Submitted 1 year ago by PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat to technology@lemmy.zip
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/terrified-friends-burned-death-tesla-34087725
See? This. This is why I don’t trust my safety to electronic systems. The fancy computer controlled locks and latches are great when they work. When they don’t, shit like this happens.
At least most cars still have a physical connection between the door handle and the locking mechanism. Not Tesla, for no good goddamned reason.
Fyi, your seatbelt buckle should be able to smash a window in an emergency
“when a crash disabled its electronic doors.”
Female AI voice: Please stay in your seats with your seat belts on until I contact Elon
In the US there are nine investigations involving the Tesla Model Y, ranging from “unexpected brake activation” to “sudden unintended acceleration,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Those investigations will all end with “nothing to see here” in about 3 months from now.
Those investigations will all end with “nothing to see here” in about 3 months from now
Expect those investigations to quietly go away or turn up nothing in about two months from now.
I doubt it as that would be a very bad look
This is not utopia
Find a good lawyer and sue the living shit out of Tesla and “Leon.” I agree with the majority of the comments.
We should rebrand him as Emperor Cleon (Day)
“For god’s sake call customer service!!!”
This reminds me… I need a glass breaking hammer for safety in my non Tesla car.
They might all have one but if not, get one that has a seat belt cutter on it. And keep it in the front console, not anywhere in the back or in the glove compartment.
I knew someone (an acquaintance, we weren’t close) who died in a crash because their seatbelt got stuck and they couldn’t get out. They had one of those cutter hammer combos but it was in the back seat. Absolutely nightmarish.
Also fix it to the console with a clip. Can’t use the cutter when it is out of reach because the flipped over.
My dad was driving a truck full of pigs back in the 70s. He was driving with 2 friends in a very heavy rain. They were crossing a shitty Mexican bridge when they lost traction and went off into the river upside down. The river/channel was narrow so they doors wouldn’t open. They managed to break the windshield and escape. None of the pigs survived. But neither the pigs nor my dad or friends were wearing seatbelts… because Mexico and 1970’s, reasons, etc. I mean the truck was a Datsun and those things did not have seatbelts installed from what I recall.
I ride my bicycle in traffic. I find the differences in our perceived risk profiles funny.
Ah when you try to reinvent the the wheel, fail, and then kill people with it
Any safety feature that requires you read how to use it has already failed. During an emergency, you have to know, intuitively, how to escape. It’s why panic bars exist on doors.
I want to see you recite a haiku while the car is burning. Can’t think of one? Maybe relying on knowledge instead of intuition isn’t such a great idea.
People have died in front of emergency escape doors that are slide to open instead of push because of air pressure, so expecting people to find a little loop under a plastic cover in the door compartment during an emergency is asinine. Which is the case for Tesla Y, btw.
Imagine being in a burning car and needing the manual to open the doors. And then you can’t find it so you start googling “Tesla model S manual”, find a PDF, then start scrolling through it trying to find out how do you open the doors.
Here’s an idea, how about just make it so the handles mechanically open the damn doors? This is why i’ll never own an electric car, they’re full of bullshit like this where things are done electronically for absolutely no reason. I hate this fucking design phylosophy where everything has to be more complicated, less reliable and less functional.
Being electric isn’t the problem. These are design choices that assume that things will always be perfect.
Horse shit. Safety features should not require reading the manual to operate. They should be big, obvious, and easy to operate. What if you’re a passenger and the accident causes the driver to lose consciousness?
Also safety features should be accessible to those panicking. It’s why heavy machinery emergency stops tend to be big red buttons/switches
Bigger horseshit in the manual: tesla.com/…/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F…
Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors.
Uber passenger? Better read the manual!
Can I set your car on fire, and only let you out once you’ve shown me the fuse box?
No problem; the first one is under the hood on the right, and the second one is in the driver’s side footwell.
Now let me out please.
what a metaphor for America
with a bonus nonmetaphorical Musk tie-in.
Well they don’t say where it was but I’m assuming it’s Canada since a Canada post employee saved one by smashing the window with a big pole so she could crawl out.
<smashes window> Sorry!
It happened in downtown Toronto.
Regardless of where it happened, it’s still an apt metaphor for America
I can’t believe there isn’t an NHTSA regulation about manual egress from an unpowered vehicle. This is just bonkers.
Yeah, imagine if the air brakes failed on a transport truck and instead of them defaulting to on, they no longer worked…
Or if your Anti-lock braking system defaulted to no brakes instead of brakes without Anti-lock
Or if the power goes out an elevator just falls to the ground
Or if…
When I drove in a Tesla Model 3, the owner told me not to use the big pull handle because it was the manual release, and instead to use the button at the top of the grab bar.
I don’t know about the other models but the manual release was a more obvious way to open the door than the intended way.
Only for the front seats, and on something like the Y not all models even have manual releases in the back. The ones that do have them covered with a mat and no indication where they are.
On the model Y you need to removal a speaker grills to manually release the doors in the back.
There are manual releases but they’re hidden. They need to be more obvious because these cars are rented to people and obviously the owners aren’t taking the time to figure out where they’re at.
I would also think just having secondary power packs in each door would help in the event power is cut to ensure the doors can continue to function for a few minutes while also a speaker could explain how to use the emergency release if none of the doors are working.
Eject the doors with explosives as soon as the vehicle velocity is zero and fuck everyone else. Tumbler style.
Honestly Tesla should be sued over this
The reason given for hiding them just makes that fact worse. It’s for “aesthetics”.
Or, how about this: it’s a door, have it work like every other car door for the last 70 years.
