this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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Tesla owners are modifying their cars to be escapable if the car catches fire, because the doors stop working like normal and you need to rely on well-hidden mechanical overrides.

Which... feels pretty dangerous, like that's the worst possible time for the doors to stop working like normal.

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[–] Hegar@fedia.io 101 points 2 months ago (8 children)

The manual door open on some models of Teslas require removing 2 panels that are not labeled and need a diagram to know how to remove them. Another requires removing the speaker grill and pulling an unlabeled wire.

Even once the manual door release is pulled, without power you need a firefighter's upper body strength to open the door, and it's likely that flames and poisonous smoke will be coming up any tiny gap you can create by pushing open the door a little.

Just willful disregard of your customers' lives.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 37 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Honestly, this seems more like incompetence. They hired tech bros to make a car, not safety engineers. How these cars got through safety regulations is beyond me.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 44 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Simple, the regulations don't talk about any of that shit.

US road regulations are a blend of smart, fucking stupid, and just plain missing regulations.

The fact any current "standard" pickup trucks are allowed on the road despite nearly half the population being short enough that they can't see over the hood is just one of the most obvious examples that the US road regulations are pointless to try and make sense of.

[–] AtariDump@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Now, guess which of those two vehicles is regularly used for anything that actually requires a truck bed vs which of those is used to pick up kids from school.

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[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been saying this a lot lately because it seems like arc words for the zeitgeist we're living through but good gods above and below it just keeps being relevant:

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

When shit's this stupid, it doesn't matter whether they meant it or not...

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[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

no they probably want you to die after the accident so that you can't tell people how the auto drive feature drove you into the building

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

But how else would Tesla sell futurism to its customers? Door handles and keys are old tech, we need 21st century tech, at all cost!

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[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 64 points 2 months ago (5 children)

How is this legal? Who let these vehicles on the road?

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 42 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I, for one, am baffled.

How didn't this get recalled after the first escapable entrapment death? I could find 12 fire deaths where the occupants were evidently trapped, and that was just my dumb ass Googling for an afternoon for recent cases, I'm sure there's more.

[–] TrippyHippyDan@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

Sarcasm (but also sadly likely Tesla's take): How are you so sure they wanted to get out?

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall?

You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).

A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall.

If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.

If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.

[–] dickalan@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Fuck I need to watch fight club againThat quote opened my eyes

[–] kambusha@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Which car company do you work for?

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

A major one.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

I remember something similar happening with the Delorean DMC-12, and they were absolutely ridiculed for it.

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And some of those are really horrific. I think in one of the CA crashes, one person was able to be pulled out a window before the battery cooking off got too hot for anyone to approach and help the three others who were trapped and died.

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[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 17 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I did not realize how fucking stupid the gear selector was. I'm even angrier than when I started, and I started pretty angry.

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[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Wow that's a extremely stupid shifter control

Stupider than the "volume knob repurposed as a shifter" from Jeep

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 9 points 2 months ago

Regulators figured nobody would be stupid enough to mess that up and no paragraphs are needed to make things explicit. Then came Elon who thought that technically correct is the best kind of correct so he made this abomination of a manual release.

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

You don't tend to write a rule stating "passengers must be able to easily escape the vehicle in an emergency" until some tech bro makes it hard.

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[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 40 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 10 points 2 months ago

OH NO I LOLLED

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago (7 children)

At this point I don't know why anyone is buying those death-traps. For me any benefit from the self-driving feature is outweighed by the safety and poor build quality issues.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't know why anyone is buying those death-traps.

I've got good news, then! Fewer and fewer people are buying the illegal immigrant's dangerous and overpriced swastikar, with new buyers dropping and trade-ins rising every day as public support for the emerald mine nepo baby nazi dwindles daily.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Instead they're buying F150s and the like that are just as dangerous to everyone else on or near the road.

[–] Eric_Pollock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago

I recently got a Volkswagen with adaptive cruise control, and I'm absolutely in love with it. Never needed the car to fully drive itself, that's what public transport is for...

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[–] ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I recently went car shopping, and I had considered an EV. I told someone this, and she immediately started recommending Tesla to me, despite Elon's bullshit. She tried to tell me that Elon's insanity doesn't change that Tesla is the "best product in the space".

I have to admit, Elon's bullshit was a big factor in not even giving Tesla the time of day, but there's also issues just like this one. I do not want a car that prioritizes gee-whiz geegaws over basic safety like this.

[–] coaxil@lemm.ee 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Having now driven basically all the EV vehicles available in my country, from the byd range to Hyundai, Nissan and Tesla, Tesla is just a straight mess of a vehicle by comparison, and don't even get me started on the Tesla indicator thing. Oh and they feel cheap on the inside, even the plaid and other high end ones. Lol

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[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago

I think she just added an extra word. Tesla does make the best electric car that is currently in space, because none of the other manufacturers have shot one up there yet.

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[–] RickC137@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That's just for a few models and just on the front two doors, the rear you have to remove a panel you also have to know exists because it's not marked in hivis. The fun one is that Tesla says you break your warranty if you actually use any of the manual releases including the y's really accessible front one.

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[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You need to grab the ripcord with your right hand, conveniently placed above the heart, and thrust it forward and up.

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[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago

I would not expect US auto regulations to improve for at least 3.5 years, minimum.

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

if only there was an easier way of not getting trapped in a car...

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 months ago

Yeah but that's really hard to do and has never been invented before!

[–] andybytes@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago

These stupid cucks...

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] BadlyTimedLuck@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Huh, this reminded me of Five Nights at Freddy's and how even with murderous robots around, there is a safety precaution where the doors open incase power goes out.

[–] randomblock1@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's probably easier to get one of those ceramic window breakers and get out that way. I'm pretty sure the rip cords are actually quite hard to pull.

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