1y ago

YSK: it's not just Tesla, 1/3 of cars in built in the last ten years have passenger/rear windows that are almost impossible to break in an emergency.

www.aaa.com /AAA/common/AAR/files/Research-Report-Vehicle-Escape-Tools.pdf

In the past, laminated glass was usually installed in the windshield, with side and rear windows being tempered only.

The difference is that tempered glass is per-stressed so that when it cracks, it shatters into many tiny and dull pieces. Laminated is the same thing, but with layers of plastic sandwiched with layers of tempered glass. Laminated glass will still shatter, but will be held together by the plastic layers.

In an emergency, small improvised, or purpose built tools meant to shatter tempered glass will be useless if the glass is laminated.

171 comments

The problem wasn't the glass.
The problem was using wtf touchscreen controls to shift between drive and reverse. Mrs. Chao confused the two then died.
Shitty UI kills another person. Tesla fucking up basic UI design is the real villain here.
- I still blame Jeep for thinking a rotating selector was a good idea for a gear shifter. RIP Anton Yelchin.
  
  I thought his jeep issue was that P on the dial didn't actually guarantee the parking pawl was engaged to stop it from rolling. Separate from the lack of positive engagement with the P position, more about the physical disconnect between the two. Unless that was just the non-offensive language version of "user didn't turn the dial all the way and our polite warning chime was too polite"
  
  At least you can still feel the rotating Jeep shitty gear selector.
  Touchscreen controls on a Tesla have no feel or feedback. It's a touchscreen.
- Sounds like both things are a problem?
  
  I'm more inclined to blame Tesla's electronic locks and confusing manual override before blaming the windows though
  Quick, do you know which panel to remove to find the non-electronic manual override in a Tesla? Car is sinking fast and the electronics just shorted out from the lake.
  But sure, tons of bad design decisions here. It's hard to blame any one of them as the singular cause. If Tesla had easier to use manual override doors instead of electronic locks, if the windows could be broken, if the screen wasn't a confusing touchscreen mess, etc. Etc. Lots of factors and all are the cause.
- Probably doesn't help that Teslas guess which direction you want to go in and you have to change it if it's wrong. https://www.autoblog.com/2021/01/28/tesla-new-gear-shifter-guesses-direction-you-want/
  
  Yeah, only on the newer ones tho. My buddy got I wanna say a 2022? And it doesn't have that. He specifically said if it did, he wouldn't have bought it.
- she could have not floored it into a lake, but maybe I'm the only person that doesn't go balls out when they're backing out of a spot.
  
  Accidents happen, and people panic. Maybe she thought she was pressing the breaks and made the problem worse. I highly doubt anyone would do it intentionally.
  
  I don't know about you, but in these parts we spin the gear selector to random, floor it and yell "JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL!"
  
  Hertz stopped offering Tesla rentals because Teslas are designed to go balls out when the pedal is lightly touched and too often that involves straight into a wall or a lake
  
  One pedal braking makes this a bit tricky for people who are not used to it and/or panicking. You spend decades of your life having a seperate "go" and "stop" pedal, and then suddenly they're the same one. You have your foot over the accelerator, lift a bit and feel the deceleration as if you're pressing the brake.
  Suddenly, something darts behind you, and your brain says "I'm feeling deceleration, so your foot is on the pedal that stops things" and you slam on it like you would the brake pedal. I've done it with the clutch/brake after hopping back and forth between a manual and automatic a few dozen times after a very long day of vehicle testing. Muscle memory is a powerful thing and your brain's mental model of the world is not always correct.
  
  personally i like to sit on my bike and just topple over, then start crying
- Imagine if water spilled or leaked from the window onto the touchscreen, try using a wet smartphone... Could be touchscreen device malfunction or misclick causing the Tesla fatality
  
  Good thing Teslas are known to not leak at all
- You seem to have very detailed information on how the accident happened. Care to share?
  
