The car came to rest more than 70 metres away, on the opposite side of the road, leaving a trail of wreckage. According to witnesses, the Model S burst into flames while still airborne. Several passersby tried to open the doors and rescue the driver, but they couldn’t unlock the car. When they heard explosions and saw flames through the windows, they retreated. Even the firefighters, who arrived 20 minutes later, could do nothing but watch the Tesla burn.
At that moment, Rita Meier was unaware of the crash. She tried calling her husband, but he didn’t pick up. When he still hadn’t returned her call hours later – highly unusual for this devoted father – she attempted to track his car using Tesla’s app. It no longer worked. By the time police officers rang her doorbell late that night, Meier was already bracing for the worst.
Tesla tried to do it all at once instead of perfecting the electric tech first and then incrementally adding on advances. They also made change for change’s sake. There’s absolutely no reason mechanical door locks could not have been engineered to work on this car as the default method of opening and closing the door. It’s killing people.
There’s absolutely a reason to not engineer something you’re not required to. It’s called capitalism. Tesla cut every corner they could.
Elon : some of you will die, but that is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
Luigi: lol same
By your logic then, capitalism is great, because that means no one would’ve engineered these crazy locks but instead just used the tried and true ones.
Wait. That’s not what happened?
Oh.
I would joke that since they don’t work then I doubt any engineering went into them at all. But I know that isn’t true.
So I wonder if you could elaborate on what you mean by “crazy locks”? I did a lot of work investigating the manufacturing equipment and their use, so I remember a bit about their components, design, and assembly; but I did not work with those directly so I could be missing something entirely. I don’t remember there being anything groundbreaking about the mechanics of the door locks. But the general build always felt… “thinner”. Most manufacturers stay away from minimum standards by at least the standard deviation or two, so if the required gauge was 18 ± 1, a typical mfr would use 20+. Tesla would use 18. On the nose. That was a lot more common in automotive but even hyundai/kia used wide margins for safety. All that to say, I have a hard time believing the door locks were so complex that a sizable investment would be anything other than reinventing the wheel, but even moreso that it was even worth the superfluous cost.
One of the last jobs I had there was a machine that they picked up third hand and cobbled together with some very sketchy safety systems that wildly failed requirements. I was there for days and it was one of the more extensive reports I’ve ever made on a single installation. The control system was designed by the onsite engineers and passed flawlessly. But they had a lot to do to get the equipment usable.
I stopped reading when you suggested 20 gauge was heavier than 18 gauge.
Rookie mistake you can’t come back from.
Lol, I saw that after I sent it, but was absolutely not confident enough to change it. I don’t work in that field any more so that is not the only thing about materials that you probably know better than me. And I’m sorry for the wall of text. My bad.
In this crash, part of the blame was on retracting handles on the outside, not the interior locks. If the handle is retracted, it’s tough to open the door from the outside.
Just FYI all the Tesla cars to my knowledge need power for the doors to open because the handles aren’t physically attached to the door mechanism. They’re all electronic. If you own one of these cars I highly advise you to read the manual and find out where the mechanical door releases are(they’re somewhat hidden).
Another fun fact and this isn’t exclusive to Tesla. If you pay attention when you open the door the window retracts a tiny bit to clear the weatherstripping. If you have no power that can’t happened. What is unique to Tesla as far as I can tell is that their weatherstripping isn’t as large/pliable as other manufacturers or maybe it’s just the assembly. Using the mechanical release with power still retracts the window. In the event the battery is dead or damaged from an accident using the mechanical release requires breaking the window. That means the door is significantly more difficult to open.
No. Window retracting on door opening is no different than other cars with frameless windows. Most lowering the window may damage the weatherstripping but is no impediment to door opening.
True that the door latch itself is just a solenoid. I actually forgot the the outside handles don’t do anything but give you something to pull on.
The worst part of the manual door release is that it’s different on each model. For mine, the front door manual release is easily accessible to the point I have to tell people not to use it. Back door is a problem though
I mentioned the retracting window isn’t exclusive to Tesla. The issue is with how they work when they no longer retract and that appears to be a Tesla problem. It’s not an issue if the window has power.
Tesla forum No power, broken window.
Random article where parts of the car had power and others didn’t. Broken window as result.
Another article about broken windows using the mechanical release with lack of power.