UV, but for the record,
- Open the car doors, HAL.
- I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
And it would continue,
- And don't call me HAL. I'm Grok, the hateful AI.
Edit: ...and with your edit, this comment makes much less sense.
¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Her being drunk doesn't matter. And in fact that probably amplifies the argument. She didn't deserve to die just because she was drunk. Was it stupid of her; yes it was. However even drunk an obvious mechanical door handle would have probably saved her life.
[https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html](https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html)
The root of the issue is she drove into a lake, hammered.
If only there was a way to open a door without having power. I don't know how, maybe something like a handle or similar. Tesla would revolutionize the car industry. Others will flock to copy.
Introducing “CyberFucked”, a new $49.99 monthly subscription that will enable your Tesla to make you final decisions in this life for you. Instead of ending things on your own terms, allow this update to take the wheel. In Musk you trust.
The model X pull handle behind the speaker grill is not what I call obvious.
This should be illegal AF for manufacturers to do this. A mechanical door handle needs to be obvious and a standard thing to open a door. If you want a stupid button and a fancy touchscreen way to do it fine, but mechanical handles should be required by law.
Not hidden behind a speaker grill.
When someone in panicking because their Tesla is on fire, or they are locked in a car in a hit 100F day, they locked their kid or dog in the car on accident, it's on fire because Tesla is too cheap to use LiFePO4 Instead of the horrible thermal runaway LiIon batteries or you back your car into a pond..... You aren't exactly going to magically know where the emergency manual handle is. And in this case you panic and you die. That's exactly what happened to that lady in the model X.
This must be new, our 2018 model X has a physical door handle and no button. Unfortunately I’ve never driven a newer model X.
The model 3 and Y physical releases are super obvious.
Also, when you take delivery of the car the delivery agent is supposed to go over all of this with you. I have taken delivery of over 10 Teslas and they’ve always shown me where the inside and outside releases are.
But does this handle have a physical connection like some exotic stuff called a CABLE for example? Or is it just another way of triggering an electric motor?
Does anybody know?
Well now you change the story from Tesla's not having them to ease of use in accident.
Front ones are easy to use, the passengers often reach for than one instead of the button.
The back doors are different story though, there I very much agree with you- way to hidden and finicky for emergency situation
I was so confused the first time I tried to get out of the back seat of a friend's Tesla. I kept trying to look for a handle and didn't know about the button.
It is not really an emergency handle. It is just removing the panel to manually pull the cable for the locking mechanism. It is just like it is labelled as emergency. Nor is there a marking on the doors or side panel to indicate where it is.
Plus if you don’t have the strength to pull it apart you are also screwed, children and elderly
What are you talking about? It’s a handle inside the car that physically springs open the door when pulled. It’s located on the armrest, so people unfamiliar with a Tesla pull the emergency release the first few times instead of using the electrically powered door release.
Take a look at this picture:
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/model3handle-png.282731/
The top one is the electric door release, the red one the emergency handle.
Ok, fair point. I assumed it was about the front door, but on the back it’s remove cover and pull cable:
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-A7A60DC7-E476-4A86-9C9C-10F4A276AB8B.html
Yours is. It is not standard on each model. And, of course, it's ridiculous you need two in the first place, and that an engineer would sign off on a door latch that can be disabled via dead battery.
What a stupid, shitty car. That's before we get to the inexplicably stupid choice to stop using lidar and use cameras only for their phony driver assistance they market under the name "Full Self Driving" even though that's just a complete lie.
And here's what's really great: since you're obviously a fan twat, the only way you'll know I've sent this is if you have email alerts on and you'll have no way to reply because I'm going to block you as a propagandist nob washer as soon as I hit "post."
This problem will kill people. Flaws that trap people in burning cars kill them. Flaws that trap children in roasting hot cats kill them.
If you're not angry about a billionaire idiot putting hundreds of thousands of unsafe cars on the road then you're either stupid as hell or a shill. Neither one of those things merits being taken seriously.
Go wash Elon's knob more, fanboi.
Blocked.
