… with the Model Y in particular, not all vehicles come with manual releases for the rear doors, as Tesla warns in the car’s manual. It’s unclear if the Model Y involved in the crash was equipped with the emergency feature.
Most likely with an impact that severe, the passengers were either killed or incapacitated on impact, especially giving the fact none of the others were noticed trying to escape when the bystander broke out a window.
The front doors do have easily accessible manual releases on all of the models.
That being said, for the ones ‘equipped’ with the emergency feature for the rear, it is a manual release cable buried under the speaker grill, which is something very few passengers would know about in the first place, much less have the presence of mind or physical capability to remove the speaker grill and find/pull the cable.
Because this keeps coming up:
Electronic door latches are not a Tesla invention. They are featured in many vehicles. They’re considered a luxury item and presumably some people like them over a mechanical latch.
All Teslas have a mechanical override. In the 3 and Y it’s very obvious in the front seat (so obvious that some of my passengers instinctively use it over the electronic latch. Doing so repeatedly can damage the weather stripping). The back seat has no override (that I know of).
It’s less obvious (but still present) in the S and X.
Take from that what you will, but this is only a story because it’s Tesla.
Just curious - are you able to point me to any articles of people dying in non-Tesla car fires due to being trapped because of electric door handles failing?
I tried searching, but was only able to find an article of a man dying of heat exhaustion in a Corvette in 2015.So my point is that the story is only newsworthy because it’s Tesla. I think you’re arguing that it doesn’t happen in other cars because you can’t find news about it. I think we’re arguing the same point. It could be happening in other cars, but it isn’t newsworthy.
30,000 people die in America every year because of cars, but we don’t see 30,000 news articles about it.
What would make a Tesla more dangerous than say a 2008 Corvette that has the manual release conveniently placed on the floor?
Here’s a photo from a forum where someone suggests a way to cover the label because they don’t like the look.
I think the problem is that it’s not as obvious in the backseat as a non-Tesla vehicle.
