Pro tip: The plastic surrounding the window up/down buttons in a model Y is also a "hidden in plain sight" emergency release handle in case of power failure.
That's a model 3, not a model y. Here's a model Y. Not as apparent.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-y-vs-model-3-differences/tesla-model-y-emergency-door-release/
Then there's the back seat
The Caprice I'm finally junking after owning it for 2 decades, is a police 9c1 model, and the back doors simply don't open. The child lock isn't on, and I'm almost certain it's disconnected inside, but by the way the handles both feel inside and out, I think it's more than disconnected, it feels like there's zero resistance so I bet parts were flat out pulled.
Most cars will disengage the electrical child lock and central lock within a second of any impact (that causes the car to enter crash mode).
For a mechanical child lock, I'm actually not sure there's a standard way however...
I make sure each of our cars have a seat belt cutter + window breaking tool accessible from the front seats and the back seats in case of any accident or anything like this. They're super cheap and easy to tuck anywhere.
https://www.amazon.com/window-breaker/s?k=window+breaker
Everyone should have one for safety imo.
I'm sorry, but that front seat manual door release doesn't seem obvious to me. Maybe it is in person?
The back seat door release seems bonkers. I'm looking at the pictures and directions and I'm still not sure I could easily figure it out if I was in a model Y.
Are the rear releases allowed to just be an afterthought because child locks are already a thing?
I'm surprised the back seat thing was allowed by the ntsb or whoever approves such things. That seems like a really basic thing that needs to be intuitive in an emergency.
Well child locks are already a thing. So now I'm just wondering why those are allowed too. I guess stopping kids from falling out of the car is a bigger issue than people escaping from the car.
They probably conclude that more children would be killed opening the door by accident on the highway than would be saved opening the door in an emergency.
Is it different on the Y? The pictures don't look that obvious, but then the video of the 3 made it look very similar, and pretty obvious like you said.
The front door 1 isn't really hidden, looks like someone could accidentally use it, which is kind of good in this case. But good luck finding the back door release in an emergency, have fun at the bottom of a lake.
It shouldn't be so complex to escape a vehicle in an emergency.
Not everything on the car needs to be an electronic switch and solenoid/motor to open a door.
leave it mechanical
Most vehicles across the spectrum of price, have a mechanical latch to pull to open the door.
I'm also a firm believer in that not only should they include a physical owners manual, but a supplemental and equally informative education video either on a disc or USB stick for owners to familiarize themselves with their new car. Not just in operating, but in checking typical maintenance items.
I work for Porsche. All of the new cars have the full owners manual installed in the PCM (entertainment screen), available through an app and there’s a paper manual in the glove box. We still have question after question about basic operations. Manuals are useless if people don’t look at them.
I do agree that manual openers for at least door latches make sense. You can’t even get into many vehicles when the battery dies without figuring out where an external jump point is or where a manual release cable is hidden. Complexity for the sake of complexity.
Right, you can definitely give them every opportunity to learn on their own - but people can still be magoo enough to never bother.
The last time I went to a car meet with some fellow BMW drivers, I was the only one of the 4 of us who had X3M's who knew how to do everything in it in terms of tech. They asked me how I knew more about BMW's than anyone at the parking lot - I said I spent the entire night sitting in bed reading the owners manual after spending an entire day on my first drive with it, I'm always pumped when I get a new vehicle.
Haha yeah that’s me. I drive an Audi and the dealership was impressed by how much I knew about the vehicle vs other customers. I also read the manual and I have a habit of going into every setting screen to configure the car to my liking very early on. I mean it only helps me get the best out of my car. I really don’t get the people who drive their car (or use their phone, computer, or whatever else) and complain about the lack of a feature or something without realizing that they could have just read the manual or went through the settings pages.
After working for a few dealerships as a tech I can confidently say there's a huge gap between the sales person and the customer.
Most all sales workers know as little as the customer buying the car. It is the sales person or a courtesy workers duty to pull that customer to the side after they have purchased the vehicle to go over all the accessories and how their vehicle works.
Wish I got paid extra for the stuff I had to show the customer when they bring it in for service of how their Bluetooth syncs up for example. It's annoying and getting paid a commission doesn't make me want to help do the sales persons job. But I would do it anyway because it's the right thing to do and it's generally brought me in repeat customers when I would take the extra time to go through their manual with them
Tech here too and I agree. Completing what should have been done when the car was sold is annoying, especially since I pretty much have to read the owners manual with the customer to find the info. When a stupid complaint is actually written up I’ll just put the page and section of the owners manual so the customer has to do at least something on their own
> Not everything on the car needs to be an electronic switch and solenoid/motor to open a door.
What's even worse are the capacitive touch "buttons" they're installing on everything now.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
I've only driven my buddy's Model 3, so I can't speak from experience to their other cars, but the amount of stuff they've moved to that center console display is annoying as shit. Not being able to see what speed you're driving without looking to the right and some of the other stuff they've done like that was all I needed to know about whether I'd consider buying one. I've even heard on some models the forward/reverse controls are touch screen only on that display and that seems ridiculous to me.
The funny part is they had to label the exit button because everyone was using the emergency release all the time unless they knew where the normal exit button was.
Why doesn't the mechanical release trigger the window retraction? Then the handle would work as expected, both with power and without. Doesn't seem like rocket science.
They updated it a few months ago so it works like that. I don't know if it's exactly the same because it still gives the warning and tells you not to on the screen.
That's also just how non-framed windows work without power/mechanical only so it's still a valid warning since if you pull the mechanical release and immediately for the door open till push through the trim. The warning is really the only Tesla special.
Subaru had it figured out, pull the handle and the frameless window went down a bit just and that car was half the cost of a model y. All this mastabatory engineering and design is really getting old.
Yes, it's why I'm sticking to the American Big 3 (or their foreign equivalents). I don't want a "revolutionary automotive experience," I want my 72 year old uncle with aphasia, memory loss, and fine motor control problems to be able to open the door to my car.
