Wow, he referenced her death in his retirement statement, but I just assumed it was age related because… well… look at them.
Always remember, if your car goes in the water, you CAN’T open your door until the pressure equalizes. You have pounds of water pushing against the door, keeping it closed.
Mythbusters went over this… Undo your seat belt and let the water IN. When there’s enough water inside, open the door.
Shortly after Mythbusters did that bit. They were directly credited with saving a trucker’s life. He crashed into a lake. His window didn’t work but he had a manual roof vent, which he was able to open to equalize the pressure. He said he would have never done that if he hadn’t seