If only we had the technology to open doors without power. One day, perhaps.
But how do you integrate a subscription fee into analog doors? You can‘t enshitify that!!
There is a manual door release that works without power, but only from the inside. She had just loaded the child in their car seat, shut the door then went to the driver door to get in and couldn’t open it.
The doors are on the 12V side of the system, you can use jumper cables to connect an external battery from another vehicle (including ICE vehicles) to power the door under normal circumstances. But with a kid trapped in the car in AZ, I wouldn’t wait for that either.
It a pretty rare combinations of circumstances, but there’s something to be said for manual keys still used on other vehicles with keyless entry.
How would you connect the battery with jumper cables if you’re locked out?
Whenever essential functions (e.g. access) are powered, they’re supposed to have manual overrides. I’m pretty sure this is a regulatory requirement even here in the States where we’re stupid and regulatory agencies are mostly captured.
So WTF happened, Tesla? Where’s the manual override for when the battery fails?
That’s for if you’re inside, a mechanical access has to exist on the outside as well, no?
You can also “jump” the car to open it via a 12V access port in the front.
Yeah, doesn’t help much in case of actual emergency does it?
Then break the fucking window if it’s an actual emergency.
They did
The child was safely removed from the car after firefighters used an ax to smash through a window
I know.
My response was to the previous comment.
In a non Tesla, if someone is locked in a car, what happens? There isn’t some secret “let me in” button. You just break a window. This is a dumb story.
No. You just need to be able to exit without power. Getting back in mechanically isn’t a requirement.
It should be, but it’s not.
Damn, even fighter jets have an external override. They’re even labeled for rescue workers.
There was a time I wanted a Tesla, but I don’t anymore. This is just another reason why.
Does Tesla care about making a “neat thing” or do they care about making “a car that can drive me places”. The doors clearly show they prioritize making a “neat thing”, but I want a reliable car.
Opening and closing doors was a solved problem. Somehow Tesla made it worse.
Does Tesla care about making a “neat thing” or do they care about making “a car that can drive me places”
Neither. Care about making money.
The fucking DOORS require a charged battery? Fuck that. That decision will age great in the next ten years. Not to mention emergency situations where the electrical system is compromised.
It’s worse than that: it requires the old school lead acid 12v battery to be charged, so even if the car’s battery is full, it doesn’t matter if that old car battery has failed
That’s not unique to Tesla EVs, but it being required to open the doors may be (the 12v lead acid runs the general vehicle electronics rather than down converting the 400v or 800v main battery… I don’t understand that decision, but I’m no electronics expert so there may be really good reasons for it…)
Let me start by stating that requiring the battery to open/close doors is a bad design choice overall. There should always be a way to open the door using a physical key.
Ok, having said that, the 12V is a better choice. It’s easier to replace a 12V battery in case it fails and forcing the main battery to power everything runs the risk of draining that. Li-Ion batteries don’t react well to being completely drained.
Besides, all EVs have a way to attach an external battery to the 12V system in case of total power failure, which will then allow you to do whatever you need. In case of Tesla Model Y there are two cables hidden in the tow eye cover that power the hood release. With the hood open you can charge the 12V battery directly.
There’s a release latch on the doors beside the “open door” buttons. I guess no I’ve else is pointing that out?
Pretty sure thats on the inside of the car and is actually covered as well. Release latch means shit in this situation, especially since car door design was more or less perfected over a hundred years ago at this point. Change for the sake of change is a damndable concept for tech.
I’ve had a couple of passengers open the door using the latch because they didn’t know about the Open Door button.
I’m not saying it’s a good design (it’s dumb) but you can get out when there is no power
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment; it has dissolved its press office.
Does it also send a poop emoji now?
Now imagine this happens in a remote area with no cell coverage. In Arizona those are a thing too.
Easy enough to get out, if you have a couple braincells to rub together. The manual release is not hidden, covered, obfuscated, or even in a weird location. It’s literally right on the door handle
Edit: turns out this is only in the M3, the Y, X, And CT are all designed by absolute idiots, and i joined them by not looking into all models
Does the indoor lever (hidden) not work without the battery too?
Not sure, but 20 month old toddler…
The only sensible solution then is to ban toddlers from EVs. They’ll just have to walk.
Yes, the interior manual release works without power, but the only person in the car was a toddler in a car seat and they were not able to open it themselves.
Woke toddler was working for Big Baby to make Tesla look bad
Also, firefighters are just beefy sexy shills for the axe industry
Failsafe.
Fail Safe.
Fail Open.
Elon is why we need to write safety regulations. He’s the kind of guy who would put sawdust in your food and call it innovation.
Agree on your overall sentiment, though I’d say it is a bit more complicated than that for car doors. You don’t want it to fail and come open while moving, for example, especially if the car is coming to a stop and inertia forces the doors fully open. That Boeing door failed open and it was not very safe.
Vehicle doors should be fail functional rather than open to fail safe. As in designed to be very unlikely to fail and/or still functional even if one or several components do fail.
