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Four dead in fire as Tesla doors fail to open after crash
- ndiddy 2y agoAnother similar incident happened around a week after that one: https://www.channel3000.com/news/dane-county-sheriffs-office-provides-update-on-deadly-tesla-crash-in-verona/article_1d7794b4-9ad7-11ef-88e4-efb51b3572e5.html https://www.channel3000.com/news/dane-county-sheriffs-office... . One thing to note is that the car doors in Teslas are electrically controlled and a different failsafe method of opening the doors is required when the electrical system isn't working. Here's the steps for manually opening the Model Y's rear doors (car in the story the post links to): https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-AAD769C... and here's the steps for manually opening the Model S's rear doors (car in the story I linked to): https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-AAD769C... . Note that this involves removing the rear carpet in the Model S and the door pocket mat in the Model Y, and that the Model Y instructions note that some cars aren't even equipped with manual rear door releases. It seems like Tesla didn't account at all for what happens if passengers who aren't familiar with the car need to quickly exit in an emergency, especially if the driver's incapacitated and can't give them directions.
- rightbyte 2y ago* Remove the mat from the bottom of the rear door pocket. * Press the red tab to remove the access door. * Pull the mechanical release cable forward. It doesn't feel very panic friendly to have the emergency release hidden?
- beAbU 2y agoEspecially egregious considering it's likely kids will be back there. And the release is in a place thats probably impossible to get to from the front seat (in the model Y)
- persedes 2y agoMunroe on YT complained about exactly that 4 years ago :/
- Symbiote 2y agoI have written this before [1]. I had to kick the rear door of the family car after an accident when I was about 11. The car blocking both doors on the other side was on fire, and I was later told our car was also on fire. I wouldn't have known to lift the carpet and pull some release tag, and with the door badly damaged from a collision I also wouldn't have been able to kick it while pulling the tab. It was night, so finding and using a glass-smashing tool also seems unlikely. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25941750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25941750
- redwall_hp 2y agoYou probably can't break the glass either. Newer vehicles, especially Teslas, often have laminated glass that glass breakers have been found to not break.
- thatguymike 2y agoI hear a ball bearing will do the job nicely.
- pininja 2y agoEvery Uber I take in a Tesla would practically need an airline safety briefing for this. There’s no way I’d find it on my own.
- OutOfHere 2y agoCancel and rebook (another brand).
- pininja 2y agoThey've had huge pushes to add EVs to their network, which is great but this means it’s an increasingly likely for someone to get stuck. I’d include these instructions in their in-app safety center if I were them…
- speedgoose 2y agoWouldn’t the average car safety be significantly below a Tesla Model Y anyway?
- OutOfHere 2y agoTesla has the highest fatality rate, so that is ruled out! :) Secondly, it is the coupling of electronic controls with unintuitive manual backups that create the danger.
- viraptor 2y agoThat statistic is not controlling for the drivers. It's interesting, but it may be biased by who buys Tesla and how they drive. Similar to likely "cars with aggressive custom paint jobs have higher fatality rate".
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoDoesn’t matter if you’re getting in someone else’s car.
- everybodyknows 2y agoWhy not do the first two steps, and stow the mat and access door on a shelf in your garage?
- more_corn 2y agoYeah that’s not happening when you’re literally on fire.
- pininja 2y agoRegulations are written in blood.. it’s really disappointing to see a car make it to production without an obvious mechanical way to open the door. I’ve been in many teslas and hadn’t given this much thought, figuring there’d surely be a way to open the door if I need to get out.
- nemomarx 2y agowhy are the doors electronically controlled to start with? is it cost savings?
- eptcyka 2y agoIt is more cyber that way. Also, yes, electromechanical systems are easier to design.
- stouset 2y agoThere’s still a second mechanical release so this is strictly more complicated than simply having a mechanical system to begin with.
