Fiery Tesla Crash Traps And Kills Four After Electric Doors Couldn’t Open
Fiery Tesla Crash Traps And Kills Four After Electric Doors Couldn’t Open
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Fiery Tesla Crash Traps And Kills Four After Electric Doors Couldn’t Open
The manual door release for the front door is located in front of the window switches. To open the rear door, remove the lining from the rear door’s map pocket, pull up the mechanical release latch, pull up the flap if equipped, pull the mechanical release cable forward, and push the door open.
How can they expect someone trapped in a car that’s burning, and may not even know this release cable exists, to use this?
In aircraft all exits have clear markings on how to open a door because it’s non-intuitive or familiar to most people. Passenger cars should not require instructions on how to get out.
do we know that the electric doors were the problem? The article I read states that the outsider couldn't open the door but no details on why. Was the door jammed from the crash, which has nothing to do with tesla?
All the electric locks stopped working. It's what killed them. One 25 year old woman was pulled out after a guy used an iron bar on the window
Spicy take: Electronic door releases are dumb and not worth the aerodynamic benefit.
This is really why I dislike Tesla's "Reinventing the wheel" on some things...
we do not need electronic door handles to operate a mechanic latch when the mechanical latch works just fine (or better in cases of error).
It's not easy to see where the manual lever on a Tesla is and it's often hidden out of sight. If your passengers don't know where the latches are, there's no escape - and panicking doesn't help (as is the case when one finds themselves trapped.)
Seems like there needs to be a better job at letting people now where the mechanical door releases are. They're right there next to the window buttons.
In many cases back seat passengers would be screwed regardless. Not all Model Y’s are equipped with rear manual releases.
Or, here me out: Outlaw electronic latches and just use the mechanical ones only? This is a very stupid, and dangerous, design choice.
And no - last Model 3 I was in as a rental had the manual door releases "there" where you indicate... and none in the rear. As in: The only way I see in the manual is to remove an interior body panel, access a rip-cord, and pull....
Just.
Make.
A Friggin'
Handle.
It does not need to be this complicated! People have died.
Minimalism is not that important ffs.
remove an interior body panel
"body panel" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. It's a rubber liner at the bottom of the door pocket.
Newer models have the ripcord exposed now iirc.
You're not wrong.
Even the physical door handles on the exterior are essentially useless in any cold climate; having to physically push the door handle in to break the ice layer in order to open the door is a world of fun. Worse, when you finally DO get the door handle moving, the frameless door has inevitably iced up as well and the window can't move, meaning you have to peel the door open away from the seal to open it.
Basically everything about Tesla's door design on the 3/Y is form over function.
It's an issue if you suddenly need to run to the car without warning after it's been frozen for a while, but in most circumstances you'd precondition it, in which case the windows and doors handles would be defrosted.
Form over function can be fine when you use it as designed.
You’re telling a Montréaller who has multiple winters of experience with Tesla doors that “it’s fine”.
It’s really not.
Yes, we all know about preconditioning. It just doesn’t work in -20C winters. Tesla doors are universally eye-rolled in cold climates.
One of the many reasons my next car will be another EV but will be anything but a Tesla.
I'm in Ottawa so it's maybe a little milder but not much different. In my experience 15min of preconditioning and even the door handles are clear of ice, apparently they run the HVAC through there or something. Might be something they added later though.
You shouldn't have to run multiple kWh of energy through the car to just get in it, though.
If you're trying to minmax your kWh usage then maybe a car that's also wasting energy on a perpetual online app connection, 24h video monitoring, and running a beta self driving computer in the background every time you drive is not the ideal choice.
I'm not saying it's the ideal design, but for normal people who don't like getting into a cold car it works acceptably and is comfortable.
Just want to point out I live in Germany and it is illegal here to turn on your car and let it preheat in the mornings or run on idle for lengths of time. So this would still be an issue in countries like this where it's freezing AND you can't preheat your car before using it..
I believe that only applies to idling ICE cars. Shouldn't be a problem for hybrids and BEVs that can run their climate fully from battery... to be honest an outsider wouldn't really notice that the car is even "on" unless they were watching the snow and ice melt off.
People have died and you are wrong. Tesla makes garbage. The only well designed part of their vehicles is the drivetrain. And that's it. The rest is trash.
I could be mistaken, but I think I remember mine coming with temporary stickers on the emergency door handle, explaining the functionality.
Either that, or it was explained in one of the onboarding videos the mobile app asks you to review before delivery.
What if the people trapped inside are unconscious or as in this case being smothered by toxic smoke. How to get into the Tesla from the outside? If you were in the car & toxic smoke was everywhere, how would you be able to find the mechanical door releases? This means Tesla's are death traps.
That's sad.
I'm sure the NHTSA will probably require cars to have a manual way to open doors.
I'm thankful my ID4 has this.
If only they had handles like any other fucking car or door or closet or locker or whateverthefuck since forever. It’s called affordance. People intuitively know how to use a handle.
An obvious handle. Hey Tesla why not use a combination electronic/mechanical like many other makers have. Pull for electric, pull harder for emergency. It's easy, been done for years on other cars, and passes the intuitive test.
No thanks. Give me a gas car with manual everything, that I control.
Front doors have manual releases easy to get to, in many big crashes the doors wont work regardless and the roof needs to be cut off.
This is very fishy.
Teslas have a mechanical emergency door release in the armrest.
EVs don't suddenly catch fire when they run into things. Actually ICE cars mostly don't either. Multi-vehicle wrecks with ruptured fuel tanks are certainly an exception.
Teslas have a mechanical emergency door release in the armrest.
For the front seats only. The rear seats require you to do a little bit of panel pulling to get to it.
Someone who is not familiar with the vehicle would not be able to open the rear doors by themselves in an emergency, as evidenced by this accident.
I did not know about the rear doors - the dog can't work that anyway - thanks.
If someone has a service manual or the fire department guide, I wonder if there isn't some automatic device to open the doors and trunk in an accident, once the car has stopped moving. Hmm maybe that would violate the safety crash tests.
Somewhere in the NHTSA docs there will be stats on passengers who can't get out in a crash. Are the electric interior locks a frequent problem or vanishingly rare?
Lol, published 6hours ago, incident happened "last month"
Here come the hit pieces. Shorts gotta find a way to cover.
Ahh yes, the mythical "shorts" that Tesla "people" are so obsessed with. You rarely see a group of people so obsessed with victimhood as TSLA investors. Such a meme stock.
And make a mechanical handle for the outside too. That's what's preventing their easy rescue.
You want an electrical handle fine. But if the door is unlocked then a harder pull on the handle activates the mechanical latch. It's simple, they are just stupid and cheap to not equip their cars with "safety features". And those handles are metal/plastic and terribly weak. Cheapness!!
Also, put a damn mechanical unlock button too. And a keyhole.
I was with you at first
And a keyhole.
But then you went too far.
Maybe a keyhole would be handy if your car died, but if it's such a regular occurrence where including it is required maybe they need to evaluate a more significant issue with the car and how it's used.
Check the forums. They are full of stories of "I cannot get into my Tesla because it bricked after updating or after reboot. It does actually appear to be a problem that a key hole would solve.
Again, it's not as regular as you seem to want. Full would need to be millions of occurrences.