Recently there was a similar incident in China involving a Xiaomi car. This led to an incoming legislation that will require all cars to have mechanical handles in case of emergency.
Tesla alone had many such cases and there are no plans whatsoever to do anything about it.
Imagine losing to China in safety regulations.
Why not? China is developing while the US is sitting around with their thumb up their ass.
There are tons of valid criticisms of China but they seem to have their shit firmly together in many areas.
Thats because america only does what makes the most money, cause money will solve all the problems surely. China makes policy decisions on what’s best for the citizens of the country.
about 70 models currently on US roads sporting electric handles
So you can be mad at Tesla for making this popular but it’s clearly not a Tesla specific problem anymore.
Its like manufacturers thought, “let’s take these incredibly dangerous machines and make them less reliable.”
I honestly dont get it.
And charge more money than ever for them!!
Terrible
In that case, it’s past time to get Tesla shutdown and Elon Musk arrested for producing this shit.
but there’s not even a summary or link to the analysis in this article? where’s the fucking data?
i’ll stick to my Civic -The peoples car.
The Euro NCAP crash test scoring was just revised so that cars that don’t have manual controls for the most important functionality cannot get 5 star ratings anymore.
I don’t understand electronic parking brakes.
Having a big “Please Don’t Move Unless Released” lever is very important to me, and I mean this earnestly.
Electronic parking brakes take up less space in the cabin, clean up the center console, and can automatically deploy if the car starts rolling while unattended, or automatically release if the driver forgets to release the brake before driving.
I switched from a 6 speed manual to an electric car last year, and the lack of “physical indicators” of my car’s configuration bothers me, but I can see why it is prefered by 90% of car buyers.
Trouble is it is a failure point being powered (or unpowered) having a mechanical system makes sense
It’s definitely something to consider. I was pointing out that electronic parking brakes have their own benefits, since the previous comment said they did not understand them
I’m one of these people. 99% of my driving is within a 30 mile radius, inside a city. And the ~2 interstate trips I make a year are just sitting on an interstate highway for 4 hours.
There is a manual override in Teslas too. It’s just so well hidden that you’re not going to find in an emergency.
It depends on the model. In the model S, it’s right on the door, super easy to use and actually more intuitive than the little no motion micro switch that you’re supposed to use. I have shit hand strength and I’ve pissed off model S owners by accidentally pulling it to open the door. It just needs an obvious marking. I’m astounded they don’t have that already, but it’s Tesla: Expect Less.
The back seat is super stupid. Who’s more likely to be in the back seat? Kids. What’s the release? You have to dig into the carpet below the rear cushions to find and pull a cable. It’s harder to actuate than the front doors. Big brain material there.
The stupidest of all? No manual release at all on the outside. First responders get to watch you cook while trying to bash the window in. This is day one shit, Tesla.
What about a manually release for witness of the crash?
The manually release won’t do you any good if you’re unconscious. A fire or even the cabin filling with a small amount of smoke and you’re dead by the time first responders can get to you.
Manual overrides won’t count.
It turns out people don’t have time to read manuals and find hidden options in emergencies.
I feel like when operating a lethal hunk of metal at such speeds, perhaps it should be a requirement to RTFM. For several reasons.
What about the passengers? You can’t expect them to read the manual of every vehicle they go into. In an accident the driver could be incapacitated.
Up until about 15 years ago any person who knew how to drive any random car would have been able to operate about 99% of all cars in existence safely without ever looking at a fucking manual.
Now, my manual gearbox is a theft deterrent.
So if I call an Uber and it’s a Tesla, it’s my fault if I can’t escape after a crash cuz I didn’t RTFM?
Should be marked so it’s obvious, but I remember a post about a guy who astonished people by knowing so much. His method? Reading the manual.
One would think the crash tests would automatically produce results that would disqualify vehicles from a 5-star rating. Why would you need an amendment to the rules if crashes were disabling door locks and rendering doors inoperable? That seems like an automatic strike against safety.
