Four Passengers Die in Burning Tesla After Electronic Doors Seemingly Won't Open
2 years ago by return2ozma to c/tesla
Most likely with an impact that severe, the passengers were either killed or incapacitated on impact, especially giving the fact none of the others were noticed trying to escape when the bystander broke out a window.
The front doors do have easily accessible manual releases on all of the models.
That being said, for the ones 'equipped' with the emergency feature for the rear, it is a manual release cable buried under the speaker grill, which is something very few passengers would know about in the first place, much less have the presence of mind or physical capability to remove the speaker grill and find/pull the cable.
It's not buried under the speaker grill on my model Y. Its under a rubber thing that has a grab handle and then a big bright red tab. Wouldn't be my pick for the design of the year, but it's there. Sure as shit needs to be a sticker on the door panel illustrating that though.
Because this keeps coming up:
Electronic door latches are not a Tesla invention. They are featured in many vehicles. They’re considered a luxury item and presumably some people like them over a mechanical latch.
All Teslas have a mechanical override. In the 3 and Y it’s very obvious in the front seat (so obvious that some of my passengers instinctively use it over the electronic latch. Doing so repeatedly can damage the weather stripping). The back seat has no override (that I know of).
It’s less obvious (but still present) in the S and X.
Take from that what you will, but this is only a story because it’s Tesla.
Just curious - are you able to point me to any articles of people dying in non-Tesla car fires due to being trapped because of electric door handles failing?
I tried searching, but was only able to find an article of a man dying of heat exhaustion in a Corvette in 2015.
So my point is that the story is only newsworthy because it’s Tesla. I think you’re arguing that it doesn’t happen in other cars because you can’t find news about it. I think we’re arguing the same point. It could be happening in other cars, but it isn’t newsworthy.
30,000 people die in America every year because of cars, but we don’t see 30,000 news articles about it.
What would make a Tesla more dangerous than say a 2008 Corvette that has the manual release conveniently placed on the floor?
Here’s a photo from a forum where someone suggests a way to cover the label because they don’t like the look.
Someone else in this thread claimed they were seriously injured so couldn’t get out on their own anyway. The specific claim was that after bystanders broke a window, no one tried to get out
Yes, I guarantee there have been many accidents with the occupants too injured to exit on their own, where the car has burned
I think the problem is that it's not as obvious in the backseat as a non-Tesla vehicle.
These anti-safety features are getting more common and annoying. My personal peeves are turn indicator lights that are red instead of orange and then on top of that are the animated ones. Cute, but now I have extra processing to do, often at night, in the train, to figure out whether they're braking or turning. Of course this is a non-issue on BMWs.
Or headlights that turn off when the turn indicator comes on. Or strobing bicycle headlights that blind drivers for a split second before making the cyclist invisible in the absence of light the next moment.
My favorite, is the removal of almost all physical buttons, encouraging drivers to dig into menus on touch screens rather than looking at the fucking road.
turn indicator lights that are red instead of orange
This isn’t new. This is a long standing problem with American regulations prioritizing manufacturers saving a few cents at the expense of their customers lives
Technology Connections has entered the chat: The Senseless Ambiguity of North American Turn Signals
My FIL's Corvette has the exact same style of latching. It has a manual override, but I'd challenge someone to find it without googling it, especially if it's dark. But that cars made by Chevrolet, so we don't do them dirty, now do we!?
Also they hit a cement barrier after bouncing off a guard rail at over 200km/hr. So I mean yeah, don't think those doors were opening even if the latches were made of Oreo cookies. Not to make light of what's obviously a horrible event that resulted from some shitty choices made, but there's also pictures being used in all the press articles that show a side view of the car that's pretty clearly being used to add to this all. It's pretty clever framing, until you look at this car from the front and realize more than half of it is squished/missing.
It wasn't until after I owned a Tesla that I realized just how bad this shit is when it comes to the press articles about them (ignoring the fact that gigachad Elon is currently acting like a skid). Let's also just completely gloss over the fact that someone survived this accident (with relatively light injuries), which is sort of a miracle considering this vehicle was estimated to be travelling in excess of 200km/hr at accident beginning. Wonder what the results of a fossil fuel burning domestic car in the same situation. I mean let's not actually find out, but just food for thought.
Just for the record, my model Y had fully functioning manual overrides on all doors, frunks, trunks and even the charging port. The back ones are actually a pretty stupid design, no denying that, but they are there.
Can't leave a negative review if you're dead
There’s no whataboutism to saying it’s not entirely their choice. It’s unclear to me whether it’s a new regulatory requirement or a new requirement where that is the likely choice. But either way it’s an industry issue, not a specific manufacturer issue
I just don’t get why Tesla feels the need to be different all the time. It shouldn’t require the use of electronics to open a door for emergencies. It shouldn’t have a learning curve to have to use turn signal buttons instead of a toggle stick. All these things add up to make it less intuitive and safe
That’s why you pull the manual release. It’s not hard. On both front doors. I’ve had my passengers pull them accidentally.
I suppose they could be labelled better but (shrug). My family all knows where they are.
I read not all Tesla come with that feature. Most like the one these people burned up in.
That's four fewer witnesses, win - win. If a Tesla horribly fails in the woods and nobody's left to report it, did it really fail? The answer is no, keep giving Musk your money.
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