- eptcyka 2y agoRouting the mechanical linkage to a place in the door that would make sense for a door handle to be is the difficult and expensive part.
- davrosthedalek 2y agoBowden cables are dirt cheap.
- eptcyka 2y agoThe cables are cheap, designing a door latch system to be easy to install/cheap to manufacture is not. Why do you think all parking brakes on all ICE vehicles have turned electric now?
- newaccount74 2y agoProbably because forgetting to pull the handbrake is a very common cause of accidents?
- dagmx 2y ago
- noncoml 2y agoLexus’s latest cars have electrically controlled doors as well. The mechanical failover is a bit better mind you, you have to pull twice instead of pushing, but I am not sure how panic proof it is. I live techlnology but IMHO it is overdone in modern cars. Please bring back tactile and mechanical controls where possible.
- l1tany11 2y agoI’d be curious if there’s a single brand that has no electronic door latches at this point. Every brand I can think of has them on at least one vehicle. They have been in mainstream brands (like Chevy) for like 20+ years now.
- globalise83 2y agoWhat is an "unlikely event" for any given passenger is nearly a 100% certainty for Tesla. The engineers and product managers who came up with that solution probably have trouble sleeping at night these days.
- solardev 2y agoI bet they wanted something more obvious but were overridden by someone who wanted to keep the vehicle sleek and futuristic. If so, it's the worst kind of "I told you so" :/
- renewedrebecca 2y agoBut who at Tesla would do that?
- solardev 2y agoIt's quite a mystery, isn't it?
- DrillShopper 2y agoSomeone told me something that stuck with me: "for any system with millions of users a 1 in a million event happens multiple times a day"
- theolivenbaum 2y agoI think the original quote was "One in a million is next Tuesday": https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/larryosterman/one-in-a-million-is-next-tuesday https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/larryosterma...
- giantg2 2y ago"Tesla didn't account at all for what happens ..." Tesla might not have, but you can. Always have a glass breaker and seatbelt cutter in your vehicle. Doors get crumpled and can't open regardless of make/model.
- jeffbee 2y ago"Police say area man had burglary tools and weapons in his vehicle at the time of the arrest..."
- fallingsquirrel 2y ago> Always have a glass breaker Isn't this advice becoming dated now that most new cars have side windows with laminated glass? https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28422725/car-windows-glass-aaa-unbreakable/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28422725/car-windows-glas...
- dyauspitr 2y agoStill probably easier to kick out a laminated window with cracks in it.
- OutOfHere 2y agoKick out the window with a very forceful boot kick with both legs.
- viraptor 2y agoThat advice will work for significantly limited number of population. Like, it's true, but also "hope you have enough mass/strength/flexibility". My little-old-lady neighbour could not do it.
- giantg2 2y agoUsually rear windows do not. Even laminated side windows can be defeated more easily if cracked. The lamination is pretty thin compared to many other types of laminated glass.
- 2y ago
- trinix912 2y ago> Note that this involves removing the rear carpet in the Model S and the door pocket mat in the Model Y Seriously? How many people would be capable of pulling this stunt off in a burning vehicle filled with smoke? Especially considering the fact that in this case the vehicle was packed (5 people in it)--it's hard enough to get your own feet out of the way. If this passes the safety regulations, those regulations should be changed. Not just expecting car manufacturers to do it out of their good will because they won't.
- unsnap_biceps 2y agoRegulations are written in blood. This is likely the first time a mass produced car went this far in not caring about the humans inside. I would say that they will be new regulations soon, but given the political climate in the US, I'm unsure if it will actually happen. We can only hope that Canada and other countries takes the lead and forces the improvements to passenger safety.
- trog 2y agoSomeone on Mastodon pointed out that not all Model Ys even have the manual release. I didn't believe this could be true - how could regulators allow this? But it's actually listed on the Model Y page (https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-AAD769C...): "Note Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors." Not sure what the distribution is or whether it's just an "old version" problem?