  https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/a-mistake-in-a-tesla-and-a-panicked-final-call-the-death-of-angela-chao/ar-BB1jAkIW
  Within minutes of saying her goodbyes, she called one of her friends in a panic. While making a three-point turn, she had put the car in reverse instead of drive, she said. It is a mistake she had made before with the Tesla gearshift. The car had zipped backward, tipping over an embankment and into a pond. It was sinking fast. Could they help her?
it shatters into many tiny and dull pieces
Those pieces are not dull. They're just not jagged and shaped like knives like normal glass. I accidentally broke the rear window on my truck and, thinking it was dull like you described, started to pick it up with my hands. Big mistake.
- You just unlocked a very unpleasant memory of picking up small glass pieces with my hand. Like you said, big mistake and the worst was that I didn't notice it was cutting at first...
  
  One time I was climbing a rock in a park in Illinois, and reached up into a pile of finely-ground glass.
  I managed to pick all but one little piece out of my fingers. That one piece was so far in I couldn’t get it.
  Later on, I couldn’t find it. So I figured it had come out.
  But a few weeks later my palm itched and that fucking piece of glass poked its way out of my palm.
- Yeah, they're absolutely sharp. But since they're not point, you'll end with a hundred tiny cuts, instead of a giant shard stabbing through your torso..
- Yeah, the part where it separated from the rest of the glass isn't usually stabby or cutty; but the edges along the corners of the piece sure as hell are! I learned this the hard way...
This is astroturfing.
The issue with Tesla has never been that the windows are hard to break. The issue is that the rear doors are electronic with manual override hidden in a camouflaged panel at the bottom of the door pocket. A door pocket that was added to hold things. Those things will block access to the emergency door open.
- If you're underwater you're not gonna be able to open the doors without breaking the window unless there's an explosive. But partially submerged when 20% of the door is still above water then yes it should be possible to still open the door
  
  But partially submerged when 20% of the door is still above water then yes it should be possible to still open the door
  Partially submerged, the door would be very hard to open, due to water pressure. The water pressure needs to fully equalized between the inside and outside of the car.
  Did we learn nothing from Mythbusters?
  
  As Mythbusters proved, you wait until the car is almost full of water, and then open the door.
- This is coming up because of the recent drowning, right? Is someone saying the driver was unable to escape because she was unable to open a back door? It would make sense of there was an issue with rescuers unable to break rear windows, but how is the inaccessibility of the internal rear door emergency open cord relevant to this case?
- ... Astroturfing... For who? Lol.
  
  Someone important died drowning in a Tesla so it's in the news. This story attempts to get the general population to think the problem is hard to break glass to deflect from Tesla's design flaw.
  Instead of, "Tesla has a serious design flaw that will trap passengers." everyone is talking about, "all cars have hard to break windows.
  It's a strawman. No one has complained about hard to break glass windows. Emergency window hammers have been sold since the 1940's. But people have been trying to bring Tesla's unsafe doors to public attention.
  
  Control the narrative. Rich woman died. Tesla marketing team going on defense.
  You see this a lot every time a Tesla kills somebody.
- So what you are saying is that maybe you should read the fucking manual before piloting a two ton death machine at highway speeds?
  
  When you bought your car did you physically check to see how the rear seatbelts are operated or did you assume they were standard because of safety standards?
  People buy products assuming the minimum standard of safety that has been there for 50 years is still there.
  On the model X that was involved in the drowning, no one should be expected to read the user manual to find out the door open latch is a pull string behind the speaker grill.
  
  No, I think he was saying that Tesla are shittily designed. To RTFM or not to RTFM doesn't matter much when emergency equipment and controls are not easily accessible in an emergency
- Kia/Hyundai from 2011 to 2022 have that beat with their entirely key less ignition and universal free ride share program.
  
