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by rightbyte 623 days 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?
4 comments

Every 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.
> Every Uber I take in a Tesla would practically need an airline safety briefing for this.

If your Uber ride is a Model Y you may be SOL:

    Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors.
How did this even get past the NHTSA/DOT - that has to be illegal. Electrical doors, with no failsafe?
I'm an oligarch an I'm o.k.

I break laws every single day ...

That would be a fantastic idea: sell printed Tesla safety cards in the style of airplane safety cards.
I think it'd be fantastic to not need it in the first place. It is just utterly beyond reason that this is even a thing.
Sorry, I meant “fantastic” in the same sense as the fight club airplane safety cards: for example https://www.etsy.com/listing/1017594442/project-mayhem-fligh...
Yeah. Wonder if this "safety feature" was designed by a Boeing contractor?

It'd be on-par for them, or at least the MCAS designers.

Cancel and rebook (another brand).
They'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…
Wouldn’t the average car safety be significantly below a Tesla Model Y anyway?
Tesla 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.

> Tesla has the highest fatality rate, so that is ruled out! :)

Do you have a source? Genuinely interested. From the little reading I've done Tesla seem to have put quite a bit of thought in to making their cars perform well in crash tests so it seems surprising that they'd have a high fatality rate.

"Tesla Has Highest Fatal Accident Rate of All Auto Brands: Study" (2024)

https://autos.yahoo.com/tesla-highest-fatal-accident-rate-16...

The analysis you refer to isn’t super interesting as it’s not controlled.

You’d need to be able to prove that independent safety and crash testing organisations are pushing out faulty results, since Teslas are among the safest (if not the safest) cars by their standards.

That 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".
Doesn’t matter if you’re getting in someone else’s car.
I would still favour the car that has good crash test safety scores and AI powered safety features that work relatively well according to independent tests, over the random taxi.

But otherwise I agree, the door opening mechanism should be improved.

Especially 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)
I 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

You probably can't break the glass either. Newer vehicles, especially Teslas, often have laminated glass that glass breakers have been found to not break.
I hear a ball bearing will do the job nicely.
Munroe on YT complained about exactly that 4 years ago :/
Why not do the first two steps, and stow the mat and access door on a shelf in your garage?
Yeah that’s not happening when you’re literally on fire.