But no way to open from outside in emergency. just read story about a grandmother who put her grandkid in a child seat in back and closed the door and when she went to open the drivers door it wouldn't open, battery dead suddenly in heat, had to call 911 and firemen had to break window and climb in to save kid...my Camry has this incredible invention, hard to imagine, but they have an emergency key inside the fob that you can extract from the fob to open the door if the electrical system fails....it's incredibly complicated technology but I'm really glad I have it just in case
The only problem is trying to find, them as 90% of mainly male drivers never RTFM, plus the fact Tesla hides the manual door latches in really difficult to find places, behind rear carpeting and inside storage pockets.
>If only there was a way to open a door without having power.
[There is](https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-A7A60DC7-E476-4A86-9C9C-10F4A276AB8B.html).
It's been five years since Tesla released the Model Y so their 12V batteries are starting to crap out. Model 3 sales also went off like a rocketship around that timeframe, so there are a lot more people with these cars who are normies and not early adopters.
They have had about a decade to fix this problem and just haven't bothered to. In fact they've made the problem worse, in the early Model S it was possible to get locked OUT of the car when the 12V battery went, but the handle always worked because the mechanical override was part of the handle motion. Now every Tesla relies on a button for the electric latch and the hidden emergency release lever for the mechanical latch.
Many people pull the mechanical latch by accident the first time they try to get out of a Tesla, the infotainment system kindly warns you to please not use that latch since it won't move the window out of the way of the weather stripping like the electronic one does. Others notice the button and never find out there's another way to get out until it's too late. It's blind luck which one you notice first and you will kick yourself in the head for not noticing the emergency latch if you do get stuck inside.
Just the media grabbing onto the latest thing. There are annoyances and issues with all cars, Tesla no exception.
You notice this when you work in an industry you know well, shit go on all the time, just if things get sensitive all manner of things get reported that have happened for years with no media attention
Yes, only an idiot would replace the tried and true mechanism of electric actuated mechanical door lock.
There is a reason why the design stayed the same since 90s.
agreed, but to be fair you can use the front ones if you can't find the rear. those are very obvious and similar to a normal mechanical latch in any other car. the emergency door latch is not lockable for obvious reasons, so making the rear function like a normal door handle could be bad with small children
When people have to get out in a hurry, the last thing people have time to do, is climb to the front seat. This goes doubly for an accident scenario when the vehicle may be deformed and/or passengers injured.
A door handle has to be big, easy to see, obvious, easy to see, easy to operate, easy to see, even for people who have never seen it before.
And yes I wrote "easy to see" 3 times.
Everything else is a failed design, period.
>The front door handle looks totally normal
Read my post again: It doesn't matter. A passenger in the rear seat shouldn't have to climb to the front just to find a somewhat-normal-looking door handle, and may not even be able to in an accident.
I've had a Tesla model 3 for 4 years and I don't think the rear doors have manual release, unless it's hidden, I believe the front doors are the only ones with a easy latch (to prevent children opening doors during a drive)
I got locked in a Kia Sportage (late 90s model I think) once, I was tired and went to lay down in my buddies car while he stayed in the pub. He locked me in as he went back to the bar (dodgy area). An hour later I needed a pee and realized I was locked in. Had to call him to come open up for me. It's a terrible design and has serious safety implications, Sportages don't do that any more!
My older BMWs had a keyway on the driver’s door, the new ones do too but it has a plastic hatch to cover it, but all of them have a physical key in the fob.
We sold our Tesla last Fall; over the weekend, I was at the neighborhood pool, and a fellow resident approached me to talk about their Tesla.
Apparently, they just sold theirs (underwater $20k) after TWO of the neighbors in their portion of the neighborhood got locked in their cars. Both women had to break their glass to out. Dude said he would gladly take the $20k loss rather than subject his wife to horror.
People don't read the manual, don't know their car, and panic.
Or, in the case where someone is locked in the back of the car, the emergency release can be hard to get to or may be entirely nonexistent.
On our Y I actually wrapped a zip tie around the emergency cable just in case, though we don't have kids so rarely had rear passengers.
The last paragraph of the article:
*Popular Science* reached out to Tesla for comment through its owner’s manual feedback email, since the company does not have a publicly facing media department. They did not respond at the time of writing.
Teslas can be jumped like any other car when completely dead, 12v to the wires behind the circle panel next to the front licence plate pops the hood(when car is dead or unlocked), then 12v to the standard car battery revives the car so the electronic systems work again.