Because the door handles are not always disabled in a crash. There’s technically a system in place to extend the handles if a crash is detected, which works the majority of the time. The issue is that, clearly, this system is not reliable enough (because, ya know, if the control system gets wrecked in a crash, it cant extend the handles). But my guess is that it still works enough in crash tests to not automatically disqualify it from 5-stars.
“It’s terrifying,” said Kevin Clouse, a Georgia resident who was trapped in his Model 3 following a 2023 crash and had to kick out a window to escape. He recently filed a complaintwith US regulators and has sought to raise awareness of door-related entrapment on social media. “You’re in a box that’s on fire and you can’t get out.”
What a horrifying way to go.
trapped in his Model 3
If it was his model 3 then that implies he was driving. Did he try the mechanical door release and it didn’t work or did he not know about it because Tesla stupidly made it invisible?
Edit: are the downvotes because I said the handles are invisible and people think they aren’t?
Assuming the latter. Apparently they’re under the cupholders?
They’re more/less in the place you would expect them to be but they’re blended in with the rest of the door. You have to pull up on the thing in front of the window button.
I’m sorry… They actually have handles all this time? So WTF?
Yes, and they are so conspicuous, about 90% of passengers use them instead of the button until briefed otherwise.
Only in the front, unfortunately. Somehow there are way too many Tesla owners who don’t know about them. The back seat is another story. There IS a mechanical release under the rubber liner in the door pocket. You have to pull the liner out and pull on a steel cable to open it. Some people have cut holed in the liner and added little handles to get around this put it’s still a huge oversight by Tesla IMO.
How bad can you be at design that it’s in plain sight and nobody knows? Jfc
Imagine trying to do that shit while on fire, and the car is upsidedown and full of smoke…
Imagine trying to do that in any car with the child lock on - something that has been in cars for decades.
Exactly. Not sure how they got away with that
That’s the actual lever? In that case that’s uh actually pretty obvious.
In that case that’s uh actually pretty obvious.
Really? Because I have 15 people who burned to death because it isn’t.
That’s not where people look for door handles. It’s not marked. It doesn’t stand out in any way. It’s obvious only if you already know it’s there. Otherwise it’s a death trap.
I agree and yet someone downvoted many of my comments in this thread.
I only see 1 of your comments with a downvote.
You can find out who up/downvoted you at https://lemvotes.org/
I thought so too. Slightly less obvious for the driver side. See my other comment about the back seat though.
Same thing in front of the window buttons? Still obvious enough.
Yeah… Some people really are not observant and car manufacturers need to cater to those people as well.
When I was young and naïve in my 50s, I thought US cars had safety requirements, and the era of rolling death traps had been beaten back by Ralph Nader. Must’ve been my mistake. Is there nobody in the government looking at safety issues like un-openable doors?
mate the US gov is still calling headlights that prevent oncoming drivers from seeing where you or the road is “safer”
Is there nobody in the government looking at safety issues like un-openable doors?
Really? Are you actually surprised? The man who decided to put electric un-openable doors onto is the same man who took a chainsaw to the federal regulatory budget and got rid of any agency that had the the authority to rule on such an issue.
To repeat:
Is there nobody in the government looking at safety issues like un-openable doors?
Nope, Elon Musk fired the people who were responsible for making his cars safe because Elon thought their recommendations cost too much and your safety is a sacrifice Elon Musk is willing to make if it makes Tesla stock value increase.
Shut it libtard, “safety” is a made-up democrat hoax. Don’t wear your seatbelt, die like a real man.
I feel it is probably necessary to add /s
My grandfather 40 years ago rolled his Bronco II into a ditch while drinking and driving. I honestly believe he’d lived if he wore his seat belt. The accident ejected him and broke his neck…ending his life.
Sorry to hear that friend… safety is no joke.
Regulation is bad. Anything that restricts multimillion donor billionaires’ wise ways of doing business is literally communism. Or was it Fascism.
communism. Or was it Fascism.
depends on which party is in charge and who you ask about it.
