When your Tesla is on fire, or sinking, you can play a fun little game called “Find the manual door release”
Wait…
…there isn’t one?
There is, you just have to find it while the car sinks or the flames spread. It’s not the normal button that a user might be accustomed to pushing to get out so they might not know where it is and finding it in time might be the difference between life and death. For front doors it’s usually a lever somewhere but in some model Ys and the cybertruck the rear door release is hidden. under a mat in the door recess.
If anyone’s curious, it looks like you “hold the brake and swipe up” on a touchscreen area to go in drive, and “hold the brake and swipe down” to go into reverse.
So yeah, it’s not a physical shifter, though it seems pretty intuitive and simple. BUT if you’re in reverse and try to swipe up to drive(like you’d do during a 3 point turn) , you have no feedback aside from looking at the screen to let you know it actually registered your shift.
IMO this is another idiotic implementation at going cheap on physical controls or “being high tech fancy” that shouldn’t exist. It’s dumb to not have important functions give physical feedback while driving. I’m not laying most of the blame on tesla for this. It still sounds like she’s the one who really screwed herself, but I’d all but guarantee there’s going to be a lawsuit for this one, and rightly so. Fuck all this touch control crap in cars. It’s lousy enough just on the radios.
Don’t forget the fancy electric door handles that stop working when you back into a pond.
There are emergency override handles, but not everyone knows where they are or how to use them, so they’re not all that useful in an emergency.
These deadly features are purely cosmetic, so I would lay a decent amount of blame is on tesla
Stupid cosmetic designs have been an issue for a long time. There was a theater fire in Chicago in the early 1900’s where a bunch of people died because they couldn’t figure out how to use the fancy door handles while panicking and being crushed by everyone trying to get out. That’s the reason why exit doors on buildings with a high occupancy are now required to swing out, and have those pushbar locks that allow the door to open even if you’re just falling on it.
If it’s possible that someone will need to use something while panicking, it needs to be as simple, intuitive, and failproof as possible
Wanted to chime in and clarify, the major issue there is you cannot operate a door handle in a crush, no matter how much of your senses you have. Can’t use a door handle if you can’t use your arms. Am drunk on the internet and hope this isn’t interpreted as a hostile reply.
It wasn’t that they didn’t know how to use the door handles. It was that the doors opened inward.
There were also ornamental doors that were an issue, but those weren’t actually doors, so it wasn’t that the victims couldn’t figure out how to use the handles, it’s that the “doors” weren’t really doors. They were walls.
If I had my way, regulations would require a physical connection for all door handles, and not just that a secondary physical release be available. I don’t know how you would go about finding injuries associated with each design as a layperson, but I bet there’s a death or two associated with each novel design.
An old man roasted in his Cadillac XLR because the battery was dead and he didn’t know where the secondary release was. I think it’s under the seat on that car. I don’t care how cool that electronic door release was, or if the old man was negligent in not knowing his exits; it wasn’t worth his life.
This is why I liked driving the newer Army vehicles or well cared for Humvees. Everything was labeled. Anything important to not hit accidentally had a safety cover. And anything not obvious like an out of sight fire extinguisher has a high visibility sign pointing to it from your normal field of view.
Fuck fashion, give me cars that are comfortable and safe.
And let’s not forget that there are people who have flexibility issues that can’t reach under their seat in an emergency.
Or might have gained injuries during the accident preventing them from reaching.
This would be at least the second time this “feature” has been tied to dying horribly.
I love how they made the emergency door release a multi step process, which on some models recommended a flat head screwdriver or in others only is for the front doors.
A flat-head screwdriver for an emergency door O_o
How do these cars pass regulations?
When you regulate yourself, it’s easy to pass
These deadly features are purely cosmetic
No, electronic door handles are not cosmetic, they save a lot more lives than than they kill by people drowning or burning alive in their car because they are too stupid to read their cars manual.
Since you apparently do not know this, the purpose of electronic door handles is for the car to be able to lock you out from opening the door if there is a car or bicycle approaching from behind in your blind spot. That’s why you only see them in cars with blind spot radars
That being said, Teslas design is still terrible. In Audis the electronic door handle doubles up as the mechanical emergency door handle, you just need to pull on it harder than normal and it will engage the manual mechanism
they save a lot more lives than than they kill
Do they? Can you provide any examples?
the purpose of electronic door handles is for the car to be able to lock you out from opening the door if there is a car or bicycle approaching from behind in your blind spot.
Seems like they created a lot of unnecessary risk to alleviate a relatively minor problem.
But bro, you’ll save like $0.87 per car by not including a physical gearshifter. Won’t anyone think of the poor shareholders footing that bill.
Anton Yelchin was also done in by a not too dissimilar feature. The gear shift of his vehicle returned to a “neutral position” after shifting so unless you looked at the letter indicator you may not realize what gear you’re in.
