And no retrofitting/recall.
It's only lives at stake. You may know one or be one.
But the back doors are a different story. For a few years into owning the car I didn't think they had an emergency release at all. Now I know they are hidden in the door molding somewhere but I doubt I'd be able to find them in an emergency let alone a guest that's in the back seat. It does worry me when I have people back there.
I think this happened to me when my buddy gave me a ride. I used the handle to open the door, and he told me I shouldn't do that since it might damage the car.
On the one hand, it boggles the mind that they would fuck up intuitive functionality that badly, but on the other hand, I am glad that the instinctive action is what you're supposed to do in an emergency.
On the gripping hand, the default action should open the door both regularly, and in case of emergency.
Since then, tesla has been relentlessly cost reducing everything. First it was no dashboard on the model 3, and on and on into dangerous design.
Latest 3 has no turn signal stalks. No drive select stalk (it guesses). and lots of critical controls are not physical at all and are hidden in touchscreen menus.
Laminated glass has at least two layers of glass bonded together with a plastic layer between adjacent glass layers. When broken it just forms webs of cracks but the pieces stay in place. This keeps you from getting ejected or cut by the glass.
Tempered glass on the other hand is made by rapidly heating and cooling the glass in such a way that it solidifies with a lot of internal stress. The glass at the surface ends up under compression and the interior glass ends up under tension. If you break the surface it releases all the stress rapidly resulting in the whole sheet quickly shattering into a very large number of small rounded pieces. It won't keep you from getting ejected but the small rounded pieces should only inflict relatively minor injuries.
Tempered costs less than laminated.
Most countries have long mandated laminated glass for windshields but allow tempered glass for side and rear windows. Some car makers choose to use laminated for side/rear windows to make it harder for thieves to get in, or for people to get ejected out side windows during accidents, better UV blocking, and better soundproofing.
Or even easier: pull normally for electric release, pull real hard for override.
- centrifugal governor, as used in old-school rotary phone dials (this could be too fragile though)
- an air cylinder with a small hole, as used in mechanical typewriters and vehicle shocks.
I am sure a real MechE can can come up with even more methods.
The power steering pump is a good example of good design. The pump boosts mechanical(turning) input but the boost is not required to produce the output(steering).
The electric brake which replaces the pedal or handle is a good example of bad design.
mgh2•4mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jY3K4AGAh0