A Tesla's manual door releases can be tricky to find if you haven't read the owner's manual. Here's how to locate and activate them in the Tesla Model S, 3, X, and Y.
Numerous Tesla owners say they've been trapped inside their EVs after they lost power.::Numerous Tesla owners say they have been trapped inside their EVs after they lost power.Teslas come with manual door releases, but they can be hard to find
I get that people could be more curious about their cars, but hiding an emergency release like some kind of hidden book on Hogwarts that you have to yank on seems like a dumb idea. Car doors have established design language, and if you break that design language it has to be pretty fucking obvious how to do the action your users were trained to do.
I the Tesla, the emergency release is where you'd normally look for the regular release. I have to tell people to use the button near their thumb instead.
I get that not everyone has this same experience, but it seems like most people already know where the emergency release is on the Tesla, even if they're not owners.
I think the problem is more that people don't even look for an emergency release because they assume there isn't one.
Tesla is not alone (there was a story about someone trapped in a Corvette because they didn't know about the separate emergency release handle).
However, there are examples of doing it better. For example, evidently in the Mach E the emergency release is... pulling the normal door release harder. So there's some detent for 'normal electric opening of door' and then if you are more frantic, pulling harder to really open the door.
They are not hidden, I proactively tell new passengers to use the button not the emergency pull handle. If you use the emergency release the window doesn’t drop and can mess up the window trim. I learned to warn people after the first 3 passengers pulled the handle automatically instead of pressing the button marked ‘door’.