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Tesla wishes it could be Apple, where every product is designed to be the perfect embodiment of style and craftsmanship. When the Model S first went into production, it featured electrically operated exterior and interior door locks that are oh-so-sleek and trendy. But they also sometimes proved to be deadly in situations where the 12-volt power supply that operates them fails.
There are mechanical door lock levers that a driver or front seat passenger can use in an emergency, but they are not visually prominent and blend in with the interior door hardware. If you are dazed after a crash, you may not have the presence of mind to find them, and you certainly won’t be able to read the owner’s manual on the car’s now non-functional touchscreen.
If you are in the back seat, the problem is even more hazardous, as the mechanical door release may be hidden behind a bit of carpeting or require you to first remove a cover to find it. If there’s a fire or the car is filled with smoke, your brain may not be able to figure all of that out in time.
Quite frankly, the whole idea of electric door-opening devices with obscure mechanical latches is silly. No, check that — it’s stupid, and indicative of the “move fast and break things” mentality that permeates tech culture in general and Elon Musk’s thinking in particular.
Tesla Hides Behind FMVSS
When challenged, Tesla’s response was that the mechanical release mechanisms met federal motor vehicle safety standards. That’s lovely, but little comfort to Venkateswara Pasumarti and his wife Susmita Maddi, who were trapped inside their Tesla Model Y after it struck a utility pole in 2023. Max Walsh, an off-duty firefighter, rushed to the scene but found the exterior door handle was not operative.
He was able to smash the driver’s door window, but then was unable to open the door from the inside, so he wound up dragging the driver out through the window opening. The wife, however, could not be reached because the passenger door was smashed against the utility pole.
Maddi was pinned in place by air bags as flames began entering the passenger compartment. According to a report by Bloomberg‘s Dana Hull and others, people outside the car tried to break windows on the passenger side of the Model Y but were unable to do so. Only the arrival of a Jaws of Life hydraulic device made it possible for her to be extricated from the car.
Before she was rescued, Maddi suffered lasting damage to her lungs from smoke inhalation and third degree burns to her face. “It’s the most horrible thing, to see a human burning,” Walsh said in a recent interview. “If I was able to open the doors, I could have gotten them both out before the fire department even got there.”
Under CEO Elon Musk, Hull wrote, “Tesla has built its reputation — and much of its trillion-dollar market value — on path breaking design, engineering excellence, and an exceptional safety record. The company posted recently on X: ‘If you love them, put them in a Tesla.’”
Although Tesla vehicles do well in government crash tests, certain features of its vehicles — like flush door handles, electrical power failure, and hidden mechanical releases — are challenges to occupants and first responders and can turn the crucial moments after a crash into deadly races against time.
Just One Of Many
The crash that injured Pasumarti and Maddi is only one of many similar incidents. Last November in California, a Tesla Cybertruck slammed into a tree and a wall and caught fire, killing three college students trapped inside. The same month in Wisconsin, a Model S fire left five dead, with a cluster of bodies in the front seats suggesting to a detective there may have been a struggle to escape. In Los Angeles this spring, an All-American basketball player survived a Cybertruck crash by kicking through a window before bystanders pulled him out by his legs.
Safety regulators have been slow to respond and, it should be noted, although Tesla has made attempts to solve the issue with redesigned hardware, the fixes do not seem to have solved the problem. The top safety regulator in China is reportedly considering a ban on fully concealed door handles. Europe has taken incremental measures to improve post-crash rescue and extrication protocols.
In the US, little action has been taken, although the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Bloomberg News it is aware of the incidents referred to in the Bloomberg article as well as complaints about Tesla’s doors. Part of the problem is that crash tests are designed to measure impact survivability, not whether occupants can quickly get out of the vehicle afterward.
Tesla Went Wild
“Tesla engineers went wildly in the direction of automation and overlooked what happens to the human body after a crash,” says Charles Mauro, founder of Mauro Usability Science, a New York consulting firm that specializes in human factors engineering. “Musk’s idea is a computer on wheels, but the design of the door locks was overlooked.”
The original instructions for Tesla engineers when the Model S was being designed called for a sleek sedan that did away with the expectations formed over decades of experience with conventional cars. The flat surfaces of the Model S made for improved aerodynamics and reduced wind noise, but the lack of curvature in the exterior of the doors left less space for the motors and electrical components like those that powered the windows, locking systems, and handles.
That’s according to people familiar with the design process who spoke with Bloomberg but asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Instead, Tesla engineers opted for wire-release mechanisms for unlocking the doors in emergencies, one of the people said.
Similar designs have been carried through in all Tesla vehicles on the market, including the Cybertruck, which has even less space inside the door to fit components, one person said. The Cybertruck was the first Tesla to do away with handles entirely. The doors open from the outside using buttons next to the bottom corners of the windows.
Where Tesla places manual releases differs by model. In the Model S, for example, manual release cables are located under the carpet below the front of the rear seats. The company spells out where the releases are and how to use them in owner’s manuals, and in the last few years has ensured that occupants in the second row have a way to open doors with no power.
Some earlier iterations of Tesla’s top-selling vehicles lacked manual releases for the rear doors, manuals show. This was the case for the Model 3 from the time of its introduction in 2017 through the 2023 model year. The company also says that not all of its Model Y cars were equipped with manual releases for the rear doors from 2020 through the 2024 model years, a time period when that car was at times the best selling vehicle in the world.
Lack Of Familiarity Leads To Danger
“If you are a passenger, or jump into a rental car or a Model Y that is a robotaxi, you are not going to be aware of this,” said Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington-based advocacy group. “It shouldn’t be a game of hide-and-seek.” That point seems so obvious it should not need saying. The emergency release handles on airplanes are clearly marked. Escape hatches in submarines are not painted matte black to make it difficult for the crew to find them in an emergency. This is not a game, Elon!
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A New York Times review of the Model S in September 2012 described opening the sedan’s doors as a multi-step process that sometimes required several attempts. “Tesla sometimes takes its urge to reinvent too far,” the author wrote. Musk himself acknowledged door difficulties during a May 2013 earnings call. “We’ve got quite a fancy door handle, and occasionally the sensor would malfunction,” he said. “So you’d pull on the door handle, and it wouldn’t open. Obviously, it’s quite vexing for a customer.”
Although Musk claimed later the door handles had been redesigned and that customer complaints had dropped off considerably, problems persist, as evidenced by the crash in Virginia. That couple has now sued Tesla, seeking compensation for their emotional trauma and physical injuries.
The question now is whether Tesla is just another big corporation that hides behind a flotilla of Gucci-shod lawyers rather than fixing the problem. That would make it no different than General Motors with its faulty ignition switches or Ford with its exploding Pintos, where injury and death were treated as just another cost of doing business. Surely someone who thinks he is entitled (entitled!) to a trillion-dollar payday would have more concern for his customers than that. Right, Elon?
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