Listen, Teslas have to be zombie proof. Yes, that may be result in rescuers not being able to get in the car when the occupants burn to death from time to time, but that is nowhere near as important as the childish memes that Teslas are good cars in the zombie apocalypse.
I still don’t understand why an all-electric car can’t have purely mechanical handles like my plain Toyota Corolla.
I’m confused by how this situation is any different from any other car with locked doors. To open the vehicle you need to either have access to the inside handles, or use force of some sort to defeat the door latching mechanism/rip it off the hinges.
Most cars automatically lock the doors when the vehicle is in motion. Mine, at least, doesn’t unlock them until the ignition is turned off.
It’s not nor is it different than any car where the door is crushed. This is just stupid. Don’t firefighters normally have tools to break open windows or pry open doors?
Most cars unlock the power doors when the airbags are deployed or a collision is detected.
Here are the instructions for the rear door of a '21 Tesla Model Y:
To open a rear door when Model Y has no power:
- Remove the mat from the map pocket in the door panel.
- Use your fingernail or a small flat-bladed tool to open the plastic flap.
If that sounds wild, this video shows what that actually entails. This is nothing like any other car brand that I’m familiar with. I suppose you could have family fire drills so the kids can learn this.
Is this true? I did a little searching, and all I could find was opinions on Reddit or Quora. I don’t see it in my Subaru Forester manual.
Well, the difference to me is two fold. First, you can usually disable the automatic locking feature on most cars. I know that all three of my cars have this feature, and I’ve disabled it on the two I drive most often.
The other difference is that the auto lock feature is ostensibly a safety feature. I don’t see it as useful, but that’s how it’s sold. On the other hand, retractable door handles are a styling feature. Their effect on the drag of the vehicle is negligible compared to a non-retractable handle that is designed with aerodynamics as a concern.
Not so sure about that. My '25 Nissan you cannot disable that at all. I asked them about that. It has all kinds of other options, but not that. And if you hit the unlock button while underway, it re-locks within a second. Too much CYA we know better than you how to use your car.
One of the other professors at my father’s university was visiting Florida to settle his mother’s estate. He was driving someplace when he felt that he was having a heart attack, so he drove into a parking lot. Those standing around tried to assist, but the automatic door locks prevented them from easily opening the door. So my mother wanted us to disable that feature in our cars, though I haven’t yet done so.
I’ve found quite a few examples:
It’s often pretty buried in the user manuals, so I’m going to stop looking. Even if it weren’t true, just about all other cars can be unlocked by simply pulling on the interior door handle, sometimes twice. Pretty straightforward for a rescuer to break a window and open if all else fails.
Hmm, looks like it’s an undocumented feature in most Nissans. Turn the car on without starting it, and hold the lock button for five seconds until the hazards flash once.
Well, facepalm me, it looks like it is not undocumented, as such, it is just not in the published manual. And the folkers at Nissan told me can’t be done.
Oh interesting, thanks for chasing that down.