I thought this was a solved problem.
To them, a wheel is detestable -because it's simple and easy to use, and they've got some idea of a superior complex polyhedron that's of course better and everyone else is dumb for not using it.
It would be good if we could trace whatever technical dog shit killed these poor little kids back to whoever was involved, and... "offer them a non-technical solution to the causal factors".
I imagine the nerd confidently standing up in meeting room, his eyes wide with a psychotic look of conviction, stating with vehement certainly: "they wouldn't be dead if we'd written it in Rust!".
But yeah, the 50 something checked out MBAs - just waiting for the end to the farce that was their "career" - would be nodding along.
Meanwhile how many times in one's life as a non-Tesla-owner have you had to explain to someone how to open a car door?
They do say they're a tech company and not a car company, eh?
In every single other car I'd driven there was a way to permanently disable such feature. Not in ID.3.
The actual mechanism of how the door works as kind of "configurable deformation zone" usually involves somewhat thick steel rod running down the middle of the door that on hinge side abbuts similar strength member in the chasis and on the latch side connects to the latch. The latch has two distinct positions depending on whether the door is just latched or locked and the only latched position is not strong enough to hold the potential impact forces..
I’m having trouble finding more formal explanations for what you’re describing, though. I see a lot of talk about how the latching behavior links the door’s steel into the rest of the body, but very little about the structural aspects of the locks that link the handles to the latch’s release mechanism.
I’m the farthest thing from a car engineer, but I wonder if you’d know of anyplace I could read more about this structural aspect of locking design? Every time I accidentally lock out a passenger, I get frustrated: I’d find grace and patience easier to muster if I understood how someday it might save both our lives :)
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2007/02/06/07-517/...
[2] http://www.autosafetyexpert.com/defect_doorlatch.php
[3] https://bestsellingcarsblog.com/2023/10/media-post-actuator-...
No, this is not the primary reason. The primary reason is safety from potential attack while in a confined, transitional space.
My late grandparents' Lincoln Mark VII non-LSC had autolocking doors when shifting into drive in 1988.
Automatic unlocking (Auto Unlock) All vehicle doors and the boot lid are automatically unlocked if one of the following conditions applies:
— In an accident, when airbags have triggered.
— Or: the electronic parking brake is engaged and the ignition is switched off.
—Or: the door release lever has been operated. This applies at speeds up to around 15 km/h(around 9 mph).
Are you sure? Wont the internal handle unlock the door by mechanical means?
> Automatic Door Locking (ADL): System in the vehicle whereby the door latches automatically lock once the vehicle has reached a certain speed. They should also automatically unlock in the event of an accident, post impact.
https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/43396/euro-ncap-rescue-extric...
They also have a section for electric retractable door handles (5.3), including
> It is assumed that by design the door handles will extend outwards ready for use when the SRS system deploys any airbag/detects a severe impact or the door handle remains in its retracted position but can be grabbed nevertheless by the first responder without any tool.
I wonder if Tesla's don't do this? Or if it didn't in this case?
Euro NCAP is a voluntary assessment program, so I believe all of these are just recommendations that will impact a vehicles scoring rather than mandatory safety standards.
Given the kinds of things that could make an airbag go off, I wouldn't bet on that feature working when needed.
As 3D30497420 said, this is part of Euro NCAP. They test for exactly this [1]. Why would you assume a safety system wouldn’t work?
[1] “If ADL is fitted as standard and by default always on then the doors will be locked by the lab personnel prior to ALL full-scale tests… Post-test the lab personnel will immediately check if any of the side doors inthe front crash tests and any of the non-struck side doors in the side crash tests has remained locked/has not automatically unlocked.” https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/43396/euro-ncap-rescue-extric...
The door handles still work from the inside, they mechanically unlock the door unconditionally, meaning nobody can be trapped inside even by manually locking the doors.
The exception is if you flip the "child safety" switch which disconnects the inside door handle of the rear doors.
Yeah, and I would always disable that feature. Perhaps that was wrong to do, and now that I don't have a choice it's actually safer for me and my passengers.
There can be more than one valid reason for a thing.
