8 ms·

Tesla owner asks $1m in Model X fiery crash with Falcon Wing doors not opening

20 points by fmihaila 10y ago

jmcdiesel 10y ago
Why do people keep expecting Tesla to pay for crashes when the vehicles perform better than the average other vehicle on the road? I was involved in a crash, a drunk pulled in front of me, and the chassis bent a bit and i could open either front door, and had to crawl out the back... thats just a normal thing in car accidents, and it cant be avoided... and there is room to get out of the vehicle from the front. Tesla has been proven safer in crashes, and less likely to be in a crash in the first place. The driver crashed into a stationary object, sue the driver, not the car company.
- chc 10y ago
  In this particular case, they are suing because the door wouldn't open, which is a pretty reasonable expectation of an undamaged door.
  - jmcdiesel 10y ago
    The door was damaged... no physically, but if it were a hydraulic door and the hydraulic motor was destroyed in the crash, it would be reasonable to expect it to be unable to be opened by hydraulics, right? Same for electric. And there is a latch to get out (and i've heard about this latch before from Tesla owners, so maybe its not made 100% super clear, but its not an unknown either). I know I'm going to sound like I'm being a dick, but thats an RTFM problem, not a car problem.
    - Analemma_ 10y ago
      > but if it were a hydraulic door and the hydraulic motor was destroyed in the crash, it would be reasonable to expect it to be unable to be opened by hydraulics, right? Same for electric. The "reasonable expectation that a door will open if it is not visibly damaged" applies no matter what the underlying mechanism of the door is. > but thats an RTFM problem, not a car problem. Even if people did read the manuals for their cars- which no one does- people frequently forget things like this in emergency situations when they need to get out quickly. Hence things like big red signs for fire doors. Passing the responsibility onto them for doors that don't work is absurd.
      - sfilargi 10y ago
        [deleted]
        Analemma_ 10y ago
        Done.
        sfilargi 10y ago
        Thanks :D
    - jmcdiesel 10y ago
      If it were the only door, that would make sense... with 2 working doors and third rear door, i think its a little bit of a stretch...
      - zkms 10y ago
        Not every person will be physically capable of manoeuvring over the seats to a working door (especially after an accident). In this case, the passengers were able to display adaptability and get out, but had they been physically disabled or had there been clutter inside the vehicle, the two front doors and rear door might not have been viable options. That these people were able to escape before the battery fire is, of course, a good ending, but it's not a positive statement on the engineering decisions made.
    - 21 10y ago
      So if I design a building and make all doors electric, you would be ok to have a small manual release lever hidden behind the middle hinge, as long as it is written in the building manual.
      - jmcdiesel 10y ago
        Thats a bad analogy. More apt would be "The main doors are manual, but the electric garage doors will not function" ... which is actually a common case in buildings...
        21 10y ago
        How are the doors that these passengers used to enter the car not the main doors, but the "garage door" of a building?
        zkms 10y ago
        The common case in buildings (the ones that aren't prisons) is that anyone, without any knowledge of arcane emergency procedures, and in a power failure, should be able to exit via the door they came in, regardless if that door is latched and locked. :)
        lostmsu 10y ago
        Not true with any elevator.
    - threesixandnine 10y ago
      They were passangers at the back as far as I understand. And after a crash there is much confusion and is hardly surprising that the driver didn't have time or simply in shock and forgot about the latch and in a few seconds car was on fire.
- juice_bus 10y ago
  The allure of a big payout seems to cloud a lot of people's judgement. Do people try to sue/demand money from Ford/Honda/etc the same way these stories are popping up for Tesla? I'm curious if we're only seeing these stories because Tesla is such a hot topic.
  - jmcdiesel 10y ago
