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 didn’t know is that the manual release for the door was under his left hand the whole time. Now, he’s blaming the automaker and raising awareness.
Rick Meggison, 73, says that Tesla needs to address what he calls a “safety concern” 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 won’t work. To ensure safe exit of the vehicle Tesla includes a manual release. Meggison didn’t know about that and ended up trapped in his car for 20 minutes on a hot day.
“I couldn’t open the doors. I couldn’t lower the windows. The computer was dead, so I couldn’t open the glove box. I couldn’t open anything,” he told ABC7. Of course, he could’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 who’s to blame in situations like this.
The back one is even worse. You have to pull up the cup holder mat and pry out a clip before you can pull a wire.
Cool. Bet kids will figure that out really quickly when there’s an emergency that requires them to exit the dead vehicle ASAP.
Why are these things street-legal again?
Yeah even motorcycles (probably one of the least regulated road legal vehicles) have all the safety related items legally standardized as far as rough position (kill switch, horn, high beam, front brake, clutch (if present), and rear brake (2 options))
I can run up to any motorcycle made in the last 80 years and if I need to shut it off, I can do so with my eyes closed because there is always a kill switch on the right handle bar.