  Ironically, that only works on the models with a key ignition. Actually keyless has the immobilizer.
  You’ll still get a free window opening from amateur thieves, though.
- Better safe than sorry...
We need HARD rules and regulations for car door handles and common controls. This push for screens and lack physical elements needs to stop.
And Tesla, being the helpful sort, also makes it hard to open the doors in an emergency. The front might have manual door release mechanism somewhere - good luck finding it when the car is on fire or sinking. The rear... not so much.
EuroNCAP is changing its testing regime to negatively score manufacturers who remove critical physical controls and it should probably include door handles in that regime.
- I feel they should outright ban them from sale, not just reduce the score.
  
  I think NCAPs are not government institutions, but I agree that funding, oversight and more power to recall, and even ban the sale of vehicles, is ought to be given to them.
- Not that I disagree with you generally, but in the recent case, manual door release wouldn't have helped, as it's basically impossible to push open a car door against the water pressure outside a submerged car.
  
  Yes, you wait for pressure to equalize. But in a Tesla after pressure has equalized and you could open the rear door, the manual rear seat door open is a pull string under a camouflaged panel at the bottom of the door pocket. A door pocket that is probably filled with stuff because Tesla added the door pocket so you can put stuff in it.
  It's intentionally designed to be unsafe.
  
  It's still possible to open it before the car submerges. It's also possible to open it if you have the wherewithal to wait until the inside is nearly full. That's providing you know where the damned release lever is. But if you're panicking and pushing the electronic release and nothing happens then you're going to die no matter what. Same too if the car is on fire or whatever.
- The front door emergency latches are so intuitive everyone tries to use them the first time they're in the car. There's 0 problem with them.
  The problem is the rear doors not having them or being hard to access.
  
  On the other hand, if you never use the mechanical release and have spent a long time only driving your Tesla, wouldn’t it be possible to forget it’s there while in a high-stress situation?
Wasn't it also the door opening mechanism was electronic and it stopped functioning once underwater?
- Even a purely mechanical door can be extremely difficult to open when partially submerged. The pressure of the water will hold the door shut until the water equalizes on both sides of the door.
  But yeah, once totally submerged and flooded an electric door likely won’t open while a mechanical one will.
  
  Yup, that's what I learned about being in a flooding car. Wait until it's filled with water and you'll be able to open the door since the pressure is equalized. But not having the option at all is bonkers, however someone else mentioned that tesla does have a manual lever, in which case it makes this whole debacle even more tragic and stupid.
- There is apparently a manual lever hidden underneath the button, but that sure does seem like a bad design idea in an emergency.
  
  I hate Tesla and traded mine in after only two months of ownership, but in no way is the lever hidden or not extremely obvious. In fact it is more obvious than the button. Several times I had passengers try to use the manual lever, which doesn't lower the window when used. After the second person did it, moving forward I told every person who hadn't been in my car before to use the button before getting out. Was one of the many reasons I traded it in.
  
  There is apparently a manual lever hidden underneath the button,
  "hidden"
  
  shouldn't emergency switch and latched be colored different.
- yes
You're not breaking a tempered glass without the designated tool either and almost nobody has that. There's this famous clip of a news anchor demonstrating how "easy" it is to break a car window with a hammer and he needed like 8 attempts.
- My algo shows me nonstop car break ins in the Bay area ( for some reason or another) and they have gloves and it's amazing how quick they shatter.
  
  Because they have special ceramic tools. Windows will always be incredibly easy for thieves to break with no effort, but they're incredibly hard for people without specialized burglary tools to break.
- pretty insane that cars don't just come with the tool already in a special holder at the bottom of the door "pockets"
  like it would cost them dollars to do so, no one will notice if you just bake that into the price of the car and i do believe it's generally considered a good idea to keep your customers alive so they can buy another car.
  
  They’d go the way of the cheap little tire change kit, if the car even has a spare. Nobody would remember where it is, and it’s probably buried under whatever junk is stuffed in the pocket.
  