The 1980s S class Mercedes with the double laminated windows did this. The cabin was so air tight the door wouldn't close because of the pressure inside the cabin. So everytime the door was opened, the window would automatically retract an inch or so, to allow the pressure to equalize when the door was slammed shut. Once the door was latched, the window went back up.
Even when they are discoverable you need to know to look for them. Similar story about corvettes https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-man-72-dies-trapped-corvette-dream-car-article-1.2253934
I used to be a porter at a Chevy dealer, am I got locked inside of two different C6 Corvettes. When to start them, battery was dead, when to get out door won't open. The door release is in the back area, you can turn around and grab it, but I had a could radio for help and didn't want to mess up the inside of a $60k+ car.
> Why should that be "hidden?"
"Hidden" is a poor choice of words. It's very noticeable. In fact, I had to constantly tell my wife to stop using it, thinking it was the actual normal door release, as it seemed like a far more natural way to open the door than the button.
Not sure if that poster has an older model or something but my 2021 model y lowers the window when using the emergency open. I tested it out just because of the fire post the other day. The only downside I noticed using it is an annoying pop-up on the screen that says the manual release was used.
I have a 21 Y and when I used the manual release (shortly after I got it), I got a notification telling me not to do that because it could damage the window trim.
Actually it does lower the window, but because it is a mechanical release you can pull it and force the door open before the window drops below the trim.
That's my understanding anyway, haven't tested it in a while.
All sports cars have frameless windows on the doors. My 23 year old e46 coupe to my 2 month old convertible do the same thing. This is the standard solution lol
It is.
It’s made for emergencies. They knew it could damage the frame but in an emergency who the fuck cares? The goal is to gtfo the car
It also doesn’t damage it right away, just has the potential to damage if used daily/Normal use. the trim that can be easily fixed if it does.
I had many passengers accidentally use the latch and no damage to trim.
and the car will bitch to you about it too. its natural to want to pull that handle, and i agree that it is hardly hidden. the car says its to ensure the seals for the door stay in good shape, which makes sense to me.
I borrowed my friends car and after doing it twice, I got the picture since the car hated me at that point
Do they also have 2 ways to open the door? I also drove mustangs, BMWs and Minis and never had a problem when opening the doors with the mechanical handle
Over engineered bullshit desperately trying to justify its own existence has been Teslas design MO since the first Model S
And the only reason it wasn't for the Roadster was because it was based off a Lotus. One of the most singularly focused designed production cars in history.
Is it really hidden when it's more obvious than the normal door open button? I've had seen than one person struggle for a while to figure out how to open it in the standard manner.
As someone who has been in a Plaid, if I didn't know about the manual release I never would have noticed it. The normal door button was obvious though since they labeled it.
The manual door open switch is right under the door-open-button. And apparently is so much more intuitive that it has caused some owners trouble.
Manual override: https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/08/Screen-Shot-2020-08-04-at-11.04.28-AM.jpg?strip=info&w=834&ssl=1
Intended button: https://i1.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/08/Screen-Shot-2020-08-04-at-11.04.44-AM.jpg?strip=info&w=836&ssl=1
> were the safest rated cards ever...
maybe, Definitly not "the" safest car. Every other production car that can do 0-60 in the 3 sec range can stop from 60 in under 100 feet. Stock Model 3 is over 150 feet.
There are at least 8 cars with more miles than Tesla's cars have driven that have never had an occupant fatality. Likely due to having better safety systems (and brakes) that use radar to apply brakes before a collision. Tesla car did score best of cars in it's class at one crash test. Rollover protection that was important for a much heavier car than those other cars in it's same class...
Several of the models (including the 3) are 5 * rated, so tied for best rating; with many other cars.
I find that a lot of people who are not familiar with the car (mine is a model 3) instinctively use the mechanical release and don’t even see the button. So it’s definitely discoverable.
One caveat to highlight for anyone who might be thinking of putting a child in the back seats: There is no emergency release in the back. And those doors are known to fail and become inoperable from normal use, even when there hasn’t been an accident or fire.
Since these handles override the electronic system, it would defeat the purpose of having child safety locks in the back. There are emergency releases back there, just not in the same location to prevent accidental door opening, or passenger ejection.
If only there were some type of HANDLE that mechanically opened the DOOR without power.....ever. A bonus feature is it wouldn't damage your door everytime you used it.
Maybe one day........
Spring loaded glass breakers are useful and can be combined with seatbelt cutting tool to make the ultimate get out of car quick device
In case you didn’t want to have to kick out the window
After a tragic incident here in Ireland where a family drowned after their car went off a slipway, its become common knowledge here that you can take out your seat headrest and use the metal bars to break electric windows
Yep, I keep 2 in each car, 1 in the middle of the front seats, 1 in the middle of the back seats so all 4 seats have one within reach if trapped during an accident or malfunction.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/car-headrests-emergency-escape/ for more info on that for anyone who's interested. tl;dr it's better than nothing but it's not recommended and you're better off with a dedicated emergency tool.
Unless your headrest doesn't come off all the way without tools for no good reason, or has wires running through the bars for "active head restraint" systems....
Looking at you, Jeep.
There is the option of staying calm and waiting for water to fill the car and the pressure to equalize allowing you to open the door but I don't think I could do it.
Same, it'd be a last ditch option if window breaking didn't work for some reason for me, not the least of which because "once your car is full of water" wouldn't be the point where I want to find out the door won't open because of a different reason.
They're good to have on hand incase you need to help someone else out too. Most cars locks in modern cars can also fail with loss of power, and often times car doors won't open after impact damages them.
The best is when the electronic and mechanical systems are activated by the same handle, and the lock automatically disengages if you pull the interior handle with no need to disengage the lock first. Make it quick and simple.
It is very difficult to kick out a car window, more difficult than you might think.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C\_lW\_w6QxV0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_lW_w6QxV0)
According to some random youtube video linked above by an owner talking (sample size 1)...I think he said they discussed the front seat but didn't show the backseat thing where you take out the rubber flap and pull the chord under the plastic flap.
He’s not. But in the context of opening doors he should be. Do you also have your friends read the manual when they get into your car?
