Numerous Tesla owners have said they’ve been stuck inside their EVs after the cars suddenly lost power.
YouTuber Tom Exton claimed that his Tesla Model Y ordered him to pull over before it suddenly lost power and left him unable to exit.
Exton followed the instructions for the manual release to open the door, but he said this “somehow broke the driver’s window.”
The ability to open a car door mechanically, from both inside and outside, should always be obvious, without having to find any instructions.
Yeah, how is this not illegal? This seems really dangerous in the event of a crash.
Airplanes don’t have mechanical connections to their control surfaces anymore. They use triple or quadruple redundant fly by wire systems. But they’re that safe because of the FAA, not just out of the goodness of their heart. We need car regulation bodies to be closer to the FAA in stringency.
IMO the biggest difference between standards in flying and driving is the training and requirements toward operators. Imagine having a DUI being a strong indicator that you’ll never drive again, or basic driver training taking 50 driven hours, in addition to stringent theoretical tests.
Or people needing to check their cars for safe operation every time they start it, and omitting it being a crime.
Or a significant percentage of the population being just medically disqualified from driving, especially over 60 years of age.
It would be a different world for sure.
I’ve always been strongly of the opinion that driving is a privilege, not a right and you have to prove you can properly handle the vehicle to strict standards. These vehicles kill and injure so many people every year because of awful driving and awareness.
Now public transit on the other hand, should be a right.
Who cares if it’s legal…… the Muskinator thinks it’s ‘cool’ 😎
I don’t see why critical controls like that – if you even want to make them automatic – can’t have manual and automatic modes coupled.
If you lose power steering, you can still steer a vehicle, though you’re going to have to use a lot more muscle.
Tesla’s retract the door handle for better aerodynamics. So you can’t open it mechanically from the outside without the handle to hold. I don’t know how the inside works. Plus they don’t have mechanical keys, so the lock is already electronically controlled.
Maybe instead of engineering stupidly complex electronic door handles they could just, I don’t know, design a simple mechanical door handle that is also aerodynamic? These gimmick “features” automakers keep insisting on add pointless mechanical complexity, pointless areas of failure that are expensive to repair, and aren’t even something many consumers care about, or in many cases are overly complex hassles they actively don’t want.
You add drag any time there’s a divit in the panels. There’s lots of vortexes and disruption that happens just because of how your hand is shaped and where it needs to go.
There might be a better way to do it, but the other car companies haven’t done anything yet that I’ve seen to drastically reduce the drag from the handles.
Customers want range and saving money. If it does that without extra hassle, it makes sense. But that’s still up in the air. Especially with Tesla’s anti right to repair making things more difficult all around.
It’s also completely possible to make entirely mechanical non-electronic flush car door handles. They’re less of a shiny gimmick than the electronic ones, and less convenient than many standard handle types, but are entirely possible to do. You could also hypothetically do a version that is both electronic and manually operable with the same components, entirely negating the stupidity of an electronic door opener with an entirely separate mechanical backup, provided you are willing to sacrifice frameless windows.
I doubt that door handle contribites anything measurable to the aerodynamics of the car. The truth is that musk thinks it looks cool regardless of how annoying it is if anything goes wrong.
I found a 12% figure. Aerodynamics are a primary driver of range, which is a major ev selling point. A 12% drag decrease is huge, because you can carry less battery which means you can have a smaller motor, lighter frame, leading to even more range. So it would be very important if that is true.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180105005468/en/Top-3-Drivers-of-the-Global-Automotive-Retractable-Door-Handle-System-Market-Technavio
You can still have protrutionless handles without making them electronically retractable. Just have a spring-loaded metal flap that you push in with your hand
You’ll still get the icing issues, where you need to be able to get in even with a thick layer of ice over the handle. But that does sound like a really good solution otherwise.
I find it hard to believe that 4 door handles (being made flush with the door), reduces drag by 12% . Are there other articles you can share?
That’s just what Google came up with, sorry. I don’t have time to research more right now. I do know a rear view mirror on an f350 has more drag than an entire Tesla, so aerodynamics are not always intuitive.
i agree. and this isnt just a tesla thing. plenty of other manufacturers are going this route, tesla might be the worst though especially the 3/y rear seat release. when the i8 was released i watched a video on youtube where a salesman and a tech were showing the car off. the tech mentioned that in training they kept breaking the emergency release inside the car. if a tech cant get out in training then how the fuck is anyone supposed to use it in a real emergency?
I imagine firemen/EMS/Cops are going to get annoyed with all the motorized door handles and just start breaking windows when ever they’re responding to something.
Absolutely. If your car is on fire, you shouldn’t be digging around looking for a latch, you should be pulling that handle and exiting in seconds. This design is going to kill people.