or fucked up their brakes. It's a false concern.

Mercedes is not at their first attempt. The model is to make the car artificially difficult to repair, in order to make revenue from repairs.

An EV is not inherently more dangerous than an ICE to service. We allow people to fix their ICE vehicle, and they are designed to at least be immediately safe to work on. There is no reason this wouldn't be the case with EVs.

Cars are routinely designed not to be serviced by users.

The ECU / ignition elements of my german car are not user serviceable. In fact, even the mechanic I use (fully authorized specialist) had to get the car to a dealer, who had to talk to the mfg to override something in the system so it would start (my odometer rolled back to zero as well as part of this).

User changes to auto systems are a common warranty dispute item - your claim that it is not is a total and absolute lie.

https://www.focusrs.org/threads/ford-denying-warranty-on-foc...

In fact, many mfgs have started to do a lot of security in the ECU to handle issues here.

Interestingly, here is a lawsuit involving tesla that DIRECTLY involves the front trunk! I wouldn't be surprised if tesla has had some major payouts as a result on things like this.

"Another issue was that the car's fuse blew on numerous occasions. Each time, our engineers explored all possible explanations and were never able to find anything wrong with the car. Still, just to be sure, we replaced several parts that could have been related to the alleged problem – all at no expense to the customer. When the fuse kept blowing despite the new parts, and faced with no diagnosis showing anything wrong with the car, the engineers were moved to consider the possibility that the fuse had been tampered with. After investigating, they determined that the car's front trunk had been opened immediately before the fuse failure on each of these occasions. (The fuse is accessed through the front trunk.) Ultimately, Tesla service applied non-tamper tape to the fuse switch. From that point on, the fuse performed flawlessly." - Tesla

This was part of some active litigation.

Plenty of mechanics working on fords (using your example) have sued and won major $$$. During the absestos claims period it was extremely common for these claims to be made.

"He came into regular contact with brakes, gaskets, clutches and original equipment manufacturer replacement parts, which allegedly exposed him to asbestos." - $8M+ verdict in that case as an example. Ford has been sued by mechanics who have come into contact with Benzene contained in ford vehicles (from the gas)

So you are lying. I could keep on finding these things - folks "servicing" parts of their car not designed to be end user serviceable, with poor results. They then go to make warranty claims and/or sue car companies over the issues they (may) have caused through their "servicing".

I mean, I literally found a case involving someone opening... the front trunk of an EV vehicle!

Apple has had tons of issues here too despite locking their phones down ten ways to Sunday. My understanding is they've had to modify things for their hong kong market given the fraud levels despite their efforts to really lock things up.