Say what? Is this some kind of industry joke that I'm not getting?

> The Romans were aware that lead could cause serious health problems

https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/lead-poisoning-historic...

Asbestos, likewise, was being used 80 years after the discovery of ill effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asbestos_disease_medic...

Radium's danger was known 2 years after its discovery according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium#Hazards

I think your examples support the thesis that we're actually decent at discovering harmful effects, but we don't mind them.

But they don't support the thesis that we might find something unpleasant about power electronics that we don't yet know about.

I think it's less that we don't mind them, and more that it unfortunately is a slow process to go from first research realising there's a problem to general scientific consensus to then one or both of public awareness becoming big enough that companies have to respond and stop choosing profit over safety, or government concern needs to become great enough to enforce it through regulation.

I think we're seeing it with plastics at the moment, it seems very likely that in 50 years we'll a) know much more about the harm micro-plastics do and b) look back at now and think "there was enough evidence, why didn't they ban it immediately?" Well, because it's really convenient and cheap, companies don't want to give up profits, people like me don't want to give up convenient packaging etc, and governments don't want to piss off consumers and businesses at the same time by banning it too fast. Similar story for the climate crisis.

Otherwise I agree with what you say, and I'd say it agrees with what I said: we're pretty good at detecting harmful effects, and good at not taking them into account.

But that's not what the parent implied.

And then you have an entire car’s worth just strapped to the bottom of your chassis.

As is standard fuel used in combustion engines (which you know) so how does the argument of flammability hold stronger here?

Ford Pinto blew up due to tank puncture during an accident.

Current fire fighter directives for putting out BEVs is either dump a loader bucket of sand on it (which most don't have yet), or drag it some place safe and let it burn out.

Also gasoline just sits there until ignited. Lithium battery packs can have various failure modes which send them into thermal runaway. Chevy Bolt EVs are being recalled en masse and owners told not to charge overnight or in a garage, least it go off unattended.

I'm very pro EV but lithium is spicy.

Material science improvements won’t overcome the fundamental fact that the third atomic element on the periodic table just really wants to light things on fire.

It's not far removed from flatearthers/qanon/911-truthers/moonhoax people defending theie stance by naming conspiracies thought false at the time but later revealed as true. Such events, and your speculations, are merely examples of the fact that we're sometimes wrong. Not that we should live our lives expecting that every accepted fact is wrong.

If it’s good enough for us (two small cameras and two microphones all mounted right next to each other) why is it inherently infeasible for a computer?

Saying it's just cameras and microphones vastly over simplifies what driving involves for a human.

A fellow named Planck knew, when he used the expression E=hv to describe the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. You just missed class that day, I imagine. Fortunately it's never too late to learn.