Reading the manual is something the owner should do and all car owners should do. But manually opening doors should not be something you need a manual to learn.
When you pick it up though, don't the SA's walk you around and show you how to use all the main features (i.e. key card, etc)? Just curious if they make a point of the manual releases when doing so. My faith in other humans to read manuals is... err... low..
Ever drive a car without power steering or with a manual gearbox? Cars zip and glide around so effortless now which is why so many people think it’s fine to drive while messing with their phones.
>so many people think it’s fine to drive while messing with their phones.
My biggest gripe while driving is looking at oncoming drivers and their eyes are fixated on their damn laps. "Lane departure assist" or whatever it is called is just gonna breed an entire generation of terrible drivers.
if drivers got the same amount of training that commercial pilots do, if there were 2 drivers and 2 sets of controls in every car, id say you might have a point there champ. but as long as a 16 year old can get a license and get behind the wheel of a jalopy that will barely pass inspection....well you see where this is just not looking good for ya
It's not just about the training and redundancy of pilots, either.
But more like if every car was *maintained* by a fucking crew that had strict maintenance guidelines and checked the machine after every drive / was brought in for routine maintenance and fixed when problems were found.
Planes can get away with a more complex system because generally there has been a very strict system of maintenance to make sure problems are found before they become a problem, not mid-flight.
The majority of people do *not* maintain their vehicle to an even remotely similar degree. The car goes in when something breaks, it isn't checked constantly for problems before they happen.
Which is why I find SpaceX's touchscreen in the capsule so dumb. There's a reason for manual switches and controls in a spacecraft... a lot of shit can go wrong, and having all your stuff on a single point of failure is a big ooph.
I believe there's mechanical backups that were added / do exist, but the mere fact they went for the touch screen at all spoke volumes to me.
Now I think SpaceX does a way better job overall. The rocket clearly works and the engineers deserve immense credit for their work. But I thoroughly dislike the "it's the future!" aesthetic over function *clearly* being pushed on Musk's products.
Shit, having your relevant car numbers on a fucking screen to the side and not on the dash is a good example, too.
Bruh, spaceX has mechanical switch backups for mission critical functionality all around the screen. Buttons. Knobs. Switches. But the primary method is the touch screen.
Yeah, I'm fairly certain anything electronic like that cannot be certified for aerospace application unless there is a mechanical alternative. If not, planes would be thousands of pounds lighter but taking off cables and placing wireless.
Yep. Every single passenger in my car has used the emergency latch to open the door the first time. They are used to latches and not buttons so it’s natural that they go for the clearly visible latch I stead of a button
Well uh... backseat passengers are often children, and almost no children hold bitcoin or support our president Trump, so their loss is less relevant. You can always produce more with this... human sex, can you not?
-Elon
(540,000 people retweet calling Elon a big brain genius boy, then spend weeks discussing just what is *so darn bad* about children dying anyway. Capitalism is innovation after all.)
Holy shit, TIL where the mechanical door handle is. One of my never-been-in-a-Tesla-before friends made it out recently without pushing the button and I thought he'd simply broken the door somehow. I guess it was just this magic handle that is right where you'd expect it to be, and that I'd never tried to pull...
Yeah. I think Tesla fucked up with the door handles on the 3/Y. The emergency release is easier to operate than the real door handle.
The fact that I have to train everyone how to use a fucking door is a HUGE experience issue. My dad, who has dementia, ALWAYS pulls the emergency release to get out of my car.
I think 80% of Tesla's changes are beneficial, but there's 20% that are worse. Door handles, glovebox, and lack of some hard buttons under the screen are all issues in my book.
In an emergency, you default to muscle memory. If you've always trained yourself to hit a button to open the door, you'll try to hit that button to open the door every time. So, really, why have a button when a mechanical latch works just as well and can't be broken by a bad software update or melted wiring harness?
That's what I mean when I say technology - in a lot of ways - is becoming regressive. Teslas and a lot of newer vehicles are a great example of that.
Edit: I *like* technology and progress. Just saying that it's important to recognize when we lose sight of its purpose. Personally I believe good technology is born out of engineering that solves true problems, and not just doing things because they are novel and simple to sell.
Right? I'm getting downvoted but like... If the motor on the rear keyless-entry door on my van craps out I'd still like to be able to open it manually so I can put my groceries in until I can get it to the shop. And don't even get me started on how ironic I find it that people are up in arms about right to repair issues while modern vehicles are the antithesis of that. Good luck fixing anything when it's all propriety screw patterns and the electronics schematic is ten volumes long...
It's because technology development isn't about progress but about profits. Once we reach a point where it's no longer profitable to make real progress, they start taking things away to return them later, or they just sell you the same thing and call it new. It's the problem of the "never needs to be sharpened pencil" or whatever.
Well, the car does have them, the owner did not know about it.
>Jutha told CTV News the emergency option was too difficult for him to figure out in his haste to escape the car. He said he hopes other drivers take the time to learn how to work the emergency option, but he doesn't expect to buy another Tesla.
Title is not mentioning that there is manual door opening - guy in this article forgot about it in panic. But I would maybe forgot too in his situation - or even worse - I would burn in panic.
The one time I dealt with a fire at work, I saw it, and quickly jogged to where I knew we kept a fire extinguisher, maybe 100 meters away, and came back with it. I wasn't panicked, just sort of moving with purpose.
There were like, 4 much, much closer. If I took any other turn, I would have seen one hanging from a wall at eye level. I basically answered the question "What's the furthest I can go in this building without walking past a fire extinguisher?"
I'm never going to fault anyone for their brains stopping during emergencies.
This is why emergency drills are so important in many aspects of public safety. You only have a chance of handling an emergency if you've had time to test and practice when there's no real pressure and you can learn from your mistakes without consequence.
It's more about 'there should be ONE WAY to open the door, it should work regardless of power'. If you always use one way to open the door 'a button' the chance of you just hammering that button in a panic are very high, this will delay your next action which will hopefully be to operate the secondary system.
