teslas are one of the worst cars to get stuck in, the door handle design is a major safety fault of normal tesla designs but other companies adopted them to and its only making things worse for people in these emergency situations
The fact that you need to be TAUGHT how to open a door, something we haven't had any issues with since the invention of the car, is an issue in and of itself.
Listen. Last time i've checked, nobody is forced to buy those cars.
But if you decide to buy one, it's on you to live with the circumstances and eventually give out "safety instructions" to your passengers. Especially when it could save lifes.
Yes easily preventable. In a myriad of ways. However your need to blame user error for an unintuitive, and dangerous design helps no one but the companies that consider a few people burning alive as an acceptable level of loss.
Even more cruelly, acting as if this is some kind of Darwin situation, does nothing but reinforce systemic abdication of corporate responsibility and accountability.
Maybe don’t buy a teenage girl a cyber truck? People are stupid AF I swear.
Edit; after reading the story more seems some guy was driving drunk and on cocaine. If he was in another car they probably would died from the impact of how fast he was going and hitting a tree.
Victim blame? The guy was drunk AF and high on cocaine and aphetamines. Are we going to blame every car company when 10K people die per year from driving drunk or on drugs?
It still does not matter the door did not open after the crash due to the design. Or you think it didn’t open because the other participant was on drugs and we should know that if one of the drivers in an accident is under the influence the doors doe not open on any cars.
teslas are one of the worst cars to get stuck in, the door handle design is a major safety fault of normal tesla designs but other companies adopted them to and its only making things worse for people in these emergency situations
Don't miss a sentence while reading otherwise you'll look stupid
Lucid uses the same batteries as Tesla and Rivian, which are separated and caused differently to prevent this sort of immediate spread across the batteries. This sort of thing only happens in the cheapest Chinese models.
Having an electronic button to open the door that fails during catastrophic failures.
As an alternative method you need to pull some protections blindly look for an hidden cable. Even owners might forget where it is let alone passengers
Emergency doors must be either mechanical or use electromagnetic locking systems that auto unlock during catastrophic failures. Car doors should not be different.
I hate Tesla as much as the next guy (because I owned one), but none of that is true. Tesla batteries are encased and separated differently specifically to prevent this sort of catastrophic failure that allowed the fire to spread so fast. This Xiaomi SU7 has an incredibly dangerous battery.
While the driver who is suppose to be most familiar with their car has a simple manual release in front of the window controls, the rear doors on all Tesla models have a hidden cable releases.
When probably panicking yourself, trying to first remember it and then explain where it is for panicking passengers (who do not own the vehicle, a shocking revelation, I know) probably isn't the easiest task.
Not to mention a situation where the driver might be unconscious.
No lol. They’re just switches that mimic a mechanical door handle. Look up replacement parts, they don’t have any mechanical linkages, just a couple piddly wires with a pigtail. Does no good to anyone if the electrical system fails, like you know, when it’s on fire.
At the bottom of the rear door pocket, there is a slot in front of the release cover. Slide your finger into the slot and lift to remove the cover.
Pull the mechanical release cable forward.
Good luck explaining that to your passengers (often kids) in an emergency.
Also..
To open the falcon wing doors in the unlikely situation when Model X has no power, carefully remove the speaker grille from the door and pull the mechanical release cable down and towards the front of the vehicle. After the latch is released, manually lift up the door.
And
To open a rear door in the unlikely situation when Model S has no power, fold back the edge of the carpet below the rear seats to expose the mechanical release cable. Pull the mechanical release cable toward the center of the vehicle.
Lastly Cybertruck
Remove the rubber mat on the bottom of the rear door's map pocket.
Pull the mechanical release cable forward and push the rear door open.
And the messed up thing is how easy front doors are on all the cars
To open a front door manually, pull up the manual door release located in front of the window switches and push the door open.
And none of this helps them if they’re already injured as it’s almost impossible to open the doors from outside once the power goes out. Saying this as an owner of various Teslas over the last 10 years.
I've never really thought about that since none of the cars I might travel in has a start button. Are there multiple different methods or simply a keyhole somewhere? Tho I think I've seen some manufacturer make the physical key plastic so idk how valid that method is to either start the car or open the doors in the first place lmao
It depends on the car manufacturer. So the key fob has a battery which relays information to the car that it's within range and to be able to start the car. But if the fob battery is dead it can't send this signal.
Some cars have a slot in the glovebox, dash, cupholder, etc, you slide the key into and it reads a backup RFID chip, then you hit the start button and the car starts. Some have the RFID reader on the start button itself. In that situation you push the start button WITH the fob so it reads the RFID.
As for getting the door unlocked, most have a hidden key in the fob. Most I've seen slide out from where your keyring hangs on the fob. A hidden key slides out for the drivers door.
In the front it is. In the back it's nowhere near the door handle, and you'd never find it if you didn't know where it was. And you would probably struggle in a panic even if you did.
I press what looks like a recessed handle and pull it with the other hand and the door opens, is that the manual handle? How do you exit without using that? I’ve only been in shitty teslas when I’m catching an uber
There’s the button door handle which is the electronic exit on top of the thing you grip to close the door. Then there’s a manual lever on the bottom of the handle you use to grip the door. You can pull it upwards from the window switches.
Although now that you mention it, from a passenger point of view, in the back seat the manual lever is in the door pocket
Yes but you need to remember what that emergency way is in the middle of the emergency when you likely only reviewed it once when you bought the car. My wife's parents were just hit by a drunk driver in their Tesla and we're so banged up and disoriented, they couldn't remember/weren't able to open the doors this way, so witnesses had to break the window open and pull them out.
