When I first learned that Teslas (and almost all other EV’s) have electronic only doors, I knew this kind of situation would happen.
I hope this gets laws enacted that force manufacturers to install mechanical latches on all of their vehicles. I know Teslas have manual overrides on their front doors, but the rear doors still have this issue.
It’s like if Titanic not only didn’t have enough lifeboats, but instead had no lifeboats, and also everyone was locked in their cabins.
The Titantic was designed to stay afloat long enough to allow everyone to disembark in cohorts on life boats to rescue boats and send the lifeboats back for the rest- it was never intended to fit everyone on lifeboats all at once.
It was that a mix of how telephone operators made more money off personal telegrams than ice warnings, and didnt relay the messages, and how nearby possible rescue ships had gone to bed and turned off their radios meant this process didn’t get executed, and how because the iceberg hit the ship, essentially creating a large gash the entire length of the ship, causing the flotation bulwarks to be breached, which is a very rare occurrence, caused so much death.
In Tesla’s case, that much aforethought hasn’t been taken.
In this case, they have lifeboats (apparently), they were just all hidden down in the ship somewhere (apparently).
False: “All but two lifeboats were situated on the Boat Deck, the highest deck of Titanic.”
“Titanic only had enough lifeboats to accommodate approximately a third of the ship’s total capacity.”
“Compounding the disaster, Titanic’s crew was poorly trained on using the davits (lifeboat launching equipment). As a result, lifeboat launches were slow, improperly executed, and poorly supervised. These factors contributed to several lifeboats leaving with only half their capacity.”
But seems they launched 18 out of 20 available.
I hope this gets laws enacted that force manufacturers to install mechanical latches on all of their vehicles.
Considering Musk’s love affair with the incoming administration, I wouldn’t bet on it for the next 4 years (hopefully)
In fact I’d be happy to just have the NHTSA avoid being dismantled in the next 4 years
Just how California had laws that effectively forced automakers to make nationwide changes, Europe can still mandate this and it may end up here regardless.
I don’t think it will have as much of an effect on the auto industry I’m afraid, the auto industry is already well used to having multiple regional models to comply with weird country quirks of their own vehicle safety boards.
Any EU mandate will just get through onto the already existing model destined for EU countries. Unless the EU writes it in such a way to force companies to abide by it in all countries even non-EU, but that would be a legal gray area for sure.
It works for Cali because no company is going to have multiple regional region cars (i.e. states), that would be a step to far for them lol
When I first learned that Teslas (and almost all other EV’s) have electronic only doors
I really just want a regular car with an EV power train. Don’t to change a bunch of shit on the car, unless it is germane to its function as an EV. Things like doors, instrument clusters, turn signals, infotainment, HVAC controls, shifting (e.g. park, reverse, drive) should be the same as any other vehicle.
You want an e-Golf, which was a beautifully stupid, half-hearted implementation of an EV by Volkswagen, who because they really didn’t want to do it, spent almost nothing on redesign, and in the process creating a ridiculously fun vehicle to drive with sporty handling and high torque at low speed, but nothing else changed from the classic Golf design. Door handles, freaking dials on the dashboard, manual climate and audio controls. Sadly, it isn’t being made anymore. We’ve outgrown ours and it’s time for me to let someone else enjoy the experience (especially with the Biden used EV sales incentives going away soon) but my daughter loves it so much that I’m dreading the tantrum that I know will come when I sell it.
The model Y has mechanical emergency door openers in the front. Not in the rear. It complains about possibly breaking window trim when you use them.
They are not super obvious though and you’d have to know in an emergency.
Yeah the releases in the 3 and Y aren’t too bad. Most people use them by mistake once or twice (and get the warning about window trim).
The X however is unforgivable. You have to pop off the speaker grills to get to them and then the door also weighs a lot and has to be manually lifted upwards.
No, on the X there is a lever just below the open door button on the front doors. I have seen multiple people use it instead of the button because the button in the front door is less obvious to them then the lever.
Same with the Model 3.
I have to disagree with them not being obvious however. Nearly every new person in my Model 3 goes to grab the emergency release immediately. I even added vinyl door open stickers next to the button to make it more obvious and it still happens almost every time.
The model 3 and Y both back mechanical backups. I suspect the S does too. The back doors on the X definitely don’t, but that’s not the only questionable design decision on the X.
but that’s not the only questionable design decision on the X.
They didn’t want sliding doors because that makes it a minivan. And minivans are “uncool”
So give it regular-ass doors like every other SUV. Now Tesla’s only full-size SUV (as well as their only “truck”) are not compatible with a roof rack. If I get an SUV or a truck it’s because I want to move a bunch of stuff around, and I 100% will get a roof rack because of that.