    Im sure some have, but probably not to the extent. At least the car world is more sane than the aviation world. Here's a fun little side story. Piper aircraft company - they make small general aviation planes - have been out of business a few times from being sued into the ground over absurd stuff. Here's the best one... Drunk guy shows up to a glider airfield. Hes been banned from said field already, but hes drunk so who cares, right? SO he jumps in a plane, a piper, and starts it up. Owner of the field parks a truck on the runway to prevent a drunk person from taking off... drunk guy proceeds to attempt to take off with predictable results... smashes into the truck. Then he sues piper and wins enough to bankrupt the company. Because the plane, which was made in the 40s, did not have a shoulder harness, just a lap belt. Because there are laws that say if someone is hurt in something you make, you are liable. This applies to cars too, but the absurdity of it seems to prevent it from taking hold there... Thats why aside from Cessna, there are very few plane manufacturers on the GA level anymore who deliver fully built planes. Most now, sell "kits" which you can assemble yourself (with their help) on-site at their facility. This way, you build 51% of your aircraft, and its not their liability. This also leads to some crazy stuff. Like, pilots who have done a 51% build and a few years later becoming medically disqualified to fly, DESTROY their plane rather than selling due to the liability since THEY made it... Gotta love the world we live in sometimes...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - JKCalhoun 10y ago
    IDK, the Ford Pinto got handed it's ass some decades back. Ralph Nader made a name for himself writing a book about car companies selling death-traps. This is how the industry changes — Tesla is not the first. Or maybe their owners, paying $100K or so a car, feel a little more entitled to receive a safe car for all that dosh?
eridius 10y ago
So they want $1m because.. they have nightmares about what would have happened if they couldn't get out of the car? Tesla certainly isn't to blame for the crash, and it sounds like they're not to blame for it catching on fire either. In addition, the passengers didn't even try the emergency door release levers (presumably because they didn't know about them, even though they're documented in the physical owner's manual). Honestly, this just sounds like a money grab to me.
- joezydeco 10y ago
  ...The owner of the vehicle and her boyfriend were sitting in the second-row seat... Um, where was the driver? Did he/she flee the scene or something? Killed in the crash?
  - 21 10y ago
    Says in the article they had a chauffeur.
    - joezydeco 10y ago
      I meant, where was the driver when it came to helping the couple out of the wrecked vehicle?
      - 21 10y ago
        I've been in an accident once and immediately after I was in a state of shock, very confused and on auto-mode. Or maybe the driver dies in the accident, so I'm not really sure how this is relevant.
      - zkms 10y ago
        he "was hospitalized for more than 40 days with internal injuries and fractures" so I imagine that he got significantly injured and incapacitated.
  - princetontiger 10y ago
    \maybe they have a different safety standard in china lol
alphabettsy 10y ago
I wonder if any other companies with electrically actuated doors have faced similar lawsuits? Chevrolet Corvette comes to mind with the push buttons...
- DiabloD3 10y ago
  Doesn't matter: Model X's doors can be opened with a physical emergency latch in the event of power failure. Apparently, the owner of the vehicle couldn't be bothered to read the manual. Oh well.
  - alphabettsy 10y ago
    It's hardly an emergency latch if you have to read a manual first. That would be like hiding a fire alarm or exitinguisher behind a painting and placing a small sign underneath indicating it's presence, hardly useful in a real emergency unless people are informed. This is more accurately described as a manual backup since you apparently have to remove a speaker grill to access it.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    They might not have been owners, just along for the ride with the owner incapacitated due to the accident.
- scottlegrand2 10y ago
  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-man-72-dies-trapped-corvette-dream-car-article-1.2253934 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-man-72-dies-t...
jamesred 10y ago
The Falcon wing doors were a mistake. Not having a manual way to open the door is also a mistake. I'm not sure if these people deserve compensation but there should be a way to open the doors manually without relying on hydraulics.
- rocky1138 10y ago
  Did you read the article? It explains that there is a physical way to open the doors manually.
  - haldean 10y ago