- MichaelZuo 2y agoSome countries may not require it, though it does seem pretty suspicious to omit that, regardless of what regulatory quirks there are in the world.
- DrillShopper 2y agoDamn if only we had the tech to open doors mechanically. Imagine that world. I hope Elon takes a few weeks away from destroying the US Government in January to think about this./s For real though, I hope the relatives of the deceased take Elon personally and Tesla as a company for all they're worth.
- valval 2y ago> Some crazy shit with /s > Double down on the crazy shit this time for real
- semiquaver 2y ago> Note: Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors. Astounding.
- Schiendelman 2y agoI'm always surprised to see this comment without seeing a response that this is required by law in the United States. Remember child locks? They are on all cars. The manual release cannot override the child lock so it has to be hidden to meet federal law.
- formerly_proven 2y ago> Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors. Yikes. Makes me wonder if this is market-dependent. I mean, do you expect "Emergency manual door release" to be a line item in Tesla's configurator? Didn't think so.
- Schiendelman 2y agoThis is US law. You can't have a child usable manual emergency release on the doors where you might have child lock enabled.
- rightbyte 2y agoYou could have the manual release just not do anything when child lock is enabled like on every other car with child locks. Then again, there should be a manual release on the outside too...
- Schiendelman 2y agoWhen the car loses power, the outside manual release does enable.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoThe model Y's inability to roll down its rear windows is another safety liability. I had to vomit out of an Uber and had much difficulty getting my head out the tiny opening.
- dagmx 2y agoPerhaps you mean “roll it down all the way”, but it most definitely can roll down most of the way. As someone with a large head myself, I can most definitely fit it out comfortably of mine.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoI don't have a large head. There is zero chance of crawling out the window if you're trapped in these cars.
- dagmx 2y agoThat’s a different point entirely. You talked about being unable to fit your head out comfortably. I addressed that.
- nineteen999 2y agoAt least their head can escape even if the rest of them can't.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoKnowing the incompetent engineering in the Cypertruck closure mechanisms, I was definitely worried about getting guillotined by the firmware.
- Reason077 2y agoIf the door won’t open electrically, then very likely the power windows won’t work either. So to be able to crawl out the window, you’d have to break the glass, which would make the full size of the opening available.
- crazygringo 2y ago> Tesla has faced criticism in the past for the design of its manual release levers, which are considered poorly designed and unintuitively placed. These emergency measures require intimate knowledge of the car, something that may not be feasible in a panic situation. First, how is this remotely legal? Are there not safety standards to ensure adults can easily exit a vehicle on fire? Second, regardless of regulations, what on earth were they thinking at Tesla? Cars catch on fire and need fast emergency exit. Do they not care that their passengers might die? I am absolutely horrified by this. Those poor passengers.
- uberdru 2y agoNot to mention the way these things burn. Basically an inferno. . .
- RoyTyrell 2y agoAnd now he's bought his way into US aristocracy so he can do whatevr he wants and no one can stop him. He doesn't like criticism from the NTHSB? Well he can deem the NTHSB "inefficient" and have it downsized and the leaders sacked. Does the FTC think he's lying about his self-driving claims? Well maybe the FTC is inefficient and he just makes a call to Trump and the DoJ won't be investigating anything either. The US is now completely an oligarchy and kleptocracy.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y agoTo be fair we’ve been ruled by corporations for a while.
- debo_ 2y agoI'm waiting for a new regulation that requires all EVs to have a sledgehammer in the passenger cabin.
- creesch 2y agoHow about a simple tiny safety hammer instead. The ones a lot of cars (at least here in the EU) are already outfitted with. As others have pointed out, any car should have such a hammer.
- trinix912 2y agoI'd assume it doesn't do much with laminated (rear) windows. It would require way too much force to break them enough to crawl out. Also, I've only seen those on busses, never in cars (I'm in the EU as well).