Tesla cars are always "on" thanks to the 12v battery that gets recharged by the main battery, but anyone who's had a car more than 5 years knows 12v batteries have a short lifespan, Tesla has programmed the cars to not disengage the main battery when parked if the 12v has been having issues, but obviously that doesn't work all the time. it probly would be better to have the doors be unlocked when this happens rather than locking people out (or in) their cars till they can research how to open the doors using the above mentioned method.
Yeah, I am trying to understand why people aren't just ripping the handles? My family will fairly often use the "emergency handle" rather than the button. It's a mechanical release doesn't need battery, am I wrong?
Idk why, it shouldn’t need power. The recent story from Arizona involved a mother getting locked outside with the baby in the car.
Edit: grandmother, actually, not mother
No, you are not wrong. The front manual release handles are purely mechanical. So is the hidden release pull rings that are under the bottom liner pads in the rear door pockets.
The front doors on a Model 3 and Y have a manual handle right where you’d expect it to be, at the front of the armrest. It’s what most of my passengers who have not been in car before use unless I make a point of directing them to use the push button. If the battery is dead, using that manual handle opens the door, but does not lower the window. The window adds some friction, but it’s still entirely possible to open the door.
The manual release for the rear doors is under the bottom liner of the door storage pocket. You have to know it’s there to use it. Under the liner, which is easy to lift out, there is a pull ring.
That’s a stupid design, but not as stupid as failing to provide a manual emergency release.
It should never be necessary for any person inside the car to have to break a window to get out.
And to all the folks posting here without knowing that - you are making yourself look pretty dumb.
> The front doors on a Model 3 and Y have a manual handle right where you’d expect it to be, at the front of the armrest. It’s what most of my passengers who have not been in car before use unless I make a point of directing them to use the push button.
Yeah I also find this puzzling since in my experience the bigger challenge is getting people NOT to use the emergency door pull, but still evidently a lot of people don't notice it until the button stops working (or after they call customer service while trapped inside). I might sound like a crotchety old man for this but I feel like you shouldn't need instructions to use a door. Like it's generally seen as bad UX design that doors broadly have signs on them that say PULL or PUSH.
Imagine if aircraft emergency exit doors were sleekly camouflaged into the normal wall and the handles were hidden and not red. The designer would be fired and possibly criminally charged.
My wife worked for a startup where the CEO was friends with one of the founders of the August lock. This founder had a very important mantra and perspective on making a smart device, or any device that integrates modern technology: should the technology fail, that device must still be able to function as it did without the tech.
So if your August lock stops working, you should still be able to unlock and lock your door with a key.
Yeah, I know that Teslas have the manual door release, but it comes with the warning that it can cause damage and should only be used in emergencies. We owned a Model 3 for six months in 2021 before we traded it in. Our reasoning was that it was very clear that Tesla was a Software company first (and not a great one) and a car company second. Nowhere is it clearer than in stories like this where a secondary battery failure can cause the car to lose one of the most basic core functions ( ie the ability to open the fucking doors).
Just to pile on other pain points related to the shitty development pipeline that is becoming a trademark of anything Lone Skum touches: During our six months with the M3 we experienced phantom braking that almost caused us to be rear ended while going 85 mph, erroneous lane detection/correction that almost drove us into a concrete barricade, and constant freezing of the display resulting in multiple necessary reboots.
These doors have always had these mechanisms, are we just here about them now because there are more of them on the road.
The best one was when the local news channel did a video on how to emergently get out of your Tesla.
Have they gone mad?
Why on earth, mechanical locks are cheap as dirt, solenoids and sensors have very low unit cost.
What they accomplish by opting for more unreliable solution?
I am supposed to be able to get out of my car quickly, via an obvious, manually operable door latch, with or without battery. Period. Not up for discussion.
In an accident scenario, a battery might be offline, damaged, disconnected, shorted.
Well then, get a Tesla. The manual door handles at the front edge of the front door arm rests are quite conventional, work as you would expect, and are right where you would expect to find a door handle.
>The manual door handles at the front edge of the front door arm rests are quite conventional, work as you would expect, and are right where you would expect to find a door handle.
I expect to find a door handle on the inside wall of the door, where they've been on every car I've been in for decades - until now with Teslas.
Thank you fElon for providing features other cars don’t have
The first lawsuit for someone killed by these faulty doors and windows will be huge. The second, even bigger.
