A Tesla driver and two kids were burned alive after crashing into a tree because rescuers were unable to open the electronic doors, according to police.
Teslas have electronic doors that are opened by pressing a button rather than pulling on the handles, which are retractable.
However, in a crash, the car’s power can fail, rendering the doors useless.
I have one I know exactly how they work. To be clear I think Musk is a fool and I would never buy a tesla again because of his Nazi ties. But the statement in that article about handles is wrong/simplified/misleading. On the outside, the handles lay flat; but almost all car’s outer handles will not be usable when a door is locked. On the inside, the doors have electric buttons to open that could be disabled in a crash. But there are easy to use manual handles too. They are obvious and people use them by default until you tell them to use the electronic button (which prolongs the life of the window gasket by lowering the frameless window a bit before opening). In the back, there are manual overrides but they’re hidden; however this is no less safe than having the child lock on for back door which is a normal feature for cars.
You need to look up ‘impact detection/sensing door locks’ which is a safety feature that unlocks the doors in the event of a crash. So no, most modern cars exterior handles are not useless after a crash. For the few areas Tesla is ahead of other manufacturers, they are behind in many others. Tesla has been losing ground every year.
That so much extra crap to work around a design choice that doesn’t really bring anything beneficial to the situation. These issues are basically unheard of on most other vehicles. Meanwhile there’s an article seemingly every few months about more people dying in Tesla’s because the doors wouldn’t open.
There are plenty of cars that lower the window a tiny bit when open/closing the door. That has absolutely nothing to do with the door handle design. My car that’s 15 years old does that.
Unlike my car though Tesla managed to mess that up too. If you don’t have power so the window doesn’t retract and need to open the door then the window up near the mirror won’t clear and breaks. There are several reports of it online but here’s one from their own forum.
The handles on the model 3 and Y are absolutely different than those of other vehicles. On the inside there are mechanical handles in the front only, and it’s fairly easy to be unaware of their existence, they blend in too well. If the power fails in the low voltage system then the only way to get the rear doors open from the inside is to lift up the liner in the door pocket and pull on a small steel cable that unlatches the door.
I have one, I know exactly how it works. Yes the back door system is stupid, but no worse for safety than any car with the kid locks on the doors.
The emergency internal handles in the front are exactly where you think they’d be. If I don’t tell people how to open the door with the button, they pull the emergency handle. Of course if someone is used to pushing the button and it doesn’t work, they might panic, and forget but if they’re unconscious it hardly matters.
Oh look, the thing we said would happen has happened. Again.
It happens in other cars too. And batteries burn. The outer door handles are no different than any car’s locked doors.
From the article:
I have one I know exactly how they work. To be clear I think Musk is a fool and I would never buy a tesla again because of his Nazi ties. But the statement in that article about handles is wrong/simplified/misleading. On the outside, the handles lay flat; but almost all car’s outer handles will not be usable when a door is locked. On the inside, the doors have electric buttons to open that could be disabled in a crash. But there are easy to use manual handles too. They are obvious and people use them by default until you tell them to use the electronic button (which prolongs the life of the window gasket by lowering the frameless window a bit before opening). In the back, there are manual overrides but they’re hidden; however this is no less safe than having the child lock on for back door which is a normal feature for cars.
You need to look up ‘impact detection/sensing door locks’ which is a safety feature that unlocks the doors in the event of a crash. So no, most modern cars exterior handles are not useless after a crash. For the few areas Tesla is ahead of other manufacturers, they are behind in many others. Tesla has been losing ground every year.
Yes Teslas have that too. They have a redundant power to the doors to minimize failure. But we’re talking about the case where that fails, no?
That so much extra crap to work around a design choice that doesn’t really bring anything beneficial to the situation. These issues are basically unheard of on most other vehicles. Meanwhile there’s an article seemingly every few months about more people dying in Tesla’s because the doors wouldn’t open.
The commenter said there was a benefit…
prolongs the life of the window gasket by lowering the frameless window a bit before opening
Whether that is worthwhile is another issue.
There are plenty of cars that lower the window a tiny bit when open/closing the door. That has absolutely nothing to do with the door handle design. My car that’s 15 years old does that.
Unlike my car though Tesla managed to mess that up too. If you don’t have power so the window doesn’t retract and need to open the door then the window up near the mirror won’t clear and breaks. There are several reports of it online but here’s one from their own forum.
The handles on the model 3 and Y are absolutely different than those of other vehicles. On the inside there are mechanical handles in the front only, and it’s fairly easy to be unaware of their existence, they blend in too well. If the power fails in the low voltage system then the only way to get the rear doors open from the inside is to lift up the liner in the door pocket and pull on a small steel cable that unlatches the door.
Child locks have been mandatory since 1971. You can’t open the back doors inside with child locks on either. This story is a big nothingburger.
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I have one, I know exactly how it works. Yes the back door system is stupid, but no worse for safety than any car with the kid locks on the doors.
The emergency internal handles in the front are exactly where you think they’d be. If I don’t tell people how to open the door with the button, they pull the emergency handle. Of course if someone is used to pushing the button and it doesn’t work, they might panic, and forget but if they’re unconscious it hardly matters.