From the article:

The man is blaming the automaker even though the manual door opener was under his left hand the whole time.

A man in Arizona says that he was recently trapped in his Tesla after getting in, closing the door, and then realizing that his battery was dead. What he didnā€™t know is that the manual release for the door was under his left hand the whole time. Now, heā€™s blaming the automaker and raising awareness.

Rick Meggison, 73, says that Tesla needs to address what he calls a ā€œsafety concernā€ involving how to exit the car when the battery dies. The main door latch actuator on all Tesla models is electronic so if the 12-volt battery dies it wonā€™t work. To ensure safe exit of the vehicle Tesla includes a manual release. Meggison didnā€™t know about that and ended up trapped in his car for 20 minutes on a hot day.

ā€œI couldnā€™t open the doors. I couldnā€™t lower the windows. The computer was dead, so I couldnā€™t open the glove box. I couldnā€™t open anything,ā€ he told ABC7. Of course, he couldā€™ve opened the door in about two seconds had he known that the manual release was just ahead of his window switches. His situation has many wondering whoā€™s to blame in situations like this.

  • FoxBJK@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Youā€™re not wrong, but why is Tesla reinventing the door handle? Why does this need to be powered now? Seems like theyā€™re fixing something that wasnā€™t broken.

    • Kushan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      On the outside, the door handles of a Tesla automatically recess when not in use, which reduces drag on the car and letā€™s it drive more efficiently (therefore giving you more range).

      Tesla does a lot of ā€œreinventing for the sake of itā€ but in this one instance there is actually a reason for it.

      • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        The door handle in question is on the inside of the car. It doesnā€™t serve any engineering reason to be resigned other than for aesthetics.

      • CurseBunny [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Wikipedia article concerning drag coefficients

        The drag coefficients of even the more recent Teslas are comparable to other vehicles that donā€™t use retracting door handles, even the GM EV1 from 1999 beats all the Teslas on the table in terms of drag reduction. The door handles may technically be a contributing factor towards their more favorable position on the list, but theyā€™re certainly not necessary and donā€™t seem to be highly impactful. A large part of Tesla design philosophy and marketing is making their cars seem futuristic and highly advanced through things like motorized door handles and autopilot. Their primary goal is to provide a unique and pleasant user experience ā€œout of the boxā€ and their justification for things like the door handles retracting are almost certainly retroactive.

      • wahming@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Genuinely curious, how much savings does that accomplish? Something as small as a door handle doesnā€™t seem like it would create a lot of drag, but it might just be unintuitive

        • Mamertine@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I seriously doubt it changes much.

          Hypermiling is a thing where people try to get 100 mpg from a compact car like the Honda Civic. Itā€™s been around for a few decades now.

          There are things you can do to improve aerodynamic abilities of the car. The biggest is the wheel shrouds and overall car shape (nose and tail). Then youā€™re covering up seams in the body work. Iā€™ve not heard of anyone swapping out or door handles.

          Iā€™m sure the cause drag, but there is so much lower hanging fruit to address before changing something that small.

        • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Itā€™s bullshit. Theyā€™d save 1000x more in range if they fixed the shitty gaps in their paneling instead of doing away with door handles.

          Just because itā€™s new doesnā€™t mean itā€™s better. Reinventing door handles is something no car needs.

        • Kushan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I honestly donā€™t know, there does seem to be some controversy around this but Tesla seems determined to want flush handles so there must be something to it.

            • Kushan@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Itā€™s definitely not just aesthetics, but the impact is up for debate. Tesla arenā€™t the only EV manufacturer doing it.

              • wahming@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                If there is no data, how do you know it ISNā€™T just for aesthetics? It certainly seems that way.

                • Kushan@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Well, I did some googling and found this:

                  According to Amey Vikram, a lead analyst at Technavio for automotive components research, ā€œThe retractable door handle design allows radical aerodynamic designing for the side body panel. Retractable door handles are invisible handles that contribute by about 12% to reduce the drag coefficient of vehicles. Retractable door handles eliminate the issue of airflow bulge creation, air flow turbulence generation, and air flow pressure conservation. The decreased drag coefficient will also contribute to increasing the fuel efficiency of vehicles as there will be low drag generation resisting the movement of vehicles through the airflow.ā€

                  Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180105005468/en/Top-3-Drivers-of-the-Global-Automotive-Retractable-Door-Handle-System-Market-Technavio

                  Seems like there is indeed plenty of data.

              • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                The impact on drag at normal highway speeds is negligible, there is no debate. It is entirely for cool factor points. Nothing accomplished by retractable handles couldnā€™t be done better, cheaper, and with fewer moving parts with a standard handle.

                • Kushan@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  errr, yeah there is debate. Given that nearly every EV manufacturer is doing their darnedest to flatten or remove door handles, donā€™t you think there must be more than a ā€œnegligibleā€ impact?

                  https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180105005468/en/Top-3-Drivers-of-the-Global-Automotive-Retractable-Door-Handle-System-Market-Technavio

                  According to Amey Vikram, a lead analyst at Technavio for automotive components research, ā€œThe retractable door handle design allows radical aerodynamic designing for the side body panel. Retractable door handles are invisible handles that contribute by about 12% to reduce the drag coefficient of vehicles. Retractable door handles eliminate the issue of airflow bulge creation, air flow turbulence generation, and air flow pressure conservation. The decreased drag coefficient will also contribute to increasing the fuel efficiency of vehicles as there will be low drag generation resisting the movement of vehicles through the airflow.ā€