Most manufacturers use the door handle to override the electronic system. Like pulling twice or harder than usual.
That’s fine then. We’re relearning why all cars with manual transmissions have the same foot pedal and shift pattern arrangement. It’s so in a panic situation, people aren’t having to orientate themselves mentally and can just go off of muscle memory to save themselves. I should be shocked that Tesla didn’t hire any auto industry veterans that know that, but I’m not. This reeks of software dev shit where every new MBA coming in just has to shake things up and reinvent everything so they can leave their mark.
Anyone who has ever been in a Tesla knows they’re a software company, not a car company. The cars are made like crap.
I still wouldn’t go back to ICE though.
I read an article that Teslas are designed to have thier electrics in a daisy chain to avoid big ugly bundles of wires. But that just means a failure propagates down the chain so non critical systems can take out critical ones. Clearly he doesn’t listen to or hire car engineers.
Shouldn’t an electric be programmed to open if it finds itself undergoing powerloss? Isn’t that like a very basic failsafe? One so basic it’s the plot to an indie horror game that wasn’t intended for children but found an audience there anyway?
Clearly Tesla opted for the fail-deadly route instead of the fail-safe route. Fuckin ridiculous.
In all honesty, I don’t see a good solution to electronic doors. If the power dies while it’s just sitting in your driveway, now it’s open, if the doors open on electricity loss. Definitely better than what they have now, but I’d prefer something completely different. Like what if we had a series of levers and cables that opened the door? I know, it’s like, next level crazy, but maybe…
this is why electric locks should NOT be relied on for safety: electric locks MUST default open when something goes wrong, which means that picking them is as easy as making them malfunction or cutting the power.
They have mechanical overrides but look whee some of them are. Have to remove a door panel.
There is a manual override in Tesla cars but the feature is not widely publicized, experts say.
Tesla isn’t the only culprit here. Any manufacturer that makes cars with electric doors should be required to also have a prominent and easily reachable manual override, instead of hiding a tiny lever underneath the armrest or on the floor, or behind the person’s seat on the pillar somewhere, or any fucking place that isn’t where you would expect a door handle to be.
Should just be a law to have a regular fucking door handle, we don’t need fancy/electric doors. Telsa’s should all be taken off the road with their shitty track record.
What? Regulating Elon’s enterpreneuments? In this fine coming year of Trump 2025?
Considering he will be leading a government department he just called “DOGE”, along with the rest of Trump, I’d say the USA is royally fucked, Tesla will be the least of their troubles.
You reap what you sow.
This is morbid but one of my favorite “butterfly” effect news stories in the last year was around the death of Angela Chao after she backed her car into a pond while intoxicated.
Okay, so - here’s the setup:
The Chao family is a very wealthy family. In the 1960’s the family patriarch got into the shipping business and has done very well, garnering money and power. Wealth and power beget wealth and power. Mitch McConnell is even married to one of the daughters - Elaine Chao.
Well, Bush appointed E. Chao to Labor Secretary during his presidency. Mind you, she’s not just Mitch’s wife - she has been in government since the late 80’s. One of the talking points in republican circles during the Bush years was that there was a massive decrease in worker safety complaints. They attributed this to businesses behaving themselves and say that this is evidence that self-regulation can work. What was learned later is that OSHA simply didn’t enforce many regulations or follow up on many complaints, instead choosing to focus on trying to find fraud within unions.
Cut to Trump. He appoints Elaine - still Mitch McConnell’s wife, and daughter of a transportation magnate - to be the Department of Transportation’s Secretary. The ethics concerns notwithstanding, the department hand waved many things through, such as the tesla doors mentioned in the article above, as well as the Tesla Model X’s confusing forward/reverse system, which is cited as being a reason for the death of Angela Chao, her sister.
IIRC it’s because if the frameless window setup Teslas use - it needs to wind the windows down slightly before you open the door, so it uses an electronic control to tell the car to do that.
Or, you could just have the door handle be the manual override.
It is a laughably easy thing to have the release for the door from the inside be the same kind of mechanical door release we’ve always done, for obvious safety reasons, and then have a little solenoid which can also trigger the release of the mechanical door release if the computer wants it to open.
The only reason to do it otherwise, and then need a separate manual release handle, is if you are okay with people dying in exactly this fashion so that you can make your shiny thing in the exact shiny way you want to make it.
Teslas need to crack the windows before you open the door, that’s why they complicate the door release. If you don’t give the computer a moment to move the window before the door opens you can damage things.
Tesla isn’t the only manufacturer of doors with frameless windows. They are the only ones I know of who have electric-only door latches.
The computer can have the window cracked before the handle is fully pulled. And if it fails to do so, the door opens anyway.