Of course there are in around 95% of the rest of the world.
There is regulation. Tesla is just the first company to make a separate emergency handle. Other companies managed to figure out how to do it with one handle. Even with frameless doors.
Corvettes, going back to at least the C6 generation (2005ish) have electronic handles, but they have mechanical emergency pulls on the floor next to the door sill. Yes, messing with them will set off the car alarm if the doors are locked. Ask me how I know.
I have no idea why anyone where it freezes would want electronic handles, especially ones that electronically self-present. I’ve had to yeet my frozen shit door open on more than occasion.
Pouring a kettle of boiling water on the door handle every morning
Haha, that’s one approach. Be sure to pour the hot water all around the door frame itself is often frozen shut too.
Can someone explain what was wrong with normal door handles that they would do this?
Is it like some Steve Jobs-esque obsession with a car not being a car or something?
They think the extra .01 “mpg” gained from smooth doors is worth the risk. I think most people would agree that it’s not.
It’s actually dumber. I’m pretty sure this just got removed because mechanical door handles don’t look or sound as cool as electronic door handles.
One must remember that Elon Musk is perpetually trapped at 11 years old.
It’s not necessary to have electric door handles for that. Aircraft have been using purely mechanical handles where one side is pushed to make the other stand out enough to pull for decades. Several flush door handle designs requiring no electronics have appeared on cars as well.
Nah, then make them pop out on pressing, you don’t need an electric actuator
As another commenter pointed out it does have a noticeable impact on mpg, however you can still do flush mounted handles that are fully manual. Basically every other car manufacturer does manual locks except for Tesla and a couple small (less than 10,000 units annually) companies. The thing is electric locks are cheaper, and when you don’t care about safety, you go for the cheapest option.
The ghost of Steve Jobs: “blow them shii smoove off”
I have similar style of handles on my car that the model 3, S, and Y have. The thing is the manufacturer made the handle manual while still being flush with the body, they even added a physical key hole so I can have access to the interior if the battery is dead, while still being flush with the body. It’s not hard to do manual, it’s safer, it just costs slightly more, and as we’ve seen in capitalism, lives are cheap. So what if it kills someone, you saved $5.
Is there some evidence that the electric handles are cheaper? You still need all of the same mechanical latches and linkages, but now add electric actuators and wiring. Intuitively it doesn’t seem like it would be cheaper to me.
Electric door handles don’t need all the linkages, it’s literally a solenoid that’s attached directly to the latch and that solenoid is both the door latch and the door lock. There’s only 2 moving parts, the solenoid and the latch itself. The model 3, S, X and Y have an additional moving part that is the actual handle that triggers the solenoid, but the cybertruck doesn’t even have that.
My manual door handle has the outside handle, the lock, the inside handle, the electronic lock, the linkages between the lock and the outside handle, the linkages between the lock and the inside handle, the linkages between the lock and the latch, then the latch. There’s way more machining and assembly involved in a manual lock and door handle than an electronic lock, and that machining has to be way more precise.
That’s valid. I guess that by “so the mechanical linkages” etc. I was thinking of what actually holds the door shut securely in the vehicle frame. You still need a mechanical override for the solenoid actuator, but I can see that being cheaper overall after reading your description.
it just costs slightly more
There you have it.
In a normal car company, the CEO would be fired.
No, because nothing matters except stock price.
Musk’s companies aren’t evaluated based on their ability to sell products/services, they’re valued on hype.
If he left any of his companies they would suffer drastic stock crashes which would likely kill the company.
Oddly enough Silicon Valley does a really good job of explaining how wonky the math gets.
“Normal” companies try to raise stock by making a product, these tech companies are basically exploiting glitch’s in the stock market. It’s why everyone else is losing.
110 people died in a car crash today in the USA alone.
I’ve encountered electronic door poppers on a few rental cars and I’ve always disliked them. I see no advantage at all, and several more things to go wrong.