  It seems that you don't know the lengths auto makers will go to save litteral cents on a model line. Adding dollars is absolutely not something done lightly.
- I don't know how common they actually are, but I see car window breaker & seatbelt cutter gizmos being sold all over the place. I know I keep one in my car where I can easily get to it, though my car emergency kit is probably better stocked than most people's, and most first responders also have them in their kit.
  Also an automatic center punch will usually do the trick as well, it's a fairly common tool, though in an emergency it may not be practical to go rooting through your toolbox to find one.
- I have one on my pocket knife that goes with me almost everywhere.
The reason Tesla was in the news over this was because a rich lady reversed into a pond. So the rear windows wouldn't be facing up in that situation...
Why did they switch to laminated in the side and rear windows?
- Sound dampening. Common feature on high trim cars or electric vehicles.
  
  Thanks.
  Let me guess, it's probably also heavier.
  We have a 2020 Mazda 3 that probably has that, instead of useful features like a remote start or fog lights. I've found that I much prefer driving my car from 1999 or even our pickup from 2014 (which itself has double gaskets on the doors for sound isolation). The Mazda feels like I'm in this isolated chamber with no road feel or anything from outside encroaching. If that's luxury, count me out.
Tempered glass windows offer better theft protection which is why they are increasingly used.
- Laminated*
  They're used for noise insulation not theft. In theft it's just a minor inconvenience. Shatter the window with a rock, then punch the floppy laminated shards in.
  
  No, more often, it's smash the laminated window, get confused and then smash another window. If the 2nd window isn't laminated, they're in, if it is laminated too, then they smash your quarter glass since they're basically never laminated.
Anyone know of a reasonable tool that can get through laminated glass and be kept near the drivers seat?
- In the states? Gun.
  Rest of the world? Crowbar?
  
  Not a handgun if you want to be able to exit through the opening. Under water? Not sure a shotgun will even be helpful unless you fire at all corners to break it up more thoroughly.
- vixtorinox (swiss army) rescue tool. It's a locked knife - most probably illegal in many places.
- Use the same type of glass tool as before to shatter it. Then just push it out of the way. It's still the same glass. It just stays held together with the plastic.
  
  Will that work when you’re submerged underwater and the pressure of the water is pushing against the glass?
- A "Glass-Master" is what I used in the fire service. Goes a lot faster than you would think.
- I would guess you could use a regular tool for breaking a normal window, then cut through the plastic with a sturdy knife. Not great to need two tools in an emergency though, and keeping a combat knife in your glove box might raise some eyebrows.
  Unfortunately, being difficult to get through is the whole point
- They make safety glass shatter tools and they usually also come with seatbelt cutters attached to them as well. Looks like a really large, sharp ballpoint pen tip.
  
  These don't work on laminated glass.
- Small bits of ceramic, like from a broken spark plug easily shatter any tempered glass even when thrown lightly. https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/why-do-spark-plugs-break-windows
  
  Laminated, not just tempered. There's a strong layer of plastic inside the window. Even if you shatter the glass you still can't get out.
  
  They asked about laminated glass not tempered glass.
I guess those vehicles' drivers should always roll down their windows when near bodies of water in case they go in
Unsafe back seat passenger exit starts earlier than that, my 2005 Saturn had a set of horrible doors. I avoided carrying more than one passenger as often as possible.
- Your 2005 Saturn didn't have electronic locks that failed when the 800Volt battery pack touches water.
  The number of Tesla drivers getting locked in and dying is disturbing. Who puts a safety critical electronic only lock tied to the main battery pack? Tesla, that's who.
  Fire? Your electronic locks fail and you die. Water? Same same. Etc. Etc.
  
  Keep ranting, but the door locks run off of the 12v.
- It have suicide doors? God I miss those. Terrible for passenger safety, but I could fit so much stuff into my ion with those. Made moving with a sedan so much easier.

171 comments