From the article:
The man is blaming the automaker even though the manual door opener was under his left hand the whole time.
A man in Arizona says that he was recently trapped in his Tesla after getting in, closing the door, and then realizing that his battery was dead. What he didnāt know is that the manual release for the door was under his left hand the whole time. Now, heās blaming the automaker and raising awareness.
Rick Meggison, 73, says that Tesla needs to address what he calls a āsafety concernā involving how to exit the car when the battery dies. The main door latch actuator on all Tesla models is electronic so if the 12-volt battery dies it wonāt work. To ensure safe exit of the vehicle Tesla includes a manual release. Meggison didnāt know about that and ended up trapped in his car for 20 minutes on a hot day.
āI couldnāt open the doors. I couldnāt lower the windows. The computer was dead, so I couldnāt open the glove box. I couldnāt open anything,ā he told ABC7. Of course, he couldāve opened the door in about two seconds had he known that the manual release was just ahead of his window switches. His situation has many wondering whoās to blame in situations like this.
If a passenger canāt figure out how to safety exit a vehicle, that sounds like a design problem.
Yeah. This is pretty cut and dry.
Opening a car door from the inside shouldnāt require special knowledge. It shouldnāt require searching.
The manual release inside a trunk is easier to find.
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Agreed. Manual opening should be visible and easily used by anyone even if you donāt know how Tesla works.
Looking at the image in the article, it looks like a pretty simple latch
Not obvious enough for a safety feature
Manual release huh. Back in my day we called it a door handle.
Can we quit reinventing shit that works fine already? Itās just marketing anyway.
Not even really relevant to this post but I hate the minimizing trend of carās interfaces. Iād much rather have an actual handle & volume dials rather than touch screens shoved at you as a cheap way to trick people into thinking a car is more expensive when in reality it has better margins like that.
Touch screens are cheaper to use over actual buttons and dials which is why they are the new standard.
Controversial opinion, but anyone buying a car which is a giant death machine, should read the manual before driving it, especially when itās an electric vehicle and things arenāt like normal cars.
Now I dislike Tesla, but the manual release isnāt hard to find.
When someone is panicking, the nonstandard design will really shine.
Especially for seventy year olds, the most reasonable and adaptive kind of human!
Exactly why you should read the manual first.
So imagine for a moment that this is a child and not a senior. You gonna scream at little Timmy for not RTFM?
Car doors have been pretty standard and self explanatory for 100 years, until now. There was no good reason to make such a huge design change for the sake of looking cool, especially when the override is hidden behind a piece of trim.
Exactly. People on here claiming read the manual to find out how to open a door must be missing /s because they sound insane.
Standards exist for a reason and your product should be intuitive or BETTER, a shitty button with a picture is not better than a handle like literally everywhere else.
If there even is a paper manual, itās probably in the electronically opened glovebox, which obviously wonāt open anymoreā¦
Donāt get me wrong, I donāt like the change, I dislike Teslaās and see no reason for Tesla to change what is standard.
But I still believe a grown adult buying a giant metal death machine should read the manual before driving off in one, especially when if you do just calmly look around for more than 5 seconds you can find the door open latch.
Normally, Iād agree with you, but in a matter of life or death, like baking in a hot car, the means of exit should be obvious for anyone, including children and the elderly. Just like in public buildings with proper exit signage, there should be no questioning how to get the fuck out in an emergency.
Have you read your carās manual cover to cover?
I hope youāre not responsible for designing products, because intuitive product design is important. Requiring a manual to understand a potentially life-saving feature of your vehicle, because the manufacturer chose form over functionā¦ listen to yourself.
Yes, I have 2 cars, Iāve read both manuals.
Iām not saying I agree with with the bad for handles, but manuals for a big death machine should be read anyway, and if he did heād know how to open a door.
I know this is 8 months old, but are you seriously arguing people should read a carās manual to know how to open the door?
Any door that requires the user to read a manual is a terrible design.
You misunderstand. Iām saying every car owner should read the manual for their car. Buy a new car, read the manual, it contains a lot of useful information whether you drive a crappy Tesla or not.
Youāre not wrong, but why is Tesla reinventing the door handle? Why does this need to be powered now? Seems like theyāre fixing something that wasnāt broken.
Because itās soOoOOo futuristic and innovative!!! /s
On the outside, the door handles of a Tesla automatically recess when not in use, which reduces drag on the car and letās it drive more efficiently (therefore giving you more range).
Tesla does a lot of āreinventing for the sake of itā but in this one instance there is actually a reason for it.
The door handle in question is on the inside of the car. It doesnāt serve any engineering reason to be resigned other than for aesthetics.