- snapetom 2y agoFor a long time, I lived in an area with a lot of creeks and rivers. Since my first car with electric windows and locks, I keep something like this: https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Emergency-Cutter-Window-Accessories/dp/B073JCMTW2 https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Emergency-Cutter-Window-... in the glove box or center console. Call me paranoid, but I don't trust the electronic system to work if my car is sinking.
- teruakohatu 2y agoDon’t Tesla gloves boxes require the touch screen to open?
- tokai 2y agoEveryone should have a glass breaker in their car. Even if the car has mechanical doors.
- OutOfHere 2y agoIt is said that the glass breaker no longer helps with laminated side windows. What then. Kicking the window out, if that's even possible, could be the only way.
- tamimio 2y agoUnfortunately kicking doesn’t work, it needs to be strong enough with momentum which you can’t do from the inside with current position, not to mention any injuries from the impact.
- tamimio 2y agoI have two in the compartment between the front seats, and I also have an axe secured under the seat. However, accidents are random events; you never know what will happen. If these tools are still in place, can you reach them, and are you able to use them, among other things? So I wouldn’t count on it in the slightest.
- senectus1 2y agoarnt car seat headrests designed for this use? You remove it from the seat and the "poles" are tapered for this purpose...
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoI’ll leave a thought that isn’t a Tesla criticism (because the others are good): everybody should carry a lifehammer in their car. If not for saving your own life, it might come in handy for saving somebody else’s. https://www.amazon.com/Lifehammer-Brand-Safety-Hammer-Netherlands/dp/B000BN3A4Y https://www.amazon.com/Lifehammer-Brand-Safety-Hammer-Nether... Don’t buy the cheap Chinese knockoffs.
- snapetom 2y agoI'd add that for anything your life depends on, my general rule is don't buy from Amazon. Buy from the manufacturer. Way too many counterfeits on Amazon.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pyrophane 2y agoNote that these tools don't work if you have laminated side windows, which many cars now do!
- BuyMyBitcoins 2y agoI don’t know much about laminated windows, but would a $5 hammer from a hardware store work?
- jabroni_salad 2y agolaminated windows have a layer of plastic in them. You need a cutting tool. https://youtu.be/DyZrQ3Q0ZR0?t=75 https://youtu.be/DyZrQ3Q0ZR0?t=75 Also I know this video has a firefighter in it but I will tell you that FFs are more likely to use a sawzall than a hand tool.
- FireBeyond 2y ago100% - hand tools are far too slow. Sawzall is really the quickest method these days, although I have seen some new tooling being experimented with.
- Havoc 2y agowow. That's genuinely scary. Sitting on top of a lithium fire while locked in seems terrifying. I wonder whether legislators should require inclusion of one of those glass break hammers in each car?
- criddell 2y agoWould those hammers work on Tesla windows? IIRC, they now use laminated glass (like windshield glass) on the door windows as well.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- magnetowasright 2y agoIf they're going to legislate anything it should be that door handles (internal and external) just can't be like that in the first place. I say external and internal because a few articles went around HN a little while ago of parents ending up with their kids locked in teslas on hot days and unable to get out because the stupid thing had no mechanical external door handles. It really troubles me that in many countries we have to ponder legislating something as fundamental as car door handles. Like, yes, regulations are written in blood, but door handles? Do we really need to be told to make door handles mechanical and where door handles go? It's just absurd to me that these doors were designed as such in the first place.
- Schiendelman 2y agoThe irony is that rear doors don't have emergency overrides easily accessible because of federal regulations. If we did, children would use them when the child lock is enabled.
- mgarfias 2y agoMy Chevrolet truck while having an actual door latch, doesn’t open the doors if they’re locked. You have to pull twice. Is that an electronic counter (likely) or mechanical? If the latter, no big deal, if the former it’s even worse than the Tesla - at least my MY has a separate mechanical over ride.
