There’s a couple things that I would like to point out here. I am a Tesla owner, not a huge fanboi or anything, but this is another press example of trying to incite fear.
One: this vehicle was travelling over 200km/hr. It hit a cement barrier. That car could have been made of bubble wrap, it wasnt going to be pretty, no matter what.
Two: there is, in fact, a mechanical override latch in Tesla doors. You pull up on the latch at the top of the panel. It looks like a door handle. In fact, most people who are first riders in my car, end up pulling it before they realize there’s a door button there. Which is a pain in the ass because the door window doesn’t automatically roll down when it closes and it can damage the seals. But yeah, there’s a mechanical latch right there for the pulling.
Also there’s other vehicles that have the exact same door systems, but the press also neglects to ever mention that. Corvettes are one that comes immediately to mind.
Again not totally a Tesla fanboi, I bought it before Elon went off the deep end. I do like the car though. Don’t hit shit at 200km/hr or drunk drive into ponds, and you are generally fine.
Thanks for the insight. I still want to voice my opinion that the window design is bad and Tesla and any other manufacturer using that design should feel bad.
I had a 2007 Subaru Impreza with frameless windows. There was no need to to worry about the window when closing the door. It simply made a pressure seal against the doorframe gasket.
Well when you get cars designed by people who think safety regulation can be ignored, this is what you get.
The fact that Elon is going to help Trump gut all of our federal agencies makes me sick to my stomach. Trump winning the election is like a terrible nightmare that I can’t wake up from.
Things that involve your human safety, should always fail open. What a travesty.
Regular doors with handles don’t fail open, there is just an Intuitive and common way to manually open them, which seems like the short coming here.
It definitely needs to be marked better. The latches are definitely there, but I think the thing that sucks with them, is the owners generally understand where this stuff is, but the passengers often don’t. I’m not denying that’s not an issue, it is. Especially when everyone else is dead. It also doesn’t help that everyone often stuffs rubber mats in the backdoors that cover over the mechanical switches. I feel like this could be pretty easily solved with a sticker on the door panel, pointing to the latch, but then everyone would probably complain how it looks and some would likely would peel it off. These are the exact same folks that can’t be bothered to read a manual either.
Mechanical latches can break in accidents too though, especially ones that operate on rods, which is lost in the hysteria here. Sometimes the doors just get bent real bad too, like I suspect even if the manual override worked in this door, these young adults hit the barrier at a very high speed, that door was going to have serious damage. You were probably going to have to use Jaws of Life or break the window no matter what. I used to drive an after hours tow truck years ago for a dealer that I worked for, and in quite a number of accidents (especially the high speed ones) the doors were no longer operable. It’s just one of those things
I always tell passengers where the manual lever is, and where the break glass hammer is. What’s the point in having them if only 1 of you knows the location?
The title made it sound like a full lock-in. But one survived.
Harper grabbed a bar from his truck and handed it to another bystander, who managed to break the back window and pull the young woman to safety.
Tesla has faced criticism in the past for the design of its manual release levers, which are considered poorly designed and unintuitively placed.
Tesla has faced criticism in the past for the design of its manual release levers, which are considered poorly designed and unintuitively placed
Calling it poorly designed is a massive understatement. The manual release is a wire that is hidden behind a hidden panel. A guy made a video showing how to do it and he struggled to do it despite having practiced a few times in advance. The chance of pulling it off while the car was on fire would be very, very low
Tesla has faced criticism in the past for the design of its manual release levers, which are considered poorly designed and unintuitively placed.
I like how the article delivered that fact in a way that focuses on their inadequacy while highlighting their existence. It’s like "we know they had a backup option, so shut up. They still weren’t good enough to be available for the emergency when they’re hidden behind shit.
If I put a half-wall up in my house in front of a visible window that can be used as emergency egress, I’m in shit. This hidden latch is no better.
Idk what the exact definition of a full lock in is, but if you have to break a window to get someone out I’d think it still qualifies since the locks were all engaged.