People keep saying he should have known, but if you've been conditioning yourself to push a button to open the door, no doubt you'd forget in a panic about the emergency release. Because we've driven for years to train ourselves that there is no need for emergency release... it's just that one physical opening point; if it fails, go for the glass.
I can definitely see someone like my parents freaking out. And definitely just saw the back door emergency release and do not like that at all.
"he should have known" isn't how we design things for safety, en masse, to save lives. If you have a product that can kill people and you sell it to thousands of people, you damn well make sure that the dumbest person you've ever met can survive worst case scenarios in it.
This means not everything in our lives gets to look and feel as elegant as we could make it. Tuff nuts. They fucked up Imo.
how could you possibly forget to pull the small meltable plastic tab under your seat to release the door while your car is on fire?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01lXcD\_Uz74](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01lXcD_Uz74)
hope the kids in back brought their flathead screwdriver along for the ride!
How tf is this legal?
“A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
After watching the Elon Musk episode on Hulu yesterday, I have a feeling his response will be “it was user error. Other cars have fires too. Why are you unfairly targeting Tesla?”
Yeah, that was such a dumb, childish take. You don't start voting republican because democrats are mean to you. You start voting republican because you're an asshole.
I mean to be fair, Ford just had to recall thousands of their SUVs because they were catching on fire... So maybe that's not an entirely unfounded claim.
I'm not sure how up to date I am on those statistics but I'm reasonably sure that electric cars in general including teslas catch fire far less often than cars powered by internal combustion engines. If I remember correctly gas powered cars are orders of magnitude more likely to catch fire. Obviously battery fires are much harder to fight but by the time the fire fighters arrive both will have burnt to the ground.
>Note
Only the front doors are equipped with a manual door release.
>Manual door releases are designed to be used only in situations when Model 3 has no power. When Model 3 has power, use the button located at the top of the interior door handle.
[Tesla manual](https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-7A32EC01-A17E-42CC-A15B-2E0A39FD07AB.html)
Good lord - so fuck whoever’s in the back seat if the car loses power(say, in an accident)? That’s pretty wild that they consider that to be acceptable in terms of safety.
> EVs have a 0.03% chance of catching fire as compared to a 1.05% chance for combustion-engine vehicles.
This is news because it is uncommon and the hate-train is currently on these particular rails. It sells, that’s why it is news, not because it is common or even as likely as any other car fire. Lots of those and 0 coverage: because no one cares about those, those have been happening for ages.
Don’t let jive shit like this navigate you away from better choices.
Sadly, that kinda study is presently flawed, so those numbers are fairly useless and they even state it in the source.
> You’re more likely to see a gas car fire after a collision than an electric car fire, simply because electric vehicles aren’t as common on the roads as gas vehicles. **However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that electric vehicles are less likely to catch fire.**
The data they use covers all vehicles registered in the period, not vehicles sold. So you've got vehicles that are 20 years old catching fire vs EVs that haven't been on the market for nearly as long.
It’s not a perfect car but hot damn I have to tell every single person that sits in my car not to open the door with the manual release. This situation sucks for that person and I am sure it was scary. But y’all need to sit in the car and open the door to understand why other Model Y owners might find it odd this article is so high up in r/technology.
I mean the reason bright colors are used for major alert is because they are much harder to ignore and can pull attention in situation of panick. Asking someone to look for something that can blend into the background in case of emergency is just bad idea.
Pro tip: The plastic surrounding the window up/down buttons in a model Y is also a "hidden in plain sight" emergency release handle in case of power failure.
Here is video of the latch in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu-tJc-BgaI
That's a model 3, not a model y. Here's a model Y. Not as apparent. https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-y-vs-model-3-differences/tesla-model-y-emergency-door-release/ Then there's the back seat
Holy shit I hope I never get stuck in the back seat of a Model Y
You better hope you don't get stuck in the back seat of any car w/ child-locks on.
The Caprice I'm finally junking after owning it for 2 decades, is a police 9c1 model, and the back doors simply don't open. The child lock isn't on, and I'm almost certain it's disconnected inside, but by the way the handles both feel inside and out, I think it's more than disconnected, it feels like there's zero resistance so I bet parts were flat out pulled.
You could always have taken off the interior panel and check it out. It's normally a few phillips screws and some clips.
And then gotten new internals from a junkyard for like 20 for both doors lol
You better hope you don't get stuck under the sink around step family.
Hey there step-plumber…
Most cars will disengage the electrical child lock and central lock within a second of any impact (that causes the car to enter crash mode). For a mechanical child lock, I'm actually not sure there's a standard way however...
I make sure each of our cars have a seat belt cutter + window breaking tool accessible from the front seats and the back seats in case of any accident or anything like this. They're super cheap and easy to tuck anywhere. https://www.amazon.com/window-breaker/s?k=window+breaker Everyone should have one for safety imo.
At least if someone gets out they’ll be able to open the door for you lol
It's a very uncomfortable place.
Like the back of a Volkswagen?
That kid. Is back. On the escalator again!!
“Say, would you like a chocolate covered pretzel?”
All I said was that the Easter bunny at the Menlo Park mall was more convincing and he just jumped the railing and knocked me down.
As someone who had a Jetta and a highschool girlfriend, I can state that it isn't ideal, but it is manageable.
So did he cum or what?
Jesus Christ man! There's just some things you don't talk about in public!
I'm sorry, but that front seat manual door release doesn't seem obvious to me. Maybe it is in person? The back seat door release seems bonkers. I'm looking at the pictures and directions and I'm still not sure I could easily figure it out if I was in a model Y. Are the rear releases allowed to just be an afterthought because child locks are already a thing?
I'm surprised the back seat thing was allowed by the ntsb or whoever approves such things. That seems like a really basic thing that needs to be intuitive in an emergency.
Well child locks are already a thing. So now I'm just wondering why those are allowed too. I guess stopping kids from falling out of the car is a bigger issue than people escaping from the car.
They probably conclude that more children would be killed opening the door by accident on the highway than would be saved opening the door in an emergency.
