Terrified friends burn to death trapped in Tesla as doors won't open after crash
Terrified friends burn to death trapped in Tesla as doors won't open after crash
The only survivor of the October 24 fire was a woman in her 20s who was able to get to safety after a quick thinking passer-by smashed a window of the burning Model Y car to free her
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This isn’t a Tesla or EV problem though. How many back doors have child safety locks?
It’s a problem when none of the doors work. The only person that survived was because somebody not involved came and broke the window. They said they didn’t even know anybody else was in the car because the smoke was so thick. Not the best time to be searching for a hidden door handle. Admittedly the front doors manual release is way more accessible but they probably didn’t know it existed because it blends into the door panel.
Child safety locks still allow the door to be opened from the outside. Tesla’s doors won’t if there isn’t any power. You have to go dig through the interior panels for the stupid cable to pull. That assumes you are uninjured, conscious, and not panicking to even do that.
The C7 Chevy corvette has a similar issue because the doors are electronic. To put insult to injury the location of the manual release is in the owners manual…which is stored behind the radio screen that power retracts into the dash. So no power and you can’t get to the manual either. Brilliant.
Tesla rear doors don't open on button press from the inside with no power, but I bet they do from the outside. Just like the child locks. I've never tried it unpowered to confirm though.
Having never owned a Tesla I searched their forum and somebody asked the relevant question. Both the interior and exterior handles are electric. So no power, no doors handles. You have to use the manual releases from inside the car.
Huh. TIL.
To add another weird kink to this. If you don’t have power and use the emergency release…it breaks the window. Under normal operation the window needs to roll down to clear but can’t without power.
In my Audis at least, the child safety is disabled together with the locks opening within a few milliseconds of the airbag control unit sending a crash signal across the CAN. That message is sent immediately when the decision to open at least one airbag has been made and therefore will reach all components while the crash hasn't even had time to finish, so all wires and stuff is most likely still in place
Apart from that, the doors have an emergency mechanical release that is "just pull a bit harder and further on the handle". Which is what you'd do anyway.
A: the driver knows they're locked from the inside
B: they're always locked form the inside, they didn't just stop working because the car lost power
C: lithium fire/smoke makes thinking more difficult than an ICE engine fire
EV complicates it
Tesla made it really bad by electric-only locks.