I have the same annoyance with my prius. It’s a physical shifter you move, but it electronically shifts and the shifter always goes back to the same spot. If I try shifting in a hurry it won’t register every so often.
How’s that any different?
- My current Tesla has a stalk to click up/down to go into reverse/drive, but I always verify before taking my foot off the brake
- my Subaru had a physical shifter on the console to move forward or back to a specific selection , but I always verified by taking my foot off the brake
- I used to have a Pontiac with a shifter stalk on the steering wheel that I move to a specific selection, but I always verified before taking my foot off the brake
Mitch’s sister in law died in a Tesla.
Mitch Endorses Trump.
Trump meets with Elon Musk.
Do I have the timeline correct?
theoretically it should be possible to remotely control a tesla. I’m not saying its murder, but did anyone check?
The great thing about software is it can be programmed to leave no evidence.
“The log says self driving was off”
“The log says the computer controlled doors were unlocked”
Who wrote that log? Yeah.
This is one of the reasons I am hesitant to get any “digital car”. I’ve read that government has backdoors to turn off engine or otherwise control cars.
The real threat is foreign bad actors. There’s a global database that maps all VINs.
How many Americans have connected cars? How many are in garages? How many will not smell the exhaust before it kills them when every car in the country is started one night?
That’s WMD
Source: I used to meet with the CISOs of all the global auto manufacturers annually. If you’re a light sleeper, don’t work in infosec.
interesting idea for what really amounts to a terrorist attack. any others? i figure you may have some other cool ones
personally, i’m more scared of our government in most cases. of course, foreign bad actors can and will do damage but over the long term the government, should it morph into something a bit more authoritarian than it is today, would have much more incentive and capability to do harmful things
i remember there was some leak nearly a decade ago already that showed NSA can access all smart TVs. some TVs even have microphones so that they can listen to what’s going on in your living room. Makes you wonder if Orwell was a time traveler
I was a pretty big punk rock anarchist conspiracy theorist from my preteens through my early 20s. Now I work in the field. IMHO the US’ version (not the GOP’s) of world order, is the least scary. And with these psychos threatening murder and shit, the SOTU rebuttal about knee deep in blood… I’ve come to accept whatever dumb shit I or anyone I know is doing online, the govt doesn’t give a shit. But as a FOSS nerd and EFF-donating privacy advocate, I feel you. My real fear is bad actors leveraging and extorting people.
As far as other examples… Just imagine every single thing you know is connected, is under attack 100% of every day in every direction. Way before the current tension, the US has been in cyber warfare with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc. Right now they’re all trying to steal each other’s classified data. Some off the books guys might be actively trying to meltdown a nuclear plant. The world is your oyster. Whatever you can imagine, it’s happening. That’s why those Industry meetups I attended exist. Lookup ISAC. Automotive, finance, healthcare, manufacturing… Every vertical has an org where the security leadership exchanges best practices in spite of corporate competition, “bc the bad guys are sharing tips, so why shouldn’t we?”
I think you’re talking about PRISM? Iirc they had a pipe directly from the Bell/At&t Telco building at the Brooklyn bridge but that could have been hearsay. But I’d argue he was just a historian, not a futurist. It’s always been the same. Just different tools.
Im begining to think that billionares are just weak to water.
It’s their magnetism.
Annnnnd I’m becoming a worse person cuz this put a smile on my face. Honestly it’s partially her fault for trusting Elon’s company.
Would you say that if they died in a Ford? Chevy? Honda?
I would still smile but I would not blame her for choosing a Honda. Tesla is special because Elon is special.
Billionaire Kryptonite recipe.
One part billionaire, one part Tesla, two parts billionaire tears. Shake well and douse with copious volumes of lake water. Chef’s kiss
Wow, he referenced her death in his retirement statement, but I just assumed it was age related because… well… look at them.
Always remember, if your car goes in the water, you CAN’T open your door until the pressure equalizes. You have pounds of water pushing against the door, keeping it closed.
Mythbusters went over this… Undo your seat belt and let the water IN. When there’s enough water inside, open the door.
Shortly after Mythbusters did that bit. They were directly credited with saving a trucker’s life. He crashed into a lake. His window didn’t work but he had a manual roof vent, which he was able to open to equalize the pressure. He said he would have never done that if he hadn’t seen the episode because of how scary it was to watch the water pour into his cab.
Spelling
Adam Savage has said that that was the most terrifying myth they’ve tested, and I’m pretty sure even with all of their divers and support crew he thought he was going to die.
I think part of it was the fact that they used an old smoker’s car. I remember him talking about the nicotine burning his eyes and all the smoke and nicotine clouded up the water making seeing anything even more difficult.