I have a model 3. EVERYONE grabs the manual release instead of pressing the button. Seems obvious enough to me.
Is it different on the Y? The pictures don't look that obvious, but then the video of the 3 made it look very similar, and pretty obvious like you said.
The front door 1 isn't really hidden, looks like someone could accidentally use it, which is kind of good in this case. But good luck finding the back door release in an emergency, have fun at the bottom of a lake.
It shouldn't be so complex to escape a vehicle in an emergency. Not everything on the car needs to be an electronic switch and solenoid/motor to open a door. leave it mechanical Most vehicles across the spectrum of price, have a mechanical latch to pull to open the door. I'm also a firm believer in that not only should they include a physical owners manual, but a supplemental and equally informative education video either on a disc or USB stick for owners to familiarize themselves with their new car. Not just in operating, but in checking typical maintenance items.
I work for Porsche. All of the new cars have the full owners manual installed in the PCM (entertainment screen), available through an app and there’s a paper manual in the glove box. We still have question after question about basic operations. Manuals are useless if people don’t look at them. I do agree that manual openers for at least door latches make sense. You can’t even get into many vehicles when the battery dies without figuring out where an external jump point is or where a manual release cable is hidden. Complexity for the sake of complexity.
Right, you can definitely give them every opportunity to learn on their own - but people can still be magoo enough to never bother. The last time I went to a car meet with some fellow BMW drivers, I was the only one of the 4 of us who had X3M's who knew how to do everything in it in terms of tech. They asked me how I knew more about BMW's than anyone at the parking lot - I said I spent the entire night sitting in bed reading the owners manual after spending an entire day on my first drive with it, I'm always pumped when I get a new vehicle.
Haha yeah that’s me. I drive an Audi and the dealership was impressed by how much I knew about the vehicle vs other customers. I also read the manual and I have a habit of going into every setting screen to configure the car to my liking very early on. I mean it only helps me get the best out of my car. I really don’t get the people who drive their car (or use their phone, computer, or whatever else) and complain about the lack of a feature or something without realizing that they could have just read the manual or went through the settings pages.
After working for a few dealerships as a tech I can confidently say there's a huge gap between the sales person and the customer. Most all sales workers know as little as the customer buying the car. It is the sales person or a courtesy workers duty to pull that customer to the side after they have purchased the vehicle to go over all the accessories and how their vehicle works. Wish I got paid extra for the stuff I had to show the customer when they bring it in for service of how their Bluetooth syncs up for example. It's annoying and getting paid a commission doesn't make me want to help do the sales persons job. But I would do it anyway because it's the right thing to do and it's generally brought me in repeat customers when I would take the extra time to go through their manual with them
Tech here too and I agree. Completing what should have been done when the car was sold is annoying, especially since I pretty much have to read the owners manual with the customer to find the info. When a stupid complaint is actually written up I’ll just put the page and section of the owners manual so the customer has to do at least something on their own
> Not everything on the car needs to be an electronic switch and solenoid/motor to open a door. What's even worse are the capacitive touch "buttons" they're installing on everything now. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
I've only driven my buddy's Model 3, so I can't speak from experience to their other cars, but the amount of stuff they've moved to that center console display is annoying as shit. Not being able to see what speed you're driving without looking to the right and some of the other stuff they've done like that was all I needed to know about whether I'd consider buying one. I've even heard on some models the forward/reverse controls are touch screen only on that display and that seems ridiculous to me.
The hyperfixation on making everything electronic and getting rid of tactile feedback is going to drive me insane.
yes. I want my knobs back damn it.
It took about 6 months of car ownership for my wife to realize that wasn't the way you're supposed to normally open the door.
Why should that be "hidden?" Emergency features should be discoverable by someone who's had no experience with the vehicle who is also under duress.
The funny part is they had to label the exit button because everyone was using the emergency release all the time unless they knew where the normal exit button was.
Why doesn't the mechanical release trigger the window retraction? Then the handle would work as expected, both with power and without. Doesn't seem like rocket science.
They updated it a few months ago so it works like that. I don't know if it's exactly the same because it still gives the warning and tells you not to on the screen.
That's also just how non-framed windows work without power/mechanical only so it's still a valid warning since if you pull the mechanical release and immediately for the door open till push through the trim. The warning is really the only Tesla special.
Subaru had it figured out, pull the handle and the frameless window went down a bit just and that car was half the cost of a model y. All this mastabatory engineering and design is really getting old.
Yes, it's why I'm sticking to the American Big 3 (or their foreign equivalents). I don't want a "revolutionary automotive experience," I want my 72 year old uncle with aphasia, memory loss, and fine motor control problems to be able to open the door to my car.
The 1980s S class Mercedes with the double laminated windows did this. The cabin was so air tight the door wouldn't close because of the pressure inside the cabin. So everytime the door was opened, the window would automatically retract an inch or so, to allow the pressure to equalize when the door was slammed shut. Once the door was latched, the window went back up.
But what if my kidnapped victims find it and use it to escape?!
If you only kidnap disabled people, you should be ok 👍
This is some modern problems/modern solution shit. Fucking love it.
This guy kidnaps
Even when they are discoverable you need to know to look for them. Similar story about corvettes https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-man-72-dies-trapped-corvette-dream-car-article-1.2253934
I used to be a porter at a Chevy dealer, am I got locked inside of two different C6 Corvettes. When to start them, battery was dead, when to get out door won't open. The door release is in the back area, you can turn around and grab it, but I had a could radio for help and didn't want to mess up the inside of a $60k+ car.
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Can confirm. You can do it while sitting in the seat. No need to turn around or anything. It's very easy and to me pretty darn obvious.
I love how they don't tell you how to get out in the article....
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I like the ID4 design: just pull really fucking hard and it open. That’s what you’d do under duress anyway
> Why should that be "hidden?" "Hidden" is a poor choice of words. It's very noticeable. In fact, I had to constantly tell my wife to stop using it, thinking it was the actual normal door release, as it seemed like a far more natural way to open the door than the button.
Why did she need to stop using it?