Edit: I normally avoid commenting on my downvotes (you win some, you lose some) but this one is baffling. What’s controversial or unpopular about what I said?
I’d say it is a bit more complicated than that for car doors.
Car doors work fine on every car but a Tesla. They aren’t some new technology invented by Tesla where design flaws like this are understandable. Tesla just does things so badly that they invent brand new dangers that only exist with their vehicles.
You don’t want it to fail and come open
That isn’t what “fail open” means. It doesn’t mean that the moment the battery dies all the doors fly open. It means that when the battery dies the doors aren’t latched shut like a bank safe.
At a minimum, the key should offer a way to open the car from the outside when the battery is dead. It’s completely asinine to put the only emergency latch on the inside of the car where you can’t use it, especially since it is hidden so deep most people can’t find it without the manual.
What’s controversial or unpopular about what I said?
You’re giving Elon Musk’s awful cars the benefit of a doubt by pretending that this isn’t a completely reckless design flaw that should never have existed in the first place, and you are deliberately misinterpreting what “fail open” means to make it sound like a ridiculous solution instead of the industry safety best practice that it actually is.
Also, you’re complaining about downvotes, so expect even more now I guess.
I had something similar happen to me years ago in a Toyota minivan. The car stalled and died in traffic, some kind of electrical glitch. I got out to raise the hood. The door closed behind me and it came up with just enough battery to lock itself, with my keys in the ignition and my two babies and quadriplegic husband inside. It was 107° outside. And pre-cellphones. I bolted to the nearby gas station to call 911 and grab something to break a window. Meanwhile hubby tried to coach toddler how to wriggle out of car seat and open door, but straps were too snug. Firehouse was near, and the jammed traffic was all in one direction so they used the opposite side and didn’t take long, and they jimmied the door open quickly. But it was boiling in there. Sat the kids by the road to cool off with water and get checked by paramedics, gave water to husband in car with open doors, and waited for a tow to the gas station so I could lower the ramp and get my husband out. Meanwhile of course we made the traffic even worse, but people weren’t too mad when they saw our plight as they squeezed past.
I’m wondering, did some similar glitch happen here, or do Tesla doors lock every time they shut?
IDK about Tesla but yeah Toyotas like to lock themselves.
Auto-lock doors have been a nightmare in general. I always roll a window down at least far enough to stick an arm through every time I get out of a running car because of the one time forever ago that I left a 90s Pontiac Skylark running, shut the door, and it autolocked with the keys in the ignition and the motor running. I had to get my girlfriend to drive me back to my apartment for the spare key while the car was humming away, and I never forgot that. If I wasn’t close to home, with a helpful ride nearby, and a spare key on hand, I’d have been screwed.
Talk about features that need regulated out. All because suburban whites don’t want to remember to lock the doors as they drive through the black neighborhood so the car locks itself whenever you put it in Drive.
it’s really smart to have non-mechanical mechanical parts for things like a door
I was talking to a Tesla owner about this and they argued that if the window is electric then there’s no difference making the door electric. They couldn’t understand that the door itself can be operated independently of the rest of the vehicle.
Making windows electric causes a safety tradeoff. You get ease of operation while losing the ability to open the window in the event of an accident (where power cannot be supplied). However you can still unlock and open the door manually as an alternative escape option. This also applies in non-accident scenarios (dead battery).
Making doors electric is nothing more than a safety risk. From the inside you might have access to a manual release latch, but some doors require you to unscrew things first. Any emergency situation where you need to exit as soon as possible and the power is lost almost guarantees that you’ll be unable to safely escape.
Nothing about it is hidden, obfuscated, or even in a weird spot. It’s literally right on the fucking door handle. There’s a lot of reasons to hate elon, and there’s a lot of reasons to hate tesla. Let’s stick to the legitimate ones instead of making shit up, it just weakens the arguments for the actual issues
Edit: turns out this is only in the M3, the Y, X, And CT are all designed by absolute idiots, and i joined them by not looking into all models
Ok. So that’s the Model 3.
How about the Model Y?
Ok. Not all Model Ys have rear manual releases. I’ll assume the best and believe that only certain countries have this design.
How about the Model X?
So it’s behind the speaker grille. Uncertain if you need a screwdriver, but I’ll assume not. However it is hidden away from sight.
How about the Model S?
Oh, it’s under the carpet.
So yeah, turns out, I’m not making shit up, and there is indeed empirical evidence for it.
You mean, non-electrical… not non-mechanical.
The headline rambles a little bit, and by the time I got to “, died”, I thought the toddler was dead.
“Arizona toddler rescued…” I dont think a dead child can be rescued anymore
Did the batter die from extreme heat or due to the driver failing to charge the vehicle promptly?
Wrong battery. You’re thinking the high-voltage EV battery, but in this case, it was the 12V lead-acid accessory battery that died. Normally, that would be charged from the high voltage battery, if the car was running.
In this case, it might just have been bad luck with a worn-out battery.
Damn… thanks for the explanation!