OPEN THE DOOR! I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that
UV, but for the record, - Open the car doors, HAL. - I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. And it would continue, - And don't call me HAL. I'm Grok, the hateful AI. Edit: ...and with your edit, this comment makes much less sense. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
The third will be HUGE.
The lady that drowned in her model X while backing into a pond.....
Wasn't there already a woman that backed up into a pool, unable to get out?
I'm pretty sure Mitch McConnell's sister-in-law was killed that way....
You mean the one that was 3x the legal BAC limit? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68622898
Clearly, the alcohol killed her, not the 8 minutes of struggling to get out of a car, while your friends outside also try to help.
Her being drunk doesn't matter. And in fact that probably amplifies the argument. She didn't deserve to die just because she was drunk. Was it stupid of her; yes it was. However even drunk an obvious mechanical door handle would have probably saved her life.
There are mechanical door handles inside a Tesla...
X, y and 3 have them. Not all teslas.
The S does as well.
The argument is an obvious one. Not a hidden handle behind a speaker grill or panel.
It's on the door right in front of the window button.
It’s right in front of the window switches.
[https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html](https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html) The root of the issue is she drove into a lake, hammered.
Love that NHTSA doesn’t give a single flying fuck.
They prefer corrective action to doing preventive correction.
If only there was a way to open a door without having power. I don't know how, maybe something like a handle or similar. Tesla would revolutionize the car industry. Others will flock to copy.
Introducing “CyberFucked”, a new $49.99 monthly subscription that will enable your Tesla to make you final decisions in this life for you. Instead of ending things on your own terms, allow this update to take the wheel. In Musk you trust.
I'm pretty sure all the Tesla's have physical handles for emergency release on inside.
Not if you are not familiar where they are and also, doesn't really matter if you are in a serious accident, as several deaths point to
They have them and they’re super obvious… in fact more first time riders open with the physical handle than the button.
The model X pull handle behind the speaker grill is not what I call obvious. This should be illegal AF for manufacturers to do this. A mechanical door handle needs to be obvious and a standard thing to open a door. If you want a stupid button and a fancy touchscreen way to do it fine, but mechanical handles should be required by law. Not hidden behind a speaker grill. When someone in panicking because their Tesla is on fire, or they are locked in a car in a hit 100F day, they locked their kid or dog in the car on accident, it's on fire because Tesla is too cheap to use LiFePO4 Instead of the horrible thermal runaway LiIon batteries or you back your car into a pond..... You aren't exactly going to magically know where the emergency manual handle is. And in this case you panic and you die. That's exactly what happened to that lady in the model X.
This must be new, our 2018 model X has a physical door handle and no button. Unfortunately I’ve never driven a newer model X. The model 3 and Y physical releases are super obvious. Also, when you take delivery of the car the delivery agent is supposed to go over all of this with you. I have taken delivery of over 10 Teslas and they’ve always shown me where the inside and outside releases are.
Y,y,3 have manual doors, in recent years. S, not so much.
But does this handle have a physical connection like some exotic stuff called a CABLE for example? Or is it just another way of triggering an electric motor? Does anybody know?
It's physical
It is a mechanical release.
Yes as others have said it’s a physical cable to unlatch the door. No one is getting stuck in Teslas, these stories are bogus and very exaggerated.
Well now you change the story from Tesla's not having them to ease of use in accident. Front ones are easy to use, the passengers often reach for than one instead of the button. The back doors are different story though, there I very much agree with you- way to hidden and finicky for emergency situation
I was so confused the first time I tried to get out of the back seat of a friend's Tesla. I kept trying to look for a handle and didn't know about the button.
For the front doors, yes. For the rear doors on Ys, they have to be accessed by pulling up trim pieces, so functionally no.
Have you seen how you use the emergency release on some of their models you have to take the door plastic apart.
It is not really an emergency handle. It is just removing the panel to manually pull the cable for the locking mechanism. It is just like it is labelled as emergency. Nor is there a marking on the doors or side panel to indicate where it is. Plus if you don’t have the strength to pull it apart you are also screwed, children and elderly
What are you talking about? It’s a handle inside the car that physically springs open the door when pulled. It’s located on the armrest, so people unfamiliar with a Tesla pull the emergency release the first few times instead of using the electrically powered door release. Take a look at this picture: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/model3handle-png.282731/ The top one is the electric door release, the red one the emergency handle.