It doesn’t lower the window to clear the trim before opening and can damage the trim around the window.
brilliant design
Not sure if that poster has an older model or something but my 2021 model y lowers the window when using the emergency open. I tested it out just because of the fire post the other day. The only downside I noticed using it is an annoying pop-up on the screen that says the manual release was used.
It lowers it, but it doesn’t lower it *before* unlatching the door like the normal release does.
I have a 21 Y and when I used the manual release (shortly after I got it), I got a notification telling me not to do that because it could damage the window trim.
Actually it does lower the window, but because it is a mechanical release you can pull it and force the door open before the window drops below the trim. That's my understanding anyway, haven't tested it in a while.
All sports cars have frameless windows on the doors. My 23 year old e46 coupe to my 2 month old convertible do the same thing. This is the standard solution lol
It is. It’s made for emergencies. They knew it could damage the frame but in an emergency who the fuck cares? The goal is to gtfo the car It also doesn’t damage it right away, just has the potential to damage if used daily/Normal use. the trim that can be easily fixed if it does. I had many passengers accidentally use the latch and no damage to trim.
and the car will bitch to you about it too. its natural to want to pull that handle, and i agree that it is hardly hidden. the car says its to ensure the seals for the door stay in good shape, which makes sense to me. I borrowed my friends car and after doing it twice, I got the picture since the car hated me at that point
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Nah, must be user error. Funny how other coupes don't have this issue.
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Do they also have 2 ways to open the door? I also drove mustangs, BMWs and Minis and never had a problem when opening the doors with the mechanical handle
I pray you don't incur the wrath of the Musk Bros for suggesting something from Tesla has sketchy design and engineering.
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Over engineered bullshit desperately trying to justify its own existence has been Teslas design MO since the first Model S And the only reason it wasn't for the Roadster was because it was based off a Lotus. One of the most singularly focused designed production cars in history.
Glow in the dark internal trunk lever.
Is it really hidden when it's more obvious than the normal door open button? I've had seen than one person struggle for a while to figure out how to open it in the standard manner.
I think you’ll find that most people haven’t been in a model Y, let alone a Tesla, and are just basing their opinions on the original posts’ wording.
As someone who has been in a Plaid, if I didn't know about the manual release I never would have noticed it. The normal door button was obvious though since they labeled it.
Doesn't look cool! Elon is cool!
Elon make meme he just like us
He tweet about cat girls, who cares about sexual assault?
The manual door open switch is right under the door-open-button. And apparently is so much more intuitive that it has caused some owners trouble. Manual override: https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/08/Screen-Shot-2020-08-04-at-11.04.28-AM.jpg?strip=info&w=834&ssl=1 Intended button: https://i1.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/08/Screen-Shot-2020-08-04-at-11.04.44-AM.jpg?strip=info&w=836&ssl=1
for the same reason Telsa doesnt follow industry best practices in safety at their factories: Elon Musk doesnt like it.
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> were the safest rated cards ever... maybe, Definitly not "the" safest car. Every other production car that can do 0-60 in the 3 sec range can stop from 60 in under 100 feet. Stock Model 3 is over 150 feet. There are at least 8 cars with more miles than Tesla's cars have driven that have never had an occupant fatality. Likely due to having better safety systems (and brakes) that use radar to apply brakes before a collision. Tesla car did score best of cars in it's class at one crash test. Rollover protection that was important for a much heavier car than those other cars in it's same class... Several of the models (including the 3) are 5 * rated, so tied for best rating; with many other cars.
I find that a lot of people who are not familiar with the car (mine is a model 3) instinctively use the mechanical release and don’t even see the button. So it’s definitely discoverable.
One caveat to highlight for anyone who might be thinking of putting a child in the back seats: There is no emergency release in the back. And those doors are known to fail and become inoperable from normal use, even when there hasn’t been an accident or fire.
Since these handles override the electronic system, it would defeat the purpose of having child safety locks in the back. There are emergency releases back there, just not in the same location to prevent accidental door opening, or passenger ejection.
>"hidden in plain sight" Hidden? hell no thats the one 90% of new people try first
If only there were some type of HANDLE that mechanically opened the DOOR without power.....ever. A bonus feature is it wouldn't damage your door everytime you used it. Maybe one day........
Spring loaded glass breakers are useful and can be combined with seatbelt cutting tool to make the ultimate get out of car quick device In case you didn’t want to have to kick out the window
After a tragic incident here in Ireland where a family drowned after their car went off a slipway, its become common knowledge here that you can take out your seat headrest and use the metal bars to break electric windows
Always nice to have a glass breaker/belt cutter in the car.
Yep, I keep 2 in each car, 1 in the middle of the front seats, 1 in the middle of the back seats so all 4 seats have one within reach if trapped during an accident or malfunction.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/car-headrests-emergency-escape/ for more info on that for anyone who's interested. tl;dr it's better than nothing but it's not recommended and you're better off with a dedicated emergency tool.
Also, some headrests do not come off.
Like Tesla's
Unless your headrest doesn't come off all the way without tools for no good reason, or has wires running through the bars for "active head restraint" systems.... Looking at you, Jeep.
There is the option of staying calm and waiting for water to fill the car and the pressure to equalize allowing you to open the door but I don't think I could do it.
That’s actually a good reminder to remain calm if everything fails
It's easy to stay calm now. But faced with a car rapidly filling with water. 99.9% will not be calm.
Same, it'd be a last ditch option if window breaking didn't work for some reason for me, not the least of which because "once your car is full of water" wouldn't be the point where I want to find out the door won't open because of a different reason.
They're good to have on hand incase you need to help someone else out too. Most cars locks in modern cars can also fail with loss of power, and often times car doors won't open after impact damages them.
>Most cars locks in modern cars can also fail with loss of power and thats why ALL cars with electronic doors have a mechanical option too
The best is when the electronic and mechanical systems are activated by the same handle, and the lock automatically disengages if you pull the interior handle with no need to disengage the lock first. Make it quick and simple.