Redesigning stuff to make it “cool” and “futuristic” is fucking stupid and is clearly not safe. Doors have handles, the handles are pulled to open the door. Keep it simple.
The front handles aren’t hidden. They’re so obvious everyone I take in my car tries to use them first if I don’t tell them.
Back doors is a whole other story.
Killed by the department of efficiency
It’s an apt analogue for what we should all expect from the DOGE; burning to death while everyone watches in terror.
It hurts seeing a meme that was fun a decade ago get run into the ground by being used so aggressively and so long and so fucking uncoolly.
Not calling it that, it’s the DGE
Holy fuck, I never registered that that was the acronym for it.
In my neck of the woods a couple weeks ago five people burned to death in a Tesla. Apparently called 911 from inside the car too. No national news on this either.
In my neck of the woods, four people burned to death in a Tesla last month (news article in French).
Yeah but mechanical car door handles aren’t “Cool.” You don’t want to have a car that isn’t cool, right?
Some GenZ kids were talking about how cool rolling up a window with a handle was and wished it was in cars again. It was refreshing to hear.
As a 25 year old Gen Z I love my manual window rollers on my 1991 Jeep Cherokee.
When electric windows became a thing I considered it a downgrade because it meant that I couldn’t roll down my window when the engine was off.
I’m still worried about going over a bridge and not finding a smashy object fast enough.
What fucking idiot builds fail-deadly electric door controls into a very flammable car
There is a manual unlock mechanism, but from what I read it’s rather hidden and not very obvious. Sounds like really bad design to me.
So happy my car is not a tesla.
This isn’t a Tesla or EV problem though. How many back doors have child safety locks?
In my Audis at least, the child safety is disabled together with the locks opening within a few milliseconds of the airbag control unit sending a crash signal across the CAN. That message is sent immediately when the decision to open at least one airbag has been made and therefore will reach all components while the crash hasn’t even had time to finish, so all wires and stuff is most likely still in place
Apart from that, the doors have an emergency mechanical release that is “just pull a bit harder and further on the handle”. Which is what you’d do anyway.
A: the driver knows they’re locked from the inside
B: they’re always locked form the inside, they didn’t just stop working because the car lost power
C: lithium fire/smoke makes thinking more difficult than an ICE engine fire
EV complicates it
Tesla made it really bad by electric-only locks.
Tesla rear doors don’t open on button press from the inside with no power, but I bet they do from the outside. Just like the child locks. I’ve never tried it unpowered to confirm though.
This is what it says on their website. Hope you’ve got the link handy if you’re in a crash, and also that you’re not in one that doesn’t have this…
make everything electronic because Elon thinks it is super cool
put manual overrides because it was a bad idea
Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors.
I think I see a problem.
Also: that’s waaaay too many steps for an emergency. Imagine trying to dismantle the door trim when you have a concussion.
This is what it looks like when they’re legally forced to do something, but still don’t want to do it, and their customers are idiots who can afford to pay for redundant features.
So you know, goverment inefficiency. /s
I hear the new guy in charge of that is a genius!
Realistically they should show the owners at the dealership and make sure they open it several times before taking it off the lot then reinforce it in software and make them release it once a month.
And what about the passengers? Is the owner going to be required to give an airline attendant “emergency exits are located here” safety speech every time someone hops in the car with them? Can we actually trust them to do so?
Also, not all models have mechanical release mechanisms in the rear doors. There are models where it is 100% possible to just be locked in the back seat. And when you only have ~15 seconds to escape before the lithium flames+smoke cook you, you’re not going to be able to crawl to the front.
If I remember right, it damages the car to use the manual door override.
Or they could try a front door, which is much more straightforward
What important living beings go in the back anyway? It’s usually just babies, pets, and children.
Man, I bet those dead kids in the back seat feel so stupid now.
It’s so easy! When you get in a crash are panicking and disoriented, who needs a simple quick lever that’s there at all times??? Simply follow these complicated 3 steps to extract yourself from the burning vehicle!
Always have an emergency tool in your car to break your windows in case this shit happens to you. Even if you’re in a car not designed by a god damn moron.
Is this satire?
Everyone keeps commenting mad about “mechanical doors”. Y’all. All Tesla’s have mechanical release doors. There is caveat on the rear doors:
Model S: Front and rear doors have manual release
Model 3: Front doors; rear doors only on the Model 3 Highland update
Model X: Front doors and rear Falcon Wing doors
Model Y: Front doors; some rear doors
I actually like Musk, and when the Tesla came out, I def wanted one. But man, stories like this make me sooo happy I was way to poor ever to afford one!
“Fuck elon musk”
Car: “Error: Electronic Lock Malfunction. Please say ‘I love Elon Musk’ to begin troubleshooting.”
I put two window smashers with seatbelt cutters in my Wife’s Model Y for this reason. The back seat door releases are HARD to notice as they are buried in a door pocket. We are getting rid of the car next year for something made by an actual 100 year old car company and not run by a fucking greedy dork.
Any car without manual door locks and handles is a death trap. They should be required by law.
Turn onto your back with your feet towards the door/ window, grab the steering wheel and the doorward edge of the seat, and kick out the window with both feet. This can also be done from a passenger seat as well.
When I first learned that Teslas (and almost all other EV’s) have electronic only doors, I knew this kind of situation would happen.
I hope this gets laws enacted that force manufacturers to install mechanical latches on all of their vehicles. I know Teslas have manual overrides on their front doors, but the rear doors still have this issue.
beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
That one’s a deal breaker. Never getting in one again. And yes, that means a lot of taxi cabs 🤷♂️🙄
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
Not any other vehicle…