It prevents children from exiting the car before an adult can ensure it is safe to do so. Mostly to prevent the child getting run over by a passing car, or dooring a passing bicycle. If you don't like it you can just not enable it.
It's the cars where things constantly go wrong that you should avoid. Jags + Land Rovers have those reputations in the UK.
The car was entirely capable of continuing to operate normally, but the operator is not trusted by BMW. Their ecosystem locks out the owner from easily maintaining their car as well, which made even more painful as I had no trouble identifying and sourcing a new module.
No, there was a rash of carjackings in the 1990s. It was where someone would walk up to a car stopped at an intersection and open the door.
By all means let's increase common risk severity for everyone in order to demonstrate we're doing something about a rare tail risk. /s
Actually, no - at least not slow by my definition.
You’d have to drive over 130km/h, this is when you need some serious force to open the door more than maybe 10-20cm - but anything slower than that, it’s still pretty easy, certainly easy enough for a kid to open the door wide enough to fall out or get in serious trouble..
Source: 18 year old stupid me and buddies, doing stuff like opening driving cars doors, going over 100km/h
I had to guess, I'd guess you aren't a parent or spend much time interacting with children :)
Also, auto-lock reduces theft and carjacking risk, which is nice.
I'm talking about child locks, not auto-lock. Locking the door from the inside. A commenter above suggests that it's to stop the little idiots from popping out into the middle of the street .7845 seconds after I put it in park. That actually makes some sense.
There is no mechanical lock I can pull on, just a push button with a light to indicate that the door is locked. I hate this car.
No? My Honda Civic from 2016 certainly does not.
Mine is a cheaper, european model, which if you are willing to pay for it, of course have all the fancy stuff like keyless ignition, auto door locks, auto high beam system, security systems etc as addons to the standard model.
I'm not that rich so..
Typically, there are a few different options of things you can enable/disable that have no other menu options. OBDeleven has "one touch apps" that makes this easy...but there is also other ways to do things using the adaptations or long coding.
If you do any work on your own car having something like OBDeleven is pretty much required. You can't even change the rear brake pads without it.
I'm all for trying new things in the hope that there might be a better way, but make sure it's actually better before putting it into a volume product where it has safety implications.
If it's in the US and they have no regulations on this, I don't want to be cavalier but they should reflect on their anti-regulation culture, and Tesla does not deserve to be scapegoated (not a fan of the brand, but I try to be consistent).
Sounds like the same window hammer what my uncle had in the glove box of his 1971 Cadillac, next to his cigarettes and his gun. He said each was for use in different types of emergencies.
Just because it's on YouTube doesn't make it new.
The Model S and X have truly retractable door handles. The Model 3 and Y have flush door handles that you need to push in to get the latch to pull out. As far as I know, the 3/Y handles should work with the power disconnected; although many people who haven't ridden in one don't know that you need to push, then pull, the handle. (And probably won't figure it out when panicking.)
I don't know if there's a way to bypass the S/X handles. My Ioniq 9 has retractable handles, and if you push on one corner of the driver's door handle you can work it out. I don't know about the other doors, and I don't think someone could figure it out if panicking.
More instances: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/autos/electric-cars/tesla-under-in...
(I went back to check before I wrote "The article doesn't mention which vehicle.")
A small nit: It's "burnt", not "burnend"
People have been trapped in burning cars due to impact and deformation since cars exist. Such tragedies are not specific to Teslas.
So why do people keep buying them??
jeffrallen•4mo ago
https://insideevs.com/news/507202/how-escape-from-tesla-emer...
And Tesla plans to change them because they are too hard to use:
https://insideevs.com/news/772636/tesla-door-handle-fix-fran...
jalapenos•4mo ago
"Open the door" is a standalone manual, as a sentence. If that's not the case, no doubt there's some Aspergers tech nerd involved.
I'd like to see stuff like this elevated to conspiracy to murder through tech-shit means.
smileybarry•4mo ago
> According to the German Automobile Association, manual opening is only possible from the inside, which complicates rescue attempts for emergency services.
The issue, other than complicated internal release, was the lack of an external way to manually open the doors. (e.g.: driver is unconscious with small kids who haven't read the manual)