Wikipedia article concerning drag coefficients
The drag coefficients of even the more recent Teslas are comparable to other vehicles that donāt use retracting door handles, even the GM EV1 from 1999 beats all the Teslas on the table in terms of drag reduction. The door handles may technically be a contributing factor towards their more favorable position on the list, but theyāre certainly not necessary and donāt seem to be highly impactful. A large part of Tesla design philosophy and marketing is making their cars seem futuristic and highly advanced through things like motorized door handles and autopilot. Their primary goal is to provide a unique and pleasant user experience āout of the boxā and their justification for things like the door handles retracting are almost certainly retroactive.
Genuinely curious, how much savings does that accomplish? Something as small as a door handle doesnāt seem like it would create a lot of drag, but it might just be unintuitive
Itās bullshit. Theyād save 1000x more in range if they fixed the shitty gaps in their paneling instead of doing away with door handles.
Just because itās new doesnāt mean itās better. Reinventing door handles is something no car needs.
I seriously doubt it changes much.
Hypermiling is a thing where people try to get 100 mpg from a compact car like the Honda Civic. Itās been around for a few decades now.
There are things you can do to improve aerodynamic abilities of the car. The biggest is the wheel shrouds and overall car shape (nose and tail). Then youāre covering up seams in the body work. Iāve not heard of anyone swapping out or door handles.
Iām sure the cause drag, but there is so much lower hanging fruit to address before changing something that small.
I honestly donāt know, there does seem to be some controversy around this but Tesla seems determined to want flush handles so there must be something to it.
So, it might just be aesthetics then?
Itās definitely not just aesthetics, but the impact is up for debate. Tesla arenāt the only EV manufacturer doing it.
The impact on drag at normal highway speeds is negligible, there is no debate. It is entirely for cool factor points. Nothing accomplished by retractable handles couldnāt be done better, cheaper, and with fewer moving parts with a standard handle.
If there is no data, how do you know it ISNāT just for aesthetics? It certainly seems that way.
The manual release doesnāt appear to have any symbols. The electric one does, yeah.
The release should be obvious to all drivers, not just the owners. Valets and guests should be able to tell where the door release is too, without consulting a manual.
They donāt provide a printed copy of the manual, itās only on the computer. This makes it awkward to really read as you have to sit in the car. It also means that if the battery dies you cannot access it to even look up things like the manual door release.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-7A32EC01-A17E-42CC-A15B-2E0A39FD07AB.html
I donāt own a Tesla so I guess itās impossible for me to read this then.
This might work if the only occupant ever was the owner. But it totally ignores all the passengers and children that will be in the vehicle.
Door handles should be intuitive at this point.
What about passengers or people who rent a Tesla?
Iāve even had people almost use it instead of the normal button. āOh not that one. The button where your thumb isā
Isnāt the manual displayed on the touch screen?
They have a copy on the touch screen and another on their website. Iāve probably read more of the Tesla manual than most Tesla drivers and I donāt even like Tesla.
Door handles have been perfected since Ogg build a door to his cave. Why do we need to reinvent it?
The sorts of people still buying teslas are angry that youād propose they touch non-proprietary technology.
It always surprises me that EV manufacturers donāt just have the car always keep the 12v battery charged enough to keep essential systems running. The car already has the hardware to charge the 12v battery and a massive traction battery to provide power - it wouldnāt be that hard to charge the battery if it goes flat when the car is off.
They do charge the 12v, but when that battery no longer works properly, thereās no cut over to an inverter of some kind. And there probably should be
So Iāve been driving my partners Tesla for around 6 months now. After we moved in togther it just made sense to take her nicer car than mine. Mostly just to the store and back, but once a road trip for a few days.
I legit did not know there was a manual release of the door until now. I asked her if she knew and apparently the dealership told her. But if this exact scenario happened to me, I assume I wouldāve found it eventually, butā¦ I assume it would probably take me a few minutes.
If the safety feature is unnoticeable to a regular user, then itās not a very good feature.
Most Tesla owners donāt actually know. Itās a problem.
A larger problem is that emergency responders arenāt being trained on every model, (they donāt have the time,) so if the 12v turns off, or shorts, youāre stuck.
The rampant over-engineering of literally everything in the car is one of the largest reasons i will never willingly drive a Tesla.
Can we stop reinventing the wheel constantly ffs?
Electric windows, electric handbrakes, computers in control of everything and now electric fucking doors?
Whatās even the point besides artificially upping the price and selling it as a āluxury productā that can barely function in an emergency?
Do these cars not come with a physical manual?
Might be in the glove box? Accessible via touchscreen only (yes itās dumb).
This source keeps pushing tesla propaganda. Thereās always an angle trying to sell that it wasnāt the teslaās fault
Could have called 911, provided he had a phone with him. With an active battery.
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