- serf 2y agoolder generation BMWs do this same thing; it's achieved by a ratchet system on the door handle that interacts with the mechanically actuated lock. it isn't electronic in the case of BMW. I don't know what Chevrolet does.
- mgarfias 2y agoI dont trust that it’s a pure mechanical system
- rightbyte 2y agoPulling again is probably a pretty panic friendly procedure though.
- alex1138 2y agoYou know, I was really sad when the Shuttle retired in 2011 (which itself had numerous safety problems they probably had to fix). And this glowing idea SpaceX will aid us onwards into the future, blah blah. I hope to god SpaceX doesn't act in a careless way like Tesla has been accused of doing
- sorenjan 2y agoThey damaged at least one car when their launch pad was suddenly distributed over a large area, throwing concrete pieces at least 6.5 miles. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-04-26/spacex-starship-explosion-blasted-concrete-up-to-6-5-miles-away https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-04-26/spacex-sta...
- redwall_hp 2y agoThey've also been fined for polluting waters with their launchpad deluge system. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/spacex-polluted-waters-texas-regulators-rcna166283 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/spacex-polluted-... They also have a history of doing things without waiting for FAA approval. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-proposes-633009-civil-penalties-against-spacex https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-proposes-633009-civil-penal... Enron Musk has also mouthed off about NLRB and OSHA stuff before too, which seems like a red flag for a company employing workers to handle hazardous materials and do dangerous things.
- browningstreet 2y agoI recently had a break-in to my Tesla. All captured on sentry mode. The thief got in with a subtle, barely visible stab of their wrist. The Tesla service person who replaced my window figured it was a spark plug. In the video they barely make contact with my window and the whole window shatters, completely. So maybe at least storing spark plugs in each door bin. (Btw none of the relevant police jurisdictions cared a whit about the break in. There were cameras where it occurred. I’m not sure what the societal discouragement is for car break-jns. Seems like the relevant authorities have basically granted permission to car hooliganism. They took the police report but explicitly acknowledged no one would look at it.)
- trallnag 2y agoAre you living in a good neighborhood?
- Ccecil 2y agoIt is the spark plug insulator. They are using the ceramic from it to break the glass. I remember hearing about this in the 90s with thieves carrying insulators on strings in their pockets. https://www.carparts.com/blog/can-a-spark-plug-break-a-window/ https://www.carparts.com/blog/can-a-spark-plug-break-a-windo... note from the article: "Keeping Spark Plug Shards Might Be Illegal in Your State" so keep that in mind
- fHr 2y agoYou want less regulations, so deal with the consequences.
- Upvoter33 2y agoThis is why it's so dumb to want "more" or "less" regulation; clearly, there is some regulation we want, and some we might not. We should always be arguing specifics, not generalities.
- newobj 2y agoDon't trust software engineers to handle edge cases and failure modes
- syndicatedjelly 2y agoOr teach them? Risk management is something any (and every) engineer should learn
- remram 2y agoThat's what regulation and compliance is for. Engineers are actually very good with those.
- Syonyk 2y ago> This tragic incident has sparked a debate about the safety features of electric vehicles and the necessity for more intuitive emergency mechanisms. Tesla is an ever-more-irritating case study in what happens when you throw out all the accumulated wisdom of an industry, dismissing them as aging dinosaurs, because you know code. For most of the last century and change, cars have had some predictable behaviors. In the event of a total power loss (engine, electrical, etc), you can still steer the car, brake the car to a safe and controlled stop, and get out of the car. As far as I knew, these were basic certification requirements, once those things came around. You can't do a pure drive-by-wire system, because when (not if, when) things go badly wrong, you still need to be able to control the vehicle. This is why we have mechanical linkages between the steering wheel and the front wheels, hydraulic brakes that function without booster vacuum, mechanical door opening levers, etc. In a panic situation, say, "car is on fire," people are not going to calmly consider how to remove bits of carpet and access the emergency release mechanism they don't know about. They are going to yank on the normal door opening lever, repeatedly. It should be a basic certification requirement that this works, at least for the front doors (I'm willing to grant that the rear doors can have the "interior handle disabled" child safety things, but also, once your kids are out of car seats, this shouldn't be left enabled). Tesla's arrogance about the lessons learned by the last century of the auto industry is killing people. I'm sure they've justified it internally as "Well, once our self driving stuff is working, our cars will never crash or fail so this doesn't matter," but come on. It's been a decade and that stuff still isn't working, so maybe put some mechanical door handles on your cars.