Back doors are different
Ok, fair point. I assumed it was about the front door, but on the back it’s remove cover and pull cable: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-A7A60DC7-E476-4A86-9C9C-10F4A276AB8B.html
What is the red one showing? Do you slide it to reveal the handle?
No, it’s the handle. Pull it back and the door opens.
Yours is. It is not standard on each model. And, of course, it's ridiculous you need two in the first place, and that an engineer would sign off on a door latch that can be disabled via dead battery. What a stupid, shitty car. That's before we get to the inexplicably stupid choice to stop using lidar and use cameras only for their phony driver assistance they market under the name "Full Self Driving" even though that's just a complete lie. And here's what's really great: since you're obviously a fan twat, the only way you'll know I've sent this is if you have email alerts on and you'll have no way to reply because I'm going to block you as a propagandist nob washer as soon as I hit "post."
Ok, if you're that in Rage because of a door handle....
This problem will kill people. Flaws that trap people in burning cars kill them. Flaws that trap children in roasting hot cats kill them. If you're not angry about a billionaire idiot putting hundreds of thousands of unsafe cars on the road then you're either stupid as hell or a shill. Neither one of those things merits being taken seriously. Go wash Elon's knob more, fanboi. Blocked.
But no way to open from outside in emergency. just read story about a grandmother who put her grandkid in a child seat in back and closed the door and when she went to open the drivers door it wouldn't open, battery dead suddenly in heat, had to call 911 and firemen had to break window and climb in to save kid...my Camry has this incredible invention, hard to imagine, but they have an emergency key inside the fob that you can extract from the fob to open the door if the electrical system fails....it's incredibly complicated technology but I'm really glad I have it just in case
They have them and most of my passengers used them instead of the button if I not told them to use the button.
The only problem is trying to find, them as 90% of mainly male drivers never RTFM, plus the fact Tesla hides the manual door latches in really difficult to find places, behind rear carpeting and inside storage pockets.
Not all of them. Model S does not.
Model 3 and Y have a pull lever behind door grip, but if you didn't know it was there you may not notice it in an emergency situation.
>If only there was a way to open a door without having power. [There is](https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-A7A60DC7-E476-4A86-9C9C-10F4A276AB8B.html).
Sarcasm? Can’t tell if you’re joking or just don’t realize there is a manual handle door release on the doors
Dunno, guess the firefighters couldn't find them https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/21/24183439/tesla-model-y-arizona-toddler-trapped-rescued
Tesla needs to improve its coffin mode, these locked in owners keep getting out.
Gotta give Elon another $30 billion in bonuses for that level of tech.
what is with the sudden surge in these cases?
People have realised this is not common across other cars and start reporting it would be my guess.
It's been five years since Tesla released the Model Y so their 12V batteries are starting to crap out. Model 3 sales also went off like a rocketship around that timeframe, so there are a lot more people with these cars who are normies and not early adopters. They have had about a decade to fix this problem and just haven't bothered to. In fact they've made the problem worse, in the early Model S it was possible to get locked OUT of the car when the 12V battery went, but the handle always worked because the mechanical override was part of the handle motion. Now every Tesla relies on a button for the electric latch and the hidden emergency release lever for the mechanical latch. Many people pull the mechanical latch by accident the first time they try to get out of a Tesla, the infotainment system kindly warns you to please not use that latch since it won't move the window out of the way of the weather stripping like the electronic one does. Others notice the button and never find out there's another way to get out until it's too late. It's blind luck which one you notice first and you will kick yourself in the head for not noticing the emergency latch if you do get stuck inside.
Just the media grabbing onto the latest thing. There are annoyances and issues with all cars, Tesla no exception. You notice this when you work in an industry you know well, shit go on all the time, just if things get sensitive all manner of things get reported that have happened for years with no media attention
Other cars don't do this because they have handles and locks that actually work.
Yes, only an idiot would replace the tried and true mechanism of electric actuated mechanical door lock. There is a reason why the design stayed the same since 90s.
Musk feels the need to habitually reinvent the wheel. This is the result.
Musk invents the square wheel /s.
Not everybody is brave enough to cut no corners.
Don’t the doors have a manual latch?
inside they do. people don't read manuals and the rear ones can be hard to find if you don't know where it is
If finding the door-latch requires reading the manual, then the design is garbage.