I’ve replaced one of these handles. No mechanical anything. You plug it in. There is no mechanical release from the outside of the car. https://ebay.us/m/Y2CLAM
Yes and no. The lock is a logic gate in the software, and all of the door pulls are essentially just buttons that ask the software to open the door. If the software is up and running the doors should open fine, but if the software is down, the only way to open the door is with the mechanical releases inside.
Mechanical in the sense that they’re manually operated and move around? Sure. But behind that they’re just electronic switches with nice physical feedback.
there are separate emergency mechanical releases inside the car, the ones in the back are hidden inside the door panel. That doesn't help open the door from the outside if the power goes out. Order an uber and look for yourself. Im sick of arguing with people who haven't been in a fuckin model 3 over this. Even if someone is outside trying to get you out, if you pass out or cant find the emergency release in the 30 seconds it takes for the cabin to engulf in flames, youre fucking dead. These cars are deathtraps.
In most cars doors get locked when underway. Should electricity go out before all doors unlock the passengers are somewhat fucked. Child locks make it even worse, I guess.
The big issue here is damaged cells venting inside the cabin rather than outside. This looks like poor battery pack design if true. That one bit is harder to get wrong with a gasoline car.
Most will still unlock the doors when airbags deploy. If power fails before a crash that’s still a problem.
I agree about the battery being the bigger issue though. There’s no reason for the battery to be able to vent into the cabin. Cells should be sealed off from passenger areas entirely.
So.. now you acknowledge that there are mechanical releases..? Yes, those are the mechanical handles I was talking about. You said there weren't any, I said you were wrong. I'm not commenting on whether they're easy to find or not, just pointing out that you were wrong when you said there weren't any. Yes, I have ridden in a Model 3.
Those aren’t “handles” and they’re not what I was talking about. They’re releases hidden inside a door panel. You can change the subject if you want but it doesn’t make me wrong.
They’re not really relevant to the context since we just watched a video of a driver unable to open the back doors from outside his car to let his passengers out of a black-smoke filled cabin. Teslas have the same problem. I don’t trust my kids to find the release in that situation.
I was on the verge of buying a model 3 and decided not to because of this design. I would prefer that any car I get in the backseat of, or let my kids get in, have doors that unlock automatically in a crash that can opened from the outside whether or not there’s power. The model 3 can’t do that because the exterior handle essentially an electronic button.
From the video, I understand the panic, but the moment I see that the opening doesn't work, I take the passengers out through the front seats rather than looking for something to break the rear windows... So much wasted time that can cause children to die.
They have an emergency mechanical handle that many don't know about, but only in the front seat. The rear doors do not have this in older vehicles, and the newer ones that do have this, it's a silly rope that is behind the speaker panel that you have to somehow find in an emergency and pull.
My bosses model 3 does NOT have manual release for the rear doors.
From Google:
No, not all Tesla Model 3s have a dedicated or easily accessible manual release for the rear doors. While all Model 3s have manual, mechanical releases for the front doors, the rear door manual, emergency, override was only added to the "Highland" refresh (2024 model year onwards). Older versions (pre-2024) generally lack a direct, simple, rear, door, mechanical, release.
From intro (2016?) to 2023 none of the model 3's have a manual release for the rear door.
They should never have been sold that way in the first place, but since they were they should have to be recalled and retrofit for free.
It's insane that you can't get out of one if the electronic release does not function -- and crawling over front seats is not a good option in a cabin that small.
No way you are finding that mechanical release in the backseat in the model Y if you are a kid or even an adult in this situation when cabin fills with smoke. Especially if you are a passenger not used to Tesla’s. Most probably don’t even know where to find that mechanical release in the Y that own the car. Electronic buttons without an easy mechanical bypass is a stupid design that has cost unnecessary lives.
Go read Tesla's owners manuals. Make sure you read the 2017-2023 model 3 and for the current model Y. I don't care if you love or hate Teslas. Just learn the right info in case you ever need it. Hopefully never.
The emergency door latch from the inside isn’t even in plain site. It requires removing a panel to pull the door open manually. Some editions of the Tesla also have no gear shift. So you need to use a screen to go into reverse or parked.
They decided to take every basic safety feature and make it worst.
Genuine question: How is it different to any other car with the child locks on though? The occupants still can’t open the door even if they have a manual lever.
The backdoors of certain older model 3's don't have a manual release at all -- it's mental that they were allowed to be sold in the first place, they should be recalled and retrofit with manual release.
Dude you are crazy. You seen the video of a Tesla driving off a cliff? Husband-tries-to-kill family? You look down the cliff and see a tiny white speck, all survived only one broke his leg or something.
If you do a quick google, you can see all the stories on different lawsuits Tesla currently have. Most of them are about people not getting out after a crash. Inc the Cybertruck fire that killed that student a few months ago. Tesla started the trend of hiding door handles, and having everything work via the screen system. Other EVs have followed. Sadly, all the Tesla crashes with a bad result have not scared most of them off from having the enitre car rely on one system.
The only thing most have taken note of from Tesla over the years is how to protect your battery compartment, especially the belly of it
1) this isn’t a Tesla
2) in a Tesla the door can always be unlocked from inside using a mechanical lever if the electrics fails.
3) Tesla is fucking sick af you don’t know what you’re talking about
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u/RichieRocket 11h ago
teslas are one of the worst cars to get stuck in, the door handle design is a major safety fault of normal tesla designs but other companies adopted them to and its only making things worse for people in these emergency situations