    The manual way to open the doors is behind a speaker panel that you have to rip off to pull: https://imgur.com/gallery/jqfdV https://imgur.com/gallery/jqfdV It's true that it exists, but its intentionally well-hidden, and if you were in a flaming car you probably wouldn't think to rip off the speakers to try to find a latch.
    - rocky1138 10y ago
      It's in a stupid and inaccessible spot. The position should be made more obvious in future iterations of the vehicle.
- Jiig 10y ago
  There is a way to manually open the falcon wing doors [1]. Granted it could probably be in a more visible location. [1]: http://assets.teslastatic.com/2016_Model_X_Emergency_Response_Guide.pdf http://assets.teslastatic.com/2016_Model_X_Emergency_Respons... page 24
  - Terr_ 10y ago
    Page 24, looks like you have to remove a speaker-grille and reach into some mechanisms behind it.
- jacoblambda 10y ago
kuschku 10y ago
So, the only way to leave the car in case of an accident is not documented in the digital version of the manual? That has to be a major oversight, especially for people able to afford a driver it’s unrealistic to expect they’d read the manual (they’ve got better to do with their time), or to expect that they give the one single physical copy they have to a driver (instead, usually, the driver gets a PDF on a kindle – you might replace the driver a few months later again, and might not get the manual back otherwise). So it’s not surprising that the passengers and the driver didn’t know about that.
rdl 10y ago
My first thought in a car crash where the doors didn't open (which happens on regular doors, too, if they get physically damaged), would be to smash out the window with a glass breaker. Are Tesla windows particularly challenging to break?
- ctvo 10y ago
  And where would you get a glass breaker? I wouldn't be surprise if you had one on your keychain, but is the expectation that most people will? I don't understand the mindset where commenters chime in with what they'd do in the situation (most of the time they've read the manual front to back, they have a dozen gadgets in their cargo pants for just this occasion). Isn't it more worthwhile to discuss what the expectation would be for the average consumer? Imagining someone like my grandmother in that situation tends to set expectations well.
  - rdl 10y ago
    I actually keep them in my car velcroed into the door pockets (the combo seatbelt/glass breaker kind). I'm arguing that Tesla probably would be better off providing a tool like that (easy) vs. trying to figure out how to do a good manual override (hard).
  - shalmanese 10y ago
    It's useful to know that all car headrests double as glassbreakers. Pop the headrest off it's hinges and push the two metal prongs at the end against a window to break the glass.
gumby 10y ago
This is the typical Tesla response: > First of all, the lives of the owner and passengers were not threaten. Reminds me of Tesla's section to the decapitated driver: "A human wouldn't have seen the truck either" or the unroll.me response. Seems like their life was in danger. How about, "Sorry to learn what happened" and to look at changing the accessibility of the manual release. This is why we have consumer safety regulations.
mdekkers 10y ago
Some semi-hidden latch is shockingly poor UX, and frankly I am surprised this is coming out of Tesla. It appears as though nobody has gone through an emergency scenario with these doors. It isn't fucking hard either - the basic rule is: "when in an emergency situation, 99.999% of the population will not turn into Rambo or Bear Grylls, but instead their faculties will drop to basics. We start to see in flashes as opposed to "streaming" and we start to perceive the world in black and white as opposed to color. The amygdala will be in control, and is really good at pumping us full of go-fast juice, and kinda sucks at higher level reasoning." So to cater for an emergency scenario, make everything simple, obvious, and wherever possible, dependent on muscle memory. The emergency release should depend on whatever mechanism is already used for that door (no idea what it is now), but more - if it is a latch, have some mechanism where if you pull the latch much harder it becomes a mechanical device that opens the door. In the case of these wing doors that move up, make the whole door drop off the hinges or something. In the case of an electric button, make it so that if you depress it even more, again it becomes a mechanical device. etc. WTF, Tesla?
Grue3 10y ago
I can't believe people are actually defending Tesla here. Truly there's no limit to fanboyism.