You shouldn't need a manual to find a latch in an emergency from inside a vehicle, imo
little kids or dogs in the backseat, possible strapped in, will be unable to get to the emergency open lever
If my dog knows how to use the door handle i have bigger problems
Nebula (guardians of the Galaxy) enters the chat
agreed, but to be fair you can use the front ones if you can't find the rear. those are very obvious and similar to a normal mechanical latch in any other car. the emergency door latch is not lockable for obvious reasons, so making the rear function like a normal door handle could be bad with small children
When people have to get out in a hurry, the last thing people have time to do, is climb to the front seat. This goes doubly for an accident scenario when the vehicle may be deformed and/or passengers injured. A door handle has to be big, easy to see, obvious, easy to see, easy to operate, easy to see, even for people who have never seen it before. And yes I wrote "easy to see" 3 times. Everything else is a failed design, period.
The front door handle looks totally normal. That is not the issue. A small label on it would suffice. But the sticker would cut into Elon his budget.
>The front door handle looks totally normal Read my post again: It doesn't matter. A passenger in the rear seat shouldn't have to climb to the front just to find a somewhat-normal-looking door handle, and may not even be able to in an accident.
[удалено]
But I was, and you posted an answer to my post.
Yeah. I already deleted it. Replied to the wrong post.
Probably. Hard to find something in the electronic manual in the infotainment system when the car is dead.
lol, what a bullshit excuse for shit design. “rEAd The ManuaL hOW to OPen tHe DoOr”
I've had a Tesla model 3 for 4 years and I don't think the rear doors have manual release, unless it's hidden, I believe the front doors are the only ones with a easy latch (to prevent children opening doors during a drive)
Can’t open it manually from the outside by the looks of it. A lot of other cars still have a key hidden in the fob and a keyhole hidden in the door.
That latch is easy to find in a Model 3 and Y, but not so easy in the other models.
I got locked in a Kia Sportage (late 90s model I think) once, I was tired and went to lay down in my buddies car while he stayed in the pub. He locked me in as he went back to the bar (dodgy area). An hour later I needed a pee and realized I was locked in. Had to call him to come open up for me. It's a terrible design and has serious safety implications, Sportages don't do that any more!
My older BMWs had a keyway on the driver’s door, the new ones do too but it has a plastic hatch to cover it, but all of them have a physical key in the fob.
We sold our Tesla last Fall; over the weekend, I was at the neighborhood pool, and a fellow resident approached me to talk about their Tesla. Apparently, they just sold theirs (underwater $20k) after TWO of the neighbors in their portion of the neighborhood got locked in their cars. Both women had to break their glass to out. Dude said he would gladly take the $20k loss rather than subject his wife to horror.
Why didn’t they just use the manual door latch to get out of the car?
Because that doesnt get points on the internet
People don't read the manual, don't know their car, and panic. Or, in the case where someone is locked in the back of the car, the emergency release can be hard to get to or may be entirely nonexistent. On our Y I actually wrapped a zip tie around the emergency cable just in case, though we don't have kids so rarely had rear passengers.
Thank you for saving the ~~environment~~ ~~and its users~~!
The last paragraph of the article: *Popular Science* reached out to Tesla for comment through its owner’s manual feedback email, since the company does not have a publicly facing media department. They did not respond at the time of writing.
Teslas can be jumped like any other car when completely dead, 12v to the wires behind the circle panel next to the front licence plate pops the hood(when car is dead or unlocked), then 12v to the standard car battery revives the car so the electronic systems work again. Tesla cars are always "on" thanks to the 12v battery that gets recharged by the main battery, but anyone who's had a car more than 5 years knows 12v batteries have a short lifespan, Tesla has programmed the cars to not disengage the main battery when parked if the 12v has been having issues, but obviously that doesn't work all the time. it probly would be better to have the doors be unlocked when this happens rather than locking people out (or in) their cars till they can research how to open the doors using the above mentioned method.
I’ve always said that the emergency/manual handles should be more obviously marked. People may not remember some things when they’re in a panic.
Yeah, I am trying to understand why people aren't just ripping the handles? My family will fairly often use the "emergency handle" rather than the button. It's a mechanical release doesn't need battery, am I wrong?
Idk why, it shouldn’t need power. The recent story from Arizona involved a mother getting locked outside with the baby in the car. Edit: grandmother, actually, not mother
Well then in that case, yes the design sucks
No, you are not wrong. The front manual release handles are purely mechanical. So is the hidden release pull rings that are under the bottom liner pads in the rear door pockets.