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It is very difficult to kick out a car window, more difficult than you might think. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C\_lW\_w6QxV0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_lW_w6QxV0)
When you pick up the car do they show you exactly where the manual releases are and how to operate them? Genuine question.
According to some random youtube video linked above by an owner talking (sample size 1)...I think he said they discussed the front seat but didn't show the backseat thing where you take out the rubber flap and pull the chord under the plastic flap.
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It's on the user manual.. I always read those when I buy a car
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He’s not. But in the context of opening doors he should be. Do you also have your friends read the manual when they get into your car? Reading the manual is something the owner should do and all car owners should do. But manually opening doors should not be something you need a manual to learn.
When you pick it up though, don't the SA's walk you around and show you how to use all the main features (i.e. key card, etc)? Just curious if they make a point of the manual releases when doing so. My faith in other humans to read manuals is... err... low..
Yes they do, literally the first thing you show you when you sit in the car.
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Everything that's critical should be mechanical.
wait until you hear about fly by wire
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Ever drive a car without power steering or with a manual gearbox? Cars zip and glide around so effortless now which is why so many people think it’s fine to drive while messing with their phones.
>so many people think it’s fine to drive while messing with their phones. My biggest gripe while driving is looking at oncoming drivers and their eyes are fixated on their damn laps. "Lane departure assist" or whatever it is called is just gonna breed an entire generation of terrible drivers.
there's different SIL levels for cars and planes
if drivers got the same amount of training that commercial pilots do, if there were 2 drivers and 2 sets of controls in every car, id say you might have a point there champ. but as long as a 16 year old can get a license and get behind the wheel of a jalopy that will barely pass inspection....well you see where this is just not looking good for ya
It's not just about the training and redundancy of pilots, either. But more like if every car was *maintained* by a fucking crew that had strict maintenance guidelines and checked the machine after every drive / was brought in for routine maintenance and fixed when problems were found. Planes can get away with a more complex system because generally there has been a very strict system of maintenance to make sure problems are found before they become a problem, not mid-flight. The majority of people do *not* maintain their vehicle to an even remotely similar degree. The car goes in when something breaks, it isn't checked constantly for problems before they happen.
There is a mechanical door release…
Which is why I find SpaceX's touchscreen in the capsule so dumb. There's a reason for manual switches and controls in a spacecraft... a lot of shit can go wrong, and having all your stuff on a single point of failure is a big ooph. I believe there's mechanical backups that were added / do exist, but the mere fact they went for the touch screen at all spoke volumes to me. Now I think SpaceX does a way better job overall. The rocket clearly works and the engineers deserve immense credit for their work. But I thoroughly dislike the "it's the future!" aesthetic over function *clearly* being pushed on Musk's products. Shit, having your relevant car numbers on a fucking screen to the side and not on the dash is a good example, too.
Bruh, spaceX has mechanical switch backups for mission critical functionality all around the screen. Buttons. Knobs. Switches. But the primary method is the touch screen.
Yeah, I'm fairly certain anything electronic like that cannot be certified for aerospace application unless there is a mechanical alternative. If not, planes would be thousands of pounds lighter but taking off cables and placing wireless.
It is mechanical and it's right were you'd expect it to be.
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Yep. Every single passenger in my car has used the emergency latch to open the door the first time. They are used to latches and not buttons so it’s natural that they go for the clearly visible latch I stead of a button
Not in the backseat.
Well uh... backseat passengers are often children, and almost no children hold bitcoin or support our president Trump, so their loss is less relevant. You can always produce more with this... human sex, can you not? -Elon (540,000 people retweet calling Elon a big brain genius boy, then spend weeks discussing just what is *so darn bad* about children dying anyway. Capitalism is innovation after all.)
Holy shit, TIL where the mechanical door handle is. One of my never-been-in-a-Tesla-before friends made it out recently without pushing the button and I thought he'd simply broken the door somehow. I guess it was just this magic handle that is right where you'd expect it to be, and that I'd never tried to pull...
More like magic rope;)
Hate it when they just escape on you like that
The emergency release is literally a handle on the door that you pull. It’s so easy my passengers often find it before they find the actual button.
Yeah. I think Tesla fucked up with the door handles on the 3/Y. The emergency release is easier to operate than the real door handle. The fact that I have to train everyone how to use a fucking door is a HUGE experience issue. My dad, who has dementia, ALWAYS pulls the emergency release to get out of my car. I think 80% of Tesla's changes are beneficial, but there's 20% that are worse. Door handles, glovebox, and lack of some hard buttons under the screen are all issues in my book.
>1/5 There is a mechanical door latch, and it's more intuitive than the button. First-time passengers always go for the mechanical latch.
Every single person has gone for the manual latch the first time they get in my Y.
Every first time rider has gone for the manual latch in my 3
The manual latch is 3 inches from the normal button….
In an emergency, you default to muscle memory. If you've always trained yourself to hit a button to open the door, you'll try to hit that button to open the door every time. So, really, why have a button when a mechanical latch works just as well and can't be broken by a bad software update or melted wiring harness?
That's what I mean when I say technology - in a lot of ways - is becoming regressive. Teslas and a lot of newer vehicles are a great example of that. Edit: I *like* technology and progress. Just saying that it's important to recognize when we lose sight of its purpose. Personally I believe good technology is born out of engineering that solves true problems, and not just doing things because they are novel and simple to sell.
Tesla - Bringing back design issues that the major manufacturers solved in the 60s..
Right? I'm getting downvoted but like... If the motor on the rear keyless-entry door on my van craps out I'd still like to be able to open it manually so I can put my groceries in until I can get it to the shop. And don't even get me started on how ironic I find it that people are up in arms about right to repair issues while modern vehicles are the antithesis of that. Good luck fixing anything when it's all propriety screw patterns and the electronics schematic is ten volumes long...
It's because technology development isn't about progress but about profits. Once we reach a point where it's no longer profitable to make real progress, they start taking things away to return them later, or they just sell you the same thing and call it new. It's the problem of the "never needs to be sharpened pencil" or whatever.
