Terrified friends burn to death trapped in Tesla as doors won't open after crash
Terrified friends burn to death trapped in Tesla as doors won't open after crash
The only survivor of the October 24 fire was a woman in her 20s who was able to get to safety after a quick thinking passer-by smashed a window of the burning Model Y car to free her
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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.
We're totally fucked.
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.
Yes please, I vote for this one
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.
So a shit design, yeah, that's what we're talking about.
Ok, just like other brands do with regular fucking handles? All convertibles have that, the handle is still mechanical with an electronic switch to lower the window, but if the switch doesn't work it doesn't prevent you from opening the door!
It is so intuitive, just disassemble the door when the car is on fire.
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.
You keep pointing out the design flaw, but I think we are aware that its a flawed design.
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.
My car has frameless windows. But they don't need the window to be in any particular place. Literally 100% up or down, and the door works fine. I don't understand why they designed cars that have this problem.
But yeah, framed windows work great too.
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.
He's getting flamed because convertibles have been doing frameless door windows forever with manual overrides. It's not something super special Tesla has done. Musk just doesn't want to spend the extra money doing it right.
They chose not to, and instead made a death-trap on purpose
I don't think it's a death-trap "on purpose," but it's def a death-trap by negligence. Which is still bad. Very very bad.
Didn’t bmw have this in the 90s…?
Yep, people who don't know cars arguing about car stuff, I hate it.
Those cars still had door handles.
People are saying "Tesla needs the window to lower before the door opens" as an excuse why they use an electric switch, I'm saying they don't know shit about cars because that's been a thing for decades before Tesla was even an idea and these cars used regular door handles.
"They had to work around a shitty design flaw with another flaw."
Why is that obvious design flaw relevant?
So just like any convertible?
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.
An emergency release should bypass the child locks. Looks like you're the one lacking imagination.
The emergency release does bypass the child lock. That's why it's in a hidden spot in the back doors, because otherwise the child lock would be pointless.
And the reason why it’s hard to access is so a kid can’t accidentally open it and fall out….
Having it bypass the child locks defeats the singular purpose of the child lock lmfao. What is with these arguments?
You can have adults sitting at the back with child lock on, you want any emergency system to bypass other systems that might block them.
Please, never work in safety.
You should NEVER have an adult in the back with the child lock on… since they couldn’t escape in an emergency….
Normal vehicles don’t have a bypass, so an adult would be locked in any vehicle if it was on….
Tesla’s atleast have a feature to overcome this….
It’s quite sad that you needed this explained…. Do you even own a drivers license? If you do, please turn it in for the safety of everyone on the road, not just the adults you lock in the back seat…
I guess you never forgot anything in your life.
Did you know you shouldn't carry people in your trunk? Yet by law the trunk needs to have a (glow in the dark!) way to be opened from the inside if it's not a hatchback vehicle. Crazy right?
An emergency measure has a purpose, it's to be used in an emergency. If it can be bypassed then it fails as an emergency measure. What's funny is that Tesla agrees because the emergency door release bypasses child lock, like it should.
Sure I have, and adults can be locked in the back of a normal car with zero way out.
Yet you want to argue that a hard to access release is bad..?
When this problem in a worse way has already ex is Ted for decades…?
Childlocks have zero override, and Teslas do, and yet the argument is child safety…?
Yes I know it overrides it… that’s not the argument. The argument was, children could be back there, it’s a stupid argument since you can lock them in the back to ANY vehicle, (but Tesla as you stupidly pointed out to ruin your own argument….), so to cry the children can’t find it… is the stupidest fucking argument that could be used to decry this..
Do you need this explained again? Or can you finally comprehend why the argument about children is a red herring?
The ones that have to be enabled and I haven't stated thoughts on either way?
Yes so what difference does a hard to make emergency access do when in any normal car they can be locked in…?
It’s hard to access so kids CANT open the door while it’s moving and fall out. Thats why vehicles have the child lock feature available… it’s quite sad that you need this explained.
I think their point is that child locks are not on by default?
Who the fuck thought this up
- 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.
It should be as intuitive as getting out of any car, a regular handle.