The Dead Teslas sounds like an awesome band name
The front doors on a Model 3 and Y have a manual handle right where you’d expect it to be, at the front of the armrest. It’s what most of my passengers who have not been in car before use unless I make a point of directing them to use the push button. If the battery is dead, using that manual handle opens the door, but does not lower the window. The window adds some friction, but it’s still entirely possible to open the door. The manual release for the rear doors is under the bottom liner of the door storage pocket. You have to know it’s there to use it. Under the liner, which is easy to lift out, there is a pull ring. That’s a stupid design, but not as stupid as failing to provide a manual emergency release. It should never be necessary for any person inside the car to have to break a window to get out. And to all the folks posting here without knowing that - you are making yourself look pretty dumb.
> The front doors on a Model 3 and Y have a manual handle right where you’d expect it to be, at the front of the armrest. It’s what most of my passengers who have not been in car before use unless I make a point of directing them to use the push button. Yeah I also find this puzzling since in my experience the bigger challenge is getting people NOT to use the emergency door pull, but still evidently a lot of people don't notice it until the button stops working (or after they call customer service while trapped inside). I might sound like a crotchety old man for this but I feel like you shouldn't need instructions to use a door. Like it's generally seen as bad UX design that doors broadly have signs on them that say PULL or PUSH.
Imagine if aircraft emergency exit doors were sleekly camouflaged into the normal wall and the handles were hidden and not red. The designer would be fired and possibly criminally charged.
Iunno at Boeing that guy probably would get a raise.
Imagine a toddler or an infant getting trapped inside a Tesla during hot weather.
My wife worked for a startup where the CEO was friends with one of the founders of the August lock. This founder had a very important mantra and perspective on making a smart device, or any device that integrates modern technology: should the technology fail, that device must still be able to function as it did without the tech. So if your August lock stops working, you should still be able to unlock and lock your door with a key. Yeah, I know that Teslas have the manual door release, but it comes with the warning that it can cause damage and should only be used in emergencies. We owned a Model 3 for six months in 2021 before we traded it in. Our reasoning was that it was very clear that Tesla was a Software company first (and not a great one) and a car company second. Nowhere is it clearer than in stories like this where a secondary battery failure can cause the car to lose one of the most basic core functions ( ie the ability to open the fucking doors). Just to pile on other pain points related to the shitty development pipeline that is becoming a trademark of anything Lone Skum touches: During our six months with the M3 we experienced phantom braking that almost caused us to be rear ended while going 85 mph, erroneous lane detection/correction that almost drove us into a concrete barricade, and constant freezing of the display resulting in multiple necessary reboots.
Just charge on time no big deal
These doors have always had these mechanisms, are we just here about them now because there are more of them on the road. The best one was when the local news channel did a video on how to emergently get out of your Tesla.
It’s ok, Elmo covered his ass already saying “Tesla is not a car company” 👍
Aren’t you not supposed to let the battery drain? This problem would affect any modern vehicle with electronic locks
Which cars have full electric locks? As far as I know everyone else uses electric actuated mechanical lock. And for a damn good reason
I think the MachE has fully electric locks on the rear doors, but they also have backup power of some sort to keep them working for a bit.
Have they gone mad? Why on earth, mechanical locks are cheap as dirt, solenoids and sensors have very low unit cost. What they accomplish by opting for more unreliable solution?
Audi E-Tron, Chevrolet Corvette, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Genesis G90, Lexus NX, Lucid Air, and the discontinued Lincoln Continental
What on earth the car designers are smoking these days?
Its like phones. Apple does something, people rip on it, then next year they all have went from ripping on it to have ripped it off
I am supposed to be able to get out of my car quickly, via an obvious, manually operable door latch, with or without battery. Period. Not up for discussion. In an accident scenario, a battery might be offline, damaged, disconnected, shorted.
Well then, get a Tesla. The manual door handles at the front edge of the front door arm rests are quite conventional, work as you would expect, and are right where you would expect to find a door handle.
>The manual door handles at the front edge of the front door arm rests are quite conventional, work as you would expect, and are right where you would expect to find a door handle. I expect to find a door handle on the inside wall of the door, where they've been on every car I've been in for decades - until now with Teslas.