20 points by fmihaila 10y ago

Why do people keep expecting Tesla to pay for crashes when the vehicles perform better than the average other vehicle on the road? I was involved in a crash, a drunk pulled in front of me, and the chassis bent a bit and i could open either front door, and had to crawl out the back... thats just a normal thing in car accidents, and it cant be avoided... and there is room to get out of the vehicle from the front. Tesla has been proven safer in crashes, and less likely to be in a crash in the first place. The driver crashed into a stationary object, sue the driver, not the car company.

chc 10y ago
In this particular case, they are suing because the door wouldn't open, which is a pretty reasonable expectation of an undamaged door.
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  The door was damaged... no physically, but if it were a hydraulic door and the hydraulic motor was destroyed in the crash, it would be reasonable to expect it to be unable to be opened by hydraulics, right? Same for electric. And there is a latch to get out (and i've heard about this latch before from Tesla owners, so maybe its not made 100% super clear, but its not an unknown either). I know I'm going to sound like I'm being a dick, but thats an RTFM problem, not a car problem.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    > but if it were a hydraulic door and the hydraulic motor was destroyed in the crash, it would be reasonable to expect it to be unable to be opened by hydraulics, right? Same for electric. The "reasonable expectation that a door will open if it is not visibly damaged" applies no matter what the underlying mechanism of the door is. > but thats an RTFM problem, not a car problem. Even if people did read the manuals for their cars- which no one does- people frequently forget things like this in emergency situations when they need to get out quickly. Hence things like big red signs for fire doors. Passing the responsibility onto them for doors that don't work is absurd.
    - sfilargi 10y ago
      [deleted]
      - Analemma_ 10y ago
        Done.
        sfilargi 10y ago
        Thanks :D
  - jmcdiesel 10y ago
    If it were the only door, that would make sense... with 2 working doors and third rear door, i think its a little bit of a stretch...
    - zkms 10y ago
      Not every person will be physically capable of manoeuvring over the seats to a working door (especially after an accident). In this case, the passengers were able to display adaptability and get out, but had they been physically disabled or had there been clutter inside the vehicle, the two front doors and rear door might not have been viable options. That these people were able to escape before the battery fire is, of course, a good ending, but it's not a positive statement on the engineering decisions made.
  - 21 10y ago
    So if I design a building and make all doors electric, you would be ok to have a small manual release lever hidden behind the middle hinge, as long as it is written in the building manual.
    - jmcdiesel 10y ago
      Thats a bad analogy. More apt would be "The main doors are manual, but the electric garage doors will not function" ... which is actually a common case in buildings...
      - 21 10y ago
        How are the doors that these passengers used to enter the car not the main doors, but the "garage door" of a building?
      - zkms 10y ago
        The common case in buildings (the ones that aren't prisons) is that anyone, without any knowledge of arcane emergency procedures, and in a power failure, should be able to exit via the door they came in, regardless if that door is latched and locked. :)
        lostmsu 10y ago
        Not true with any elevator.
  - threesixandnine 10y ago
    They were passangers at the back as far as I understand. And after a crash there is much confusion and is hardly surprising that the driver didn't have time or simply in shock and forgot about the latch and in a few seconds car was on fire.
juice_bus 10y ago
The allure of a big payout seems to cloud a lot of people's judgement. Do people try to sue/demand money from Ford/Honda/etc the same way these stories are popping up for Tesla? I'm curious if we're only seeing these stories because Tesla is such a hot topic.
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  Im sure some have, but probably not to the extent. At least the car world is more sane than the aviation world. Here's a fun little side story. Piper aircraft company - they make small general aviation planes - have been out of business a few times from being sued into the ground over absurd stuff. Here's the best one... Drunk guy shows up to a glider airfield. Hes been banned from said field already, but hes drunk so who cares, right? SO he jumps in a plane, a piper, and starts it up. Owner of the field parks a truck on the runway to prevent a drunk person from taking off... drunk guy proceeds to attempt to take off with predictable results... smashes into the truck. Then he sues piper and wins enough to bankrupt the company. Because the plane, which was made in the 40s, did not have a shoulder harness, just a lap belt. Because there are laws that say if someone is hurt in something you make, you are liable. This applies to cars too, but the absurdity of it seems to prevent it from taking hold there... Thats why aside from Cessna, there are very few plane manufacturers on the GA level anymore who deliver fully built planes. Most now, sell "kits" which you can assemble yourself (with their help) on-site at their facility. This way, you build 51% of your aircraft, and its not their liability. This also leads to some crazy stuff. Like, pilots who have done a 51% build and a few years later becoming medically disqualified to fly, DESTROY their plane rather than selling due to the liability since THEY made it... Gotta love the world we live in sometimes...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- JKCalhoun 10y ago
  IDK, the Ford Pinto got handed it's ass some decades back. Ralph Nader made a name for himself writing a book about car companies selling death-traps. This is how the industry changes — Tesla is not the first. Or maybe their owners, paying $100K or so a car, feel a little more entitled to receive a safe car for all that dosh?

eridius 10y ago

So they want $1m because.. they have nightmares about what would have happened if they couldn't get out of the car? Tesla certainly isn't to blame for the crash, and it sounds like they're not to blame for it catching on fire either. In addition, the passengers didn't even try the emergency door release levers (presumably because they didn't know about them, even though they're documented in the physical owner's manual). Honestly, this just sounds like a money grab to me.

joezydeco 10y ago
...The owner of the vehicle and her boyfriend were sitting in the second-row seat... Um, where was the driver? Did he/she flee the scene or something? Killed in the crash?
- 21 10y ago
  Says in the article they had a chauffeur.
  - joezydeco 10y ago
    I meant, where was the driver when it came to helping the couple out of the wrecked vehicle?
    - 21 10y ago
      I've been in an accident once and immediately after I was in a state of shock, very confused and on auto-mode. Or maybe the driver dies in the accident, so I'm not really sure how this is relevant.
    - zkms 10y ago
      he "was hospitalized for more than 40 days with internal injuries and fractures" so I imagine that he got significantly injured and incapacitated.
- princetontiger 10y ago
  \maybe they have a different safety standard in china lol

alphabettsy 10y ago

I wonder if any other companies with electrically actuated doors have faced similar lawsuits? Chevrolet Corvette comes to mind with the push buttons...

