[kube-system]

It's a Norman door. A great example of form over function. Good designs are intuitive, but unfortunately, what makes for good test-drive marketing (look at the cool push-button!) doesn't necessarily make for good design. Yes, the manual lever 'checks the box' for concerns about a dead battery, but it is an unnecessary compromise of human-centered design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things

[spiderice]

The problem with the design isn’t the unintuitive handle. It’s the fact that said handle can damage the window if used. That is why it is an emergency-only handle. If anything, I wish the handle was less obvious so people wouldn’t accidentally use it. Even more ideally, I just with the handle didn’t have a somewhat decent chance of doing damage when used.

[kube-system]

The person in this article didn't not escape his car because he was concerned about window damage. He didn't escape because his vehicle's hidden door controls unwittingly trained him into not fully understanding how the door latch works.

The problem is the psychological consequences of the design trapped the person inside, regardless of the emergency latch's existence. Most people presume that their car doors have one latch, especially if they only ever see or use a single one.

[Vecr]

How can it be less obvious and still be legal? In my opinion it should be red with orange stripes and say "emergency door open" on it. It already has gotten people killed by how non-obvious it is.

[rootusrootus]

> Even more ideally, I just with the handle didn’t have a somewhat decent chance of doing damage when used.

Agree 100%. Tesla cheaped out on the mechanical release. Other manufacturers don't have this problem, and solved it decades ago.

[1letterunixname]

The release could've been designed better by marking with an affordance, i.e., a symbol, that it opens the door AND it's only for emergencies.

Furthermore, they could've prevented its casual use when there is power by locking it with the force of a small electromagnet that fails open when power is lost OR with application of great force. A small solenoid and a piece of ferromagnetic metal might cost all of $0.10 USD more.

[kube-system]

Even cheaper than a solenoid to prevent its use would be to simply write the software to drop the window when it is used, like other manufacturers with similar window designs have done with their mechanical door releases for decades... and like Tesla themselves does when you use the electronic button.