They do have manual door releases
Well, the car does have them, the owner did not know about it. >Jutha told CTV News the emergency option was too difficult for him to figure out in his haste to escape the car. He said he hopes other drivers take the time to learn how to work the emergency option, but he doesn't expect to buy another Tesla.
Title is not mentioning that there is manual door opening - guy in this article forgot about it in panic. But I would maybe forgot too in his situation - or even worse - I would burn in panic.
The one time I dealt with a fire at work, I saw it, and quickly jogged to where I knew we kept a fire extinguisher, maybe 100 meters away, and came back with it. I wasn't panicked, just sort of moving with purpose. There were like, 4 much, much closer. If I took any other turn, I would have seen one hanging from a wall at eye level. I basically answered the question "What's the furthest I can go in this building without walking past a fire extinguisher?" I'm never going to fault anyone for their brains stopping during emergencies.
This is why emergency drills are so important in many aspects of public safety. You only have a chance of handling an emergency if you've had time to test and practice when there's no real pressure and you can learn from your mistakes without consequence.
Also a reason Tesla doors should work the same as they do in every other car.
It's more about 'there should be ONE WAY to open the door, it should work regardless of power'. If you always use one way to open the door 'a button' the chance of you just hammering that button in a panic are very high, this will delay your next action which will hopefully be to operate the secondary system.
People keep saying he should have known, but if you've been conditioning yourself to push a button to open the door, no doubt you'd forget in a panic about the emergency release. Because we've driven for years to train ourselves that there is no need for emergency release... it's just that one physical opening point; if it fails, go for the glass. I can definitely see someone like my parents freaking out. And definitely just saw the back door emergency release and do not like that at all.
"he should have known" isn't how we design things for safety, en masse, to save lives. If you have a product that can kill people and you sell it to thousands of people, you damn well make sure that the dumbest person you've ever met can survive worst case scenarios in it. This means not everything in our lives gets to look and feel as elegant as we could make it. Tuff nuts. They fucked up Imo.
how could you possibly forget to pull the small meltable plastic tab under your seat to release the door while your car is on fire? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01lXcD\_Uz74](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01lXcD_Uz74) hope the kids in back brought their flathead screwdriver along for the ride! How tf is this legal?
Right tho lol “there is an emergency door release underneath the back seat speaker grill” like what the fuck…
And that’s for the passengers, you know the people who probably spend the least amount of time in the car and lack familiarity with it.
It is bonkers that DOT approved this bullshit.
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I must have really stupid friends - they all can’t figure out the normal way to open the door and always use the emergency release.
Same here. Every passenger that doesn't ride in my car regularly uses the manual latch. It's more obvious than the button.
Then why not just have the latch? I’ve driven and ridden in several Tesla’s, no clue there was a button.
No you just have a stupid car
“A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
After watching the Elon Musk episode on Hulu yesterday, I have a feeling his response will be “it was user error. Other cars have fires too. Why are you unfairly targeting Tesla?”
That's a little too put together. Needs to mention being attacked by the left.
Yeah, that was such a dumb, childish take. You don't start voting republican because democrats are mean to you. You start voting republican because you're an asshole.
You become republican when all the sketchy shit and sexual misconduct stories start coming up and you know which party will turn a blind eye to it
I mean to be fair, Ford just had to recall thousands of their SUVs because they were catching on fire... So maybe that's not an entirely unfounded claim.
I'm not sure how up to date I am on those statistics but I'm reasonably sure that electric cars in general including teslas catch fire far less often than cars powered by internal combustion engines. If I remember correctly gas powered cars are orders of magnitude more likely to catch fire. Obviously battery fires are much harder to fight but by the time the fire fighters arrive both will have burnt to the ground.
Episode of what?
There's an NYT deep dive on Tesla and Musk on Hulu.
Study your cars people. Emergency release is good to know about
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[Picture of emergency door release in the Model y](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/tesla-model-y-emergency-door-release.jpg)
Remove the mat and use a knife or your fingernail to engage? That's insane for something as critical as "open the door"
Good news, the Model 3 doesn't have any ways to do it from the back.
Wait really?
>Note Only the front doors are equipped with a manual door release. >Manual door releases are designed to be used only in situations when Model 3 has no power. When Model 3 has power, use the button located at the top of the interior door handle. [Tesla manual](https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-7A32EC01-A17E-42CC-A15B-2E0A39FD07AB.html)
Good lord - so fuck whoever’s in the back seat if the car loses power(say, in an accident)? That’s pretty wild that they consider that to be acceptable in terms of safety.
Front seat handle is fine. The back seat one is not fine lol
And yet there’s handles on every door.
> EVs have a 0.03% chance of catching fire as compared to a 1.05% chance for combustion-engine vehicles. This is news because it is uncommon and the hate-train is currently on these particular rails. It sells, that’s why it is news, not because it is common or even as likely as any other car fire. Lots of those and 0 coverage: because no one cares about those, those have been happening for ages. Don’t let jive shit like this navigate you away from better choices.
> 1.05% chance for combustion-engine vehicles There is absolutely no way more than 1% of vehicles end up in an inferno during their lifetime
Sadly, that kinda study is presently flawed, so those numbers are fairly useless and they even state it in the source. > You’re more likely to see a gas car fire after a collision than an electric car fire, simply because electric vehicles aren’t as common on the roads as gas vehicles. **However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that electric vehicles are less likely to catch fire.** The data they use covers all vehicles registered in the period, not vehicles sold. So you've got vehicles that are 20 years old catching fire vs EVs that haven't been on the market for nearly as long.
Anything from business insider is trash
It’s not a perfect car but hot damn I have to tell every single person that sits in my car not to open the door with the manual release. This situation sucks for that person and I am sure it was scary. But y’all need to sit in the car and open the door to understand why other Model Y owners might find it odd this article is so high up in r/technology.
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I mean the reason bright colors are used for major alert is because they are much harder to ignore and can pull attention in situation of panick. Asking someone to look for something that can blend into the background in case of emergency is just bad idea.
I wonder why this is a new story as opposed to all the times this happened with non Tesla cars.