DiabloD3 10y ago
Doesn't matter: Model X's doors can be opened with a physical emergency latch in the event of power failure. Apparently, the owner of the vehicle couldn't be bothered to read the manual. Oh well.
- alphabettsy 10y ago
  It's hardly an emergency latch if you have to read a manual first. That would be like hiding a fire alarm or exitinguisher behind a painting and placing a small sign underneath indicating it's presence, hardly useful in a real emergency unless people are informed. This is more accurately described as a manual backup since you apparently have to remove a speaker grill to access it.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  They might not have been owners, just along for the ride with the owner incapacitated due to the accident.
scottlegrand2 10y ago
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-man-72-dies-trapped-corvette-dream-car-article-1.2253934 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-man-72-dies-t...

jamesred 10y ago

The Falcon wing doors were a mistake. Not having a manual way to open the door is also a mistake. I'm not sure if these people deserve compensation but there should be a way to open the doors manually without relying on hydraulics.

rocky1138 10y ago
Did you read the article? It explains that there is a physical way to open the doors manually.
- haldean 10y ago
  The manual way to open the doors is behind a speaker panel that you have to rip off to pull: https://imgur.com/gallery/jqfdV https://imgur.com/gallery/jqfdV It's true that it exists, but its intentionally well-hidden, and if you were in a flaming car you probably wouldn't think to rip off the speakers to try to find a latch.
  - rocky1138 10y ago
    It's in a stupid and inaccessible spot. The position should be made more obvious in future iterations of the vehicle.
Jiig 10y ago
There is a way to manually open the falcon wing doors [1]. Granted it could probably be in a more visible location. [1]: http://assets.teslastatic.com/2016_Model_X_Emergency_Response_Guide.pdf http://assets.teslastatic.com/2016_Model_X_Emergency_Respons... page 24
- Terr_ 10y ago
  Page 24, looks like you have to remove a speaker-grille and reach into some mechanisms behind it.
jacoblambda 10y ago

kuschku 10y ago

So, the only way to leave the car in case of an accident is not documented in the digital version of the manual? That has to be a major oversight, especially for people able to afford a driver it’s unrealistic to expect they’d read the manual (they’ve got better to do with their time), or to expect that they give the one single physical copy they have to a driver (instead, usually, the driver gets a PDF on a kindle – you might replace the driver a few months later again, and might not get the manual back otherwise). So it’s not surprising that the passengers and the driver didn’t know about that.

rdl 10y ago

My first thought in a car crash where the doors didn't open (which happens on regular doors, too, if they get physically damaged), would be to smash out the window with a glass breaker. Are Tesla windows particularly challenging to break?

ctvo 10y ago
And where would you get a glass breaker? I wouldn't be surprise if you had one on your keychain, but is the expectation that most people will? I don't understand the mindset where commenters chime in with what they'd do in the situation (most of the time they've read the manual front to back, they have a dozen gadgets in their cargo pants for just this occasion). Isn't it more worthwhile to discuss what the expectation would be for the average consumer? Imagining someone like my grandmother in that situation tends to set expectations well.
- rdl 10y ago
  I actually keep them in my car velcroed into the door pockets (the combo seatbelt/glass breaker kind). I'm arguing that Tesla probably would be better off providing a tool like that (easy) vs. trying to figure out how to do a good manual override (hard).
- shalmanese 10y ago
  It's useful to know that all car headrests double as glassbreakers. Pop the headrest off it's hinges and push the two metal prongs at the end against a window to break the glass.

gumby 10y ago

This is the typical Tesla response: > First of all, the lives of the owner and passengers were not threaten. Reminds me of Tesla's section to the decapitated driver: "A human wouldn't have seen the truck either" or the unroll.me response. Seems like their life was in danger. How about, "Sorry to learn what happened" and to look at changing the accessibility of the manual release. This is why we have consumer safety regulations.

mdekkers 10y ago

Some semi-hidden latch is shockingly poor UX, and frankly I am surprised this is coming out of Tesla. It appears as though nobody has gone through an emergency scenario with these doors. It isn't fucking hard either - the basic rule is: "when in an emergency situation, 99.999% of the population will not turn into Rambo or Bear Grylls, but instead their faculties will drop to basics. We start to see in flashes as opposed to "streaming" and we start to perceive the world in black and white as opposed to color. The amygdala will be in control, and is really good at pumping us full of go-fast juice, and kinda sucks at higher level reasoning." So to cater for an emergency scenario, make everything simple, obvious, and wherever possible, dependent on muscle memory. The emergency release should depend on whatever mechanism is already used for that door (no idea what it is now), but more - if it is a latch, have some mechanism where if you pull the latch much harder it becomes a mechanical device that opens the door. In the case of these wing doors that move up, make the whole door drop off the hinges or something. In the case of an electric button, make it so that if you depress it even more, again it becomes a mechanical device. etc. WTF, Tesla?

Grue3 10y ago

I can't believe people are actually defending Tesla here. Truly there's no limit to fanboyism.