Four Passengers Die in Burning Tesla After Electronic Doors Seemingly Won't Open - eviltoast
  • arc@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Tesla car doors have manual releases in the front doors but not in the rear doors. Or rather, there are manual releases in the rear doors but they are hidden under a hatch under the rubber matting in the door bins so effectively nobody is going to find them in an emergency. So if your car is on fire and you’re injured or panicking & you’re unaware about the manual release then you’re going to die. Now to be fair, the front manual release in the Tesla model 3/Y is fairly discoverable (it’s a handle above the electric windows) but it’s not so obvious in older models. The Cybertruck has similar manual releases as the 3/Y but with toughened glass I wonder how long before we see someone drown or burn to death and bystanders were unable to rescue them.

    • dai@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Aren’t the emergency release in some models behind the speaker grills? And others not present unless you have a higher tier package? (Talking about rear doors)

      • arc@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        I hadn’t checked all models but I knew that in the model Y there is a rubber mat in the door bin, that you remove, and under that is a hatch and under that is something you can pull. I had a look at the model X manual and it does seem to be under a panel by the speaker. So either way it is basically impossible for rear occupants (or front occupants who retreat to the back) to open those doors in an emergency.

        The simple answer would be to put manual releases front, back and on the hatch. I assume that when a Tesla crashes it isolates the power, so it would also be necessary for things like door locks to automatically disengage, or be disengaged by the manual release otherwise that’s no good either.

        • dai@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I mean, why not have a pre drive safety checklist for every drive in the backseat of a Tesla.

          Sadly it would seem their built form over function - handles in plain sight to open the doors in case of an emergency seem to be a no brainer; but I’m not any sort of safety engineer.