In case you thought cars would become safer as technology developed… rest assured, Tesla is finding newer and ever-dumber ways to make their cars dangerous to occupants (and others).
TL;DR: If you’re in a Tesla and it loses power (like in a fire), the only way to open the doors is often an unlabeled wire behind either two panels or a speaker grill. Tesla owners are DIYing janky rip cords to make that wire easier to pull to escape.
This article might be misleading. Every Tesla I’ve ever been in has a purely mechanical door handle/latch to open each of the 4 doors. It’s legitimately hidden in plain sight, so if nobody tells you that it’s there you might not find it but it’s very easy to access if you know it’s there. They absolutely should make it more obvious that it’s there. Maybe there are some models that don’t have it? Not sure. I’ve been in the S, 3, and Y.
Edit: not misleading, see following replies.
Oh no, you’re right, Teslas have a mechanical fallback system. We also detailed where those latches are located in the article. With videos of some of them, like how-to-use them sort of footage, too.
The DIY rip cord doesn’t add the emergency door release, it just makes the existing door release easier to find in a rush.
Ah ok. I confess I read a few paragraphs and looked at the pictures but didn’t watch the video. Thanks for the info, I’ll have to look closer in the back seat next time I get the chance. If they don’t have the same well-hidden mechanical release that the front seats have then that’s absurdly dangerous.
Yeah, nah - it is well into the absurdly dangerous territory :j
The front seat levers aren’t so bad (just unlabeled), the back seat levers are totally bananas
My 3 from 2017 had easy to access releases on all four doors, but I believe recent models aren’t the same. That car got sold to CarBuyerUSA for $5k net, woo.
My Plaid (before I ditched it because fuck Elon) had easy to access emergency releases on the front doors, so easy passengers pulled them accidentally when getting out. But the back didn’t have the same, you had to access it through some bit under the seat or some crap, to be honest I don’t recall finding it.
Yeah, that’s the trick.
I found 12 people who died trapped in Teslas lately, in a casual Google search… of those, 8 were in the back seats, with those completely nutty emergency release locations. Under the carpet, right beneath the seat lip, dumb stuff like that.
That kills people, as it turns out.