- davidw 2y agoWait until that same throwing out the accumulated wisdom is applied to the US government...
- sorenjan 2y agoThere are keychain sized glass breakers available, maybe a good christmas present for a Tesla owner? Although I don't know if they still carry keys.
- jonpurdy 2y agoJust calling out the poor way this (and many) articles write about car accidents. I’m not a Tesla fan at all but blaming Tesla for the crash is incorrect. (It is correct to blame them for the way the door locks work though and therefore can be blamed for the excess injuries/deaths that result from the design decision.) From the article: > Four people were killed in a fire after a Tesla Model Y lost control and hit a pillar in Toronto last month. > Five people were trapped inside a Tesla Model Y after it crashed and burst into flames The Tesla didn’t lose control, the human driver lost control of the vehicle. From a previous article the day after: > Police said the driver of the Tesla lost control of the vehicle while travelling at a high rate of speed and collided with a guard rail. The vehicle then struck a concrete pillar, they said, before bursting into flames. If it wasn’t for the irresponsible driving on the part of the human driver, this incident wouldn’t have occurred in the first place. The driver paid for this with their and others’ lives.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago>It is correct to blame them for the way the door locks work though and therefore can be blamed for the excess injuries/deaths that result from the design decision. This is what is being discussed here: that four people burned to death because they were unable to exit the vehicle.
- 9x39 2y agoIt's not entirely fair to say it happened in a vacuum, either, since car doors are damaged and fail-shut enough that almost every fire department has hydraulic rescue tools to force open trapped cars. The spontaneous combustion of Tesla's battery pack was the proximal cause of death here, but that's an EV problem in general, and will probably only grow as they take over the car market. Maybe we need the car version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBSAFE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBSAFE to account for EV combustion risks that prevent FDs from responding in time for locked doors.
- FireBeyond 2y agoAnd they had survived the impact, and were capable of, but unable to, exit.
- ncr100 2y agoTragic. And disappointing that the Tesla PR department is not responding to the public's questions, according to this article.
- FireBeyond 2y agoI suppose we should be glad they're just being silent, not auto-responding with a poop emoji like they previously have.
- tamimio 2y agohttps://archive.is/2024.11.16-143549/https://myelectricsparks.com/four-dead-tesla-doors-fail-open-crash-fire/ https://archive.is/2024.11.16-143549/https://myelectricspark... One of the reasons I will never buy an electric car, the batteries are dormant bombs.
- more_corn 2y agoNightmare fuel
- xyst 2y agoI am so glad I didn’t buy a TSLA during the 2020-2021 hype. These vehicles are god awful, and are now glorified status icons. Safety is clearly a third or fourth priority.
- sys_64738 2y agoWill Elon try to kill OSHA and NTSB in quest?
- ilikeitdark 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoMaybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- EricE 2y agoWas watching a video on the new Lexus RX 350s and they are moving to electronic door mechanisms too. Talk about solving a problem that doesn't exist - oh how I loathe modern vehicles.
- ryandvm 2y agoI don't understand Teslas. I take a ride as a passenger in my friend's Tesla about once a year. And every time, the ride ends with me going, "how the fuck do I open this door?" What is wrong with door handles? Tesla should have been sued into oblivion the first time somebody died in a car fire. And the NHTSA should have regulations against cars without interior handles.