Not that I disagree with you generally, but in the recent case, manual door release wouldn’t have helped, as it’s basically impossible to push open a car door against the water pressure outside a submerged car.
arc@lemm.ee 8 months ago
And Tesla, being the helpful sort, also makes it hard to open the doors in an emergency. The front might have manual door release mechanism somewhere - good luck finding it when the car is on fire or sinking. The rear… not so much.
EuroNCAP is changing its testing regime to end some of the BS of removing physical controls and it should probably include door handles in that regime.
hikaru755@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yes, you wait for pressure to equalize. But in a Tesla after pressure has equalized and you could open the rear door, the manual rear seat door open is in a camouflaged panel in the bottom of the door pocket. A door pocket that is probably filled with stuff because that’s Tesla added a door pocket so you can put stuff in it.
It’s intentionally designed to be unsafe.
AA5B@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It was a model X. It’s hard to believe they would put door pockets in those falcon wing doors. They would spill every time you opened the door
arc@lemm.ee 8 months ago
It’s still possible to open it before the car submerges. It’s also possible to open it if you have the wherewithal to wait until the inside is nearly full. That’s providing you know where the damned release lever is. But if you’re panicking and pulling the electronic release and nothing happens then you’re going to die no matter what. Same too if the car is on fire or whatever.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The front door emergency latches are so intuitive everyone tries to use them the first time they’re in the car. There’s 0 problem with them.
The problem is the rear doors not having them or being hard to access.
HewlettHackard@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
On the other hand, if you never use the mechanical release and have spent a long time only driving your Tesla, wouldn’t it be possible to forget it’s there while in a high-stress situation?
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Anything is possible, but I think this would be very unlikely.
Like on the level of I forgot to take my seat belt off and can’t figure out why I can’t get out.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 months ago
I feel they should outright ban them from sale, not just reduce the score.
blujan@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
I think NCAPs are not government institutions, but I agree that funding, oversight and more power to recall, and even ban the sale of vehicles, is ought to be given to them.