Better yet, smash the front wind shield (after seatbelt is off or cut) to get out sooner
Smash anything but a windshield. I’ve needed to violently remove a windshield when replacing it (time was running out and tool shops were closed). Wearing protective glasses and pushing with both legs is what it took to somewhat loosen it, but not immediately remove it. Windshields are a multilayer structure of plastic and glass. Side windows are just glass.
Helicopter Egress Training they actually have you keep your seat belt(s) on until the cabin is filled with water, pressure equalized, AND door/window opened. The reason is, to push a door or window open you need a solid “foundation” and if you’re unstrapped floating in water you may only push your body away.
A road vehicle has a smaller cabin and more hand/foot holds, but I thought it worth mentioning.I think the reason they mention it is, in a car full of water, it would be an easy thing to forget, then if you get the door open, you panic because you still can’t get out.
This is a Tesla right? Those door handles are electric, so you need to hope the cars electrics hold and not short. Or you can find the emergency release in the door pocket.
I’ve heard they have some manual door latch backups? do you know if they’d be affected as well?
Ah I was confusing the front and rear doors. From this video it looks like it’s in the door arm rests, while the rear door is burred in the rear door pocket under a flap. Both appear to operate the latch manually so no electricity required.
There’s no way kids will be able to get out of the car if their parent is unconscious in the front seat…
Stop saying it out loud. Elon can only get so hard.
If the backups aren’t the door handles themselves, where are they located, and how many owners and passengers know about them?
They’re mechanical and hidden behind a panel
Perfect for the emergency situation where you would need them!
Luckily there’s reinforced windows that can’t easily be broken either. I wonder if the EU models are the same because I have a hard time believing that this isn’t breaking several safety regulations. This whole thing is such an ironic and frankly idiotic freak accident.
They’re completely manual. There’s a manual door latch literally right below the button you’d press inside to open it.
Pull that up & the door unlatches to open.
They’re literally designed in for emergencies.
It’s the same in the model 3, Y, & S.
I just watched the video above. I’d say it’s a criminally bad design, because the emergency open is completely hidden from the casual observer and completely blending in with the other colors and shapes of the armrest. This makes it useless in an emergency.
There is a reason why Fire extinguishers, seatbelt release buttons, emergency exit signs, emergency brakes in trains etc. are all designed in bright, red stand-out colors with big letters on them.
you can find the emergency release in the door pocket.
Not without some training first. They are inexplicably hidden. I imagine Elon laughing aloud when he reads of people drowning in Teslas, frantically trying to figure out how to escape.
Top gear also did this and their results were pretty much just get out of the car as soon as you know you’re going in the water.
Yes. There are three phases to going into the water. Getting out before pressure builds, waiting for pressure equalization or creating it, and getting out after pressure equalizes.
There’s a lot of situations where you will not have time to get the door open, like busting a turn rail and flying into the water. Obviously if you’re going in slowly and can’t stop it, (Like a slick boat ramp pulling a truck in.), just get out early.
So…Tesla are the new way to kill persons now?
There seems to be a lot of conflicting info on this for example the Tesla model and what exactly caused it to go into the water. Either way, make sure that your vehicle is going the direction you desire before you start moving fast enough to cause an issue.
although, this probably wouldn’t have happened if the user had physical feedback to feel whether the shifter moved how they wanted it to or not. Fuck tesla. The rescue crews also had issues with getting into the tesla that wouldn’t have happened on most vehicles.
It was cold out, so she decided to take her Tesla Model X SUV for the four-minute drive rather than walk.
It says everything.
A four-minute drive is like a 20-minute walk. If it was really that cold, I may have done the same thing.
The way you portray it, “it says everything,” is not fair - and yes, I know we’re talking about a billionaire. Like, she deserved to die because she didn’t want to walk in the cold.
Her death shouldn’t have happened the way it did. And again, yes, I know she’s a billionaire, fuck billionaires, etc etc. But her mistake was her not being careful while driving, and potentially the car not being safe enough (e.g. doors jam-locked?)
It’s 100% Tesla’s fault. Mechanical way to open doors is not obvious and hidden, sometimes all together missing. And car relies on power to open the door, which runs out when submerged. Shit car with shit ideas. There’s a reason why windows easily shatter on cars and Musk and his cult followers seem to think getting out of car in case of emergency is less important than sounding cool.
The pressure of the water against the door would’ve prevented her from opening it regardless of the door’s mechanical features or power supply issues.
The windows not shattering is absolutely a Tesla design flaw, but there’s no way that woman was ever going to open a door from inside a submerged car.
True, but there’s some more.
Over here, ice roads are opened on typical winters on several smaller bays. The instruction to drivers is:
- don’t wear a seatbelt
- if ice breaks, open your door swiftly (get out first, then think about calling people)
- if you can’t open the door, lower your window swiftly
- if you can’t lower the window, break it (the side window, not the windshield - a windshield is multilayer laminate, too strong to break quickly)
Typically, if a car sinks on an ice road, people are likely to get out. A crank-operated window is handy in such a case. But regardless of instruction, sometimes folks do die. :(
In general, I would not like to experience any sort of extreme incident in an over-engineered car. I’d prefer something from the 1970-ties, but with airbags.