Elmo is too cheap to give his customers real door handles when it can be done in software.
it aint just tesla. i was at a wedding this week and one of my pals rented an electric Ford. no regular door handles, no climate or radio control buttons. we ended up roasting it the whole time. the future is now! he paid $40 to get 200 miles of charge and it only took 90 minutes. all the buttons were screens and the levers were buttons or knobs! seriously stupid
The touch pad control shit just sends me “yah, let’s get rid of these cheap, easily manufactured and implemented dials and knobs that can be easily operated without looking and replace them with an expensive touch screen that you need to look away from the road to use, that’s truly the way of the future; Unnecessarily expensive, more difficult to use, and reliant on software that will probably get bricked in 3 years when the executives lay off the team maintaining it so they can give them selves a pay raise.”
You’ve got the motive back to front.
yah, let’s get rid of these cheap, easily manufactured and implemented dials and knobs
In modern cars those buttons are an input to a body computer which then sends commands over the vehicle data bus to another module that performs the appropriate function. The touchscreen option is much cheaper once you have more than a few buttons to deal with.
Buttons have different physical shapes, the little decal for the button on each one has to be printed and put on top, each one needs to be connected to power, each one needs to be slotted into the dash somewhere , each one needs to be backlit so you can use it at night, and the signal for each one has to be routed somewhere through increasingly bulky harnesses, etc etc.
A touchscreen sits on the vehicle data bus and with a bit of software, sends whatever command is needed.
Is it a great user experience to press fiddly buttons on a touchscreen while driving down a bumpy road? Fuck no. But it is definitely cheaper and less complicated for the manufacturer.
A touch screen is more expensive than an injection molded plastic knob, even if the actual interfacing of the controls is easier.
I take the point that it’s simpler to integrate with how many buttons, dials and controls newer cars have, but I think the proliferation of those bits is part of the same issue. A lot of stuff is being added not because people find use in these things but because companies feel they need to add them to appear like they’re tech forward.
also, the disrespect for software that powers the fucking touchscreen is insane (as a non-biased software developer)
It often feels like the software is an afterthought and not given the time and resources it needs to work properly. Like, they slap the screen in to seem tech forward or to stream line dash design, and then dump the problems this creates on to software devs.
the part that worries me is that planes with touchscreens are coming
Setting aside anything specific to the mechanism in that vehicle, I suppose that keeping one of those window-breaker tools in the dash might have been a good idea, for a car of any sort.
That being said, I don’t keep one in my car.
That being said, I don’t keep one in my car.
Now is the time to change that.
And make sure it comes with a seat belt cutter.
I have a very, very tiny folding knife (less than an inch blade) on my keychain, and unless I’m flying somewhere, I always have that, and I suppose that that could cut a seatbelt, though I doubt that it’d be likely for the seatbelt to jam. No glass punch, though.
It’s best to use specialized tools for this. A knife this small is basically useless.
I’ve heard that done Tesla models have laminate glass on the doors, like they make the windshield, making most glass breakers ineffective.
investigates
Hmm. Apparently, yeah, some Tesla vehicles do and some do not.
reads further
It sounds like autos in general are shifting away from tempered glass side windows to laminated glass, so those window breakers may not be effective on a number of newer cars. Hmm. Well, that’s interesting.
https://info.glass.com/laminated-vs-tempered-car-side-windows/
You may have seen it in the news recently—instances of someone getting stuck in their vehicle after an accident because the car was equipped with laminated side windows. Laminated windows are nearly impossible to break with traditional glass-break tools. These small devices are carried in many driver’s gloveboxes because they easily break car windows so that occupants can escape in emergency situations. Unfortunately, these traditional glass-break tools don’t work with laminated side windows. Even first responder professionals have difficulty breaking through laminated glass windows with specialized tools. It can take minutes to saw through and remove laminated glass. In comparison, tempered glass breaks away in mere seconds.