A better solution is a fucking window frame.
Thank you for giving the explanation, but I think you’re getting flamed for it because it sounds like you’re saying that decision makes sense.
They introduced the design constraint. They can remove it, or work around it mechanically. They chose not to, and instead made a death-trap on purpose. I’m sure they had their reasons at the time, but they are by definition bad reasons if they led to this outcome.
On at least the model 3 and Y it’s fairly intuitive for the front seats. For the rear? Not so much.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html
Note Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors.
:/
That’s abysmal. Let’s make it’s extra hard where children are far more likely to be.
And have the presence of mind to do this after a collision and the vehicle is on fire.
There’s a reason that building egress (at least for commercial) is the way it is, with things like push bars and opening outwards. It’s because people do not think clearly in emergency situations.
… the back doors that have child locks already on them so THEY CANT be opened by said children…?
That’s what argument you want to use? Seriously? Lmfao the shit people come up with sometimes.
Killed by the department of efficiency
It’s an apt analogue for what we should all expect from the DOGE; burning to death while everyone watches in terror.
Yeah, it was the whole point.
When Trump first said that, I wondered why the hell he’s talking about Musk asking for a position title that never existed, and then he tweeted out some BS AI gen of him with the title ‘DOGE’ on a nameplate in front of him.
He basically is a 13 year old who never grew up.
This is what it says on their website. Hope you’ve got the link handy if you’re in a crash, and also that you’re not in one that doesn’t have this…
Look it’s very simple if you get in a crash and are on fire.
Stop. Drop. Roll. Remove the mat from the bottom of the rear door pocket. Press the red tab to remove the access door. Pull the mechanical release cable forward. Remember that not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors. Die.
Rolls right off the tongue. If you’re still in trouble call 0118 999 88199 9119 725 3.
For english press 1. Your call will be answered in the order it was received.
Door handles are ugly though.
Worth a few lives to get them out of the way.
This is what it looks like when they’re legally forced to do something, but still don’t want to do it, and their customers are idiots who can afford to pay for redundant features.
So you know, goverment inefficiency. /s
Realistically they should show the owners at the dealership and make sure they open it several times before taking it off the lot then reinforce it in software and make them release it once a month.
Or you know… just make it mechanical
And what about the passengers? Is the owner going to be required to give an airline attendant “emergency exits are located here” safety speech every time someone hops in the car with them? Can we actually trust them to do so?
Also, not all models have mechanical release mechanisms in the rear doors. There are models where it is 100% possible to just be locked in the back seat. And when you only have ~15 seconds to escape before the lithium flames+smoke cook you, you’re not going to be able to crawl to the front.
It’s so easy! When you get in a crash are panicking and disoriented, who needs a simple quick lever that’s there at all times??? Simply follow these complicated 3 steps to extract yourself from the burning vehicle!
Friendly reminder that everyone should have one of these seatbelt-cutter-window-hammer things in their glovebox
Wouldn’t be a good look for that wankpanzer if a $5 tool from Walmart could bust through its windows. Better call it a Cyber-izer and sell it for $200.
Other nice options as stocking stuffers can be spread around the car, like in each door, glovebox, keychain. The hammer type you linked is easier to hold, but you may not be able to reach the glovebox.
I have broken windows with all three of these exact products during regular extrication training as a firefighter.
I don’t trust the yellow one for some reason. I feel like the mechanism wouldn’t work or may require more pressure than one would immediately give. The more mechanics involved, the more points of failure introduced.
I vouch for the basic ugly window smasher hammer.
I can say in my training experience the yellow one works great. It doesn’t require a wind up either.
Imo have a hammer in your glove compartment for helping OTHER cars. Have the small variety near each window so each occupant has a better chance of getting out (if the front right is crumpled, the glove compartment may not open)
That’s my move, but having anything is better than nothing
Another problem with some teslas (and other vehicles) is that there are switching to laminate for the side window glass for strength purposes. These devices wont work in a survival situation if your car has laminated windows. LINK
I have heard it’s easy to kick out the windshield, but I’ve never had to test that theory.
I’ve tried to kick the side rear window out in a taxi driver fainting situation, it’s really not trivial, particularly if you’re the only one in the back.
Tempered glass is much stronger than people imagine. It breaks easily with the proper tool but without one there’s a good chance it wont no matter how hard one hits and kicks it.
I have one, but the issue is being able to find it in an emergency and remembering that it’s there. It’s like girls I’ve known with a 9mm, uh, somewhere, uh, just in case. You actually have to practice some.
For example; Every time my wife starts burning something in the kitchen I get out of my chair and go to the fire extinguisher. Muscle memory is a thing.
