Frigidaire fold back cooking units, while these unique units definitely had some unique characteristics, the last thing I would worry about is safety, they were well designed to be safe even if the elements were red hot you could fold them back. The power is cut off when the units are folded back, so there was no fire hazard.
There was certainly no electrical hazard either with having the burners fold down yes the wiring had to flex but it was designed to flex. It’s only 16 gauge wire for the elements and it flexes over the span of several inches so you probably could open and close the thing 1 million times before the wiring, would ever begin to fail, and even if it did fail and short, it would only trip a circuit breaker there would be no shock or fire hazard from such failure.
I imagine the real reason this design did not catch on was the limitations on large pans for canning, all the cracks and crevices to clean, and the fact that it cost a lot more to build than a plane, smooth cooktop.
John L