They should have used the Tesla Rock that broke the Tesla Trucks window
Oh no
Anyway, I’m going to Vegas later this week to get messy with my friends for my 40th. Anyone have any recommendations for places to hit?
Stromboli at 4 kegs.
Super sketch building and parking lot.
Red vinyl booths and decor not updated since Elvis was a teenager truck driver.
Bartenders who’ve seen the hard times.
Open 24/7
Drinking
Smoking
Gambling
High likelihood of hepatitis A, B, C and as of yet unknown variants
And the best fucking stromboli this side of the Gambino family
Also, your first stop out of the Vegas airport should always be for early morning drinks at the Double Down Saloon. I’ll let you figure out that that gem of a property on your own.
Why would you ever pay to drink in Vegas? Head immediately to the Rite Aid and get alcohol like everyone else. Or go to any sports betting section in a casino. Drinks are free.
Always carry a glass breaker in your car within reach of the drivers seat
My car’s headrests have a glass breaker tip at the bottom of the metal bars that you use to raise/lower them. I imagine this is standard in many modern-ish cars.
Those aren’t glass breakers, and you probably can’t shatter the glass with those. Car windows are incredibly strong.
https://carseatblog.com/38120/mythbusters-vehicle-headrests-are-meant-to-break-vehicle-windows/
Yeah, a fully closed car side window is extremely strong. However if you’re able to crack it just a bit it is far easier to break.
Yeah, but it’s way harder under water.
I punched a window and broke it back in the day, but that was a junk car from the 80s we were destroying. And I was outside of it with all the room in the world.
Trying to do it while seated inside would have been impossible, and underwater all that pressure against the other side spread out equally makes it really umpossible. It’s basically a giant cushion that absorbs and distributes the force. If you do break it, all that water pressure is going to push it straight in your face, and chances are you’re just going to let the water in, but not create a whole big enough to climb thru. Certainly not u til your car is full of water and pressure equalizes.
If you’re worried about this enough to carry a glass breaker, take a page from the Kia boys and make sure it’s ceramic. Even steel with a point is going to be difficult. But ceramic will shatter it with almost no effort. Gotta keep on bipping
New Teslas have laminated glass, not tempered glass. It does not shatter.
WTF, how can they just make a change like that, and it get approved to be on the road?
Youtube comment,
Tesla that crashed into a pole, it was on fire, and the driver was trapped behind the laminated glass. Scary situation.
The first in crew that responded had a firefighter try to break the glass with a conventional window punch device, that didn’t work.
Then he tried smashing it with some forcible entry tools, that didn’t work either.
The driver ended up dying. It took 45 mins to extinguish the flames and 15 mins to get the car doors open.
I’ve just learned that laminated glass is now mandatory across all models since 2020.
Is laminated glass why my rented chevy bolt has so many pits? Car’s only got 7k miles on it, but when I drive toward the sun it’s like driving into a glitter storm.
I don’t know. But windshields have been laminated glass since forever.
Makes me think of the supposed bullet-proof cyber truck glass… Odds are much more likely you’ll be trying to escape your car than be under a hail of gunfire lol.
New Teslas have laminated glass, not tempered glass. It does not shatter.
So they’re death traps
Gotcha
I’ve just learned that laminated glass is now mandatory across all models since 2020.
Also, I’ve just learned that laminated glass is now mandatory across all models since 2020. Glass breakers won’t save you.
Oh no
Anyways
If your car ever gets submerged, unbuckle your seatbelt, roll the windows down and once the water gets high enough in the car, you can open the door or climb through the window. This is pure panic from someone who should know better.
In an old car with crank windows, that’ll work. In a new car, the electrics have to still be working, and in a Tesla the OS has to still be running.
If you can’t get the windows down before the water pressure seals them shut, it’s still survivable without a glass breaker if you keep your wits about you and the car doesn’t flip. You’d need to take a deep breath right before the interior completely fills with water and then just sit there until the pressure mostly equalizes. There was at least one reported case of someone in a submerged car specifically crediting their survival to Mythbusters successfully showing just that, but a variation of the scenario involving the car flipping while sinking into deeper water later proved to be much less survivable.
Someone else in this comment thread pointed out that Tesla’s windows are laminated and not tempered so a glass break doesn’t actually work on them.
I just did a quick “fact check” as I was writing this and apparently there are multiple cars that are going to laminated glass windows. I’ll have to add that to the list of things I don’t want and have to check next time I’m shopping for a car.
I’ve just learned that laminated glass is now mandatory across all models since 2020.
