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.
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
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?
I thought we were talking about manual override to pull the window down…
As Mythbusters proved, you wait until the car is almost full of water, and then open the door.
Not quite. There is a period where water pressure hasn’t built up enough to stop you. They were specifically testing pressure equalization, not that you should wait as a first course of action.
… 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.
I think it’s ok to let people know that the little window breaker doohickey they have stashed in their console for emergencies might not do shit if they have laminated windows (many newer cars).
There are lots of reasons this can be an issue outside of Tesla making shitty doors- a child or dog trapped in a hot car, an unresponsive/unconscious person, doors jammed during a crash and occupants are injured or unconscious.
If anything is being distracted from here, I think it’s probably that the woman may have been drunk. She was celebrating with old friends, it was after a late dinner. She was on a private road on an estate where it wouldn’t have been a crime to drink and drive. It’s easy to confuse forward and reverse in a Tesla, apparently, but she launched herself over an embankment and far enough into the middle of a pond that rescue workers didn’t have a long enough cable to reach the car. Most people don’t just floor it from the get go.
It’s one of the various factors.
The whole issue is that those window hammers won’t work as well with laminated windows, and now laminated windows are mandated. Maybe someone can point to data suggesting that the laminated windows are safer on average for some reason though.
Another is unintuitive door open versus emergency door open. First car I ever saw do that was a Corvette, and yes people have gotten trapped in those without knowing what to do either. At least older Tesla model got it right, the emergency open is opening it harder. Well except exterior handles not working on an emergency, which Cadillac lyric and mustang Mach e also get wrong.
Broadly speaking, also sticking all the features into touchscreen or capacitive touch is also a bad and industry wide trend, which Tesla is the poster child of taking it too far.
Also, early on cars were trying to figure out human factors of transmission, and safety problems caused “PRND” to be mandated. Now we had that actor killed by Chrysler’s fancy shifter, and Tesla also having a weird shifter that might have contributed to this accident.
Also you have the fact you had a pond near a car travel area with no fencing or guardrail. Another is the consequence of choosing to have a private 900 acre residence in a remote area and what that means for speed and quality of rescue attempts. So it’s not all about car design, but there are multi important factors to consider.
Also the thousands of non billionaire deaths we don’t specifically talk about have a lot to say about what we may do better
The fact they couldn’t break the window to get to her is the main talking point ive heard?
How is this not about Tesla still… It literally has Tesla in the title?
It’s stretch mate.
Reporting “It’s not just Tesla, 1/3 of all cars have windows that are impossible to break” makes people think the problem with Tesla isn’t the doors and many cars have the same problem.
If it was news that someone important died because they shifted wrong in their Tesla a misleading news report would be, “It’s not just Tesla, Toyota has a touch screen too.” Which completely misleads the reader into thinking Toyota has the shifter on the touchscreen like Tesla.
Tesla is the only manufacturer that sells a car without easy access to emergency open rear doors.
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.
First of all, yes - I do believe that we should normalize knowing how to operate the safety systems in the cras we drive. It’s crazy to me that’s even controversial. I do actually read the manuals for all the cars I own.
But second, I think there is some confusion here. For the driver and front passenger, there is a clearly visible manual release on the door in the model X. It’s so prominent, most inexperienced users and guests believe it is the primary release The pull behind the speaker grill is the manual release for the rear seats.
So you’re saying that the people who need to read the manual are the people in the back seat?
You know, all those Tesla passengers who go out and buy a Tesla manual for some light reading just in case a friend or Uber driver ever happens to give them a ride?
Do you know how to open your back door if the child lock is enabled?
No, because I don’t enable the child lock and would be disturbed if I got in an Uber that had it enabled.
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On the other hand, an experienced driver might forget it’s there since they never use it. Add in a high-stress situation, and you get a problem.
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