If you’re in a car and it starts burning, you’re going to open a door and get out as quickly as possible. However, in some Tesla fires, there are concerns that vehicle occupants have perished when the electrically-activated doors have failed to open in an emergency situation. Now, some safety-minded owners have found a solution: installing ripcords in their vehicles for quick escapes.
Many Tesla vehicles use electronic push-button door releases, which are all well and good until the vehicle is damaged or loses power. For safety’s sake, the doors also have manual releases, but they can be very hard to spot, particularly in an emergency. In many of Tesla’s vehicles, the emergency pull cords are hidden behind panels or trim, and you need to know where to look. If you’re in a burning vehicle that’s filling with smoke, your chances of finding them without prior knowledge are slim to none.
As reported by FuelArc, there’s an easy fix for this issue. The emergency door releases simply need to be made more visible. Creative owners have achieved that by attaching a big, brightly colored ripcord to the emergency door release mechanism.
Thanks for the idea! Rear door emergency release.
byu/JazzlikePlantain4967 inTeslaModelY
A common way to achieve this is with the use of a simple keychain. Many brightly-colored examples are readily available online. Aviation-themed examples are particularly appropriate, such as this “PULL TO EJECT” example shown on Reddit. Another poster on Imgur went with a “DON’T PANIC” tag, which is amusing, if less obvious as to its purpose.
As these posts demonstrate, the keychains can easily be threaded onto the mechanical door release already in the rear doors of the Tesla Model Y. The same method can also be used, with some variation, on other Tesla models like the Model 3, and potentially even the Cybertruck, to make the emergency door pulls more visible.
The benefit of installing such a device is that it makes the door release far more obvious. This is particularly helpful for passengers who don’t own or routinely ride in a Tesla. They might never find a door release hidden under a panel in the door card, but they can easily spot a yellow “PULL TO EJECT” tag and operate it intuitively.
If you don’t fancy homebrewing a solution with a keychain, there are off-the-shelf options, too. Tesery sells a “Safety Pull Cord” for the Tesla Model Y that looks a little more OEM-like for $23 AUD ($15 USD), and EV Dynamics sells a hi-viz orange version on Amazon for $22.50.
It might sound like a frivolous or paranoid modification, but it’s anything but the case. News outlets have reported on multiple Tesla fires where lives have been lost when occupants couldn’t escape a burning vehicle. The Oaklandside reported on a fatal crash in California last year where rescuers were only able to save one of several occupants trapped inside, having broken windows to gain access when doors failed to open. Meanwhile, The Star reported on a crash in Toronto that killed four. Bystanders and rescuers suspected the electronic door release had failed, as the occupants were unable to free themselves from the vehicle. In the wake of the tragedy, Randy Schmitz, captain of the Calgary Fire Department, noted that many drivers didn’t know how to find the manual door override:
Part of the problem is [salespeople] don’t inform the vehicle owners of this feature so it falls on the vehicle’s owner to seek out the information in their service manual that comes with every vehicle,” he said.
This video explains where to find the emergency door releases in the Tesla Model Y. On the front doors, it’s quite easy to find ahead of the power window switches. The rear door emergency release is far harder to access, hidden under a mat and a plastic panel.
As more cars adopt electronic door releases, this is a problem that may become more widespread. Some automakers get around the problem with smart engineering. As Consumer Reports notes, one can trigger the emergency release in the Audi E-Tron by pulling the door handle “forcefully” and “beyond its noticeable resistance” multiple times. That’s perfectly intuitive, because it’s exactly what you’d be doing if you were trying to escape a burning car. Similarly, the door handle in the Ford Mustang Mach-E also works as the manual release. However, other automakers have stuck with less obvious emergency releases—notable examples being the Chevrolet Corvette, Lincoln Continental, and the Genesis G90.
One might hope that automakers would just go back to using regular door handles, but it seems that horse has bolted. If you’re driving a car with electronic door buttons, there’s not much to do other than familiarize yourself with the proper escape routines—and educate your passengers, as well.
As it stands, if you’re driving a Tesla, and you worry about your passengers making a quick escape, you might like to invest in a cheap little modification for your own peace of mind. As the saying goes, sometimes it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
Image credits: via Amazon, Tesery, Tesla
Top graphic images: Tesla; Martin-Baker
I added rip cords the second I got my Tesla home. They are obnoxiously yellow and impossible to miss when looking for them.
Aside from that, I like thumbing the button and pushing. The button itself is very tactile and lets you know in no uncertain terms it has been pressed.
Now the new facelifted Tesla Y has crap buttons. I tried a few today and was underwhelmed. Capacitative buttons on the steering wheel and the door opening buttons had zero feedback. Plus if the window is fully down pressing the button raises it up an inch. No, dammit, the rolled down windows needs to stay down! Whoever signed off on that bit of code needs to see what they’ve done and explain why it’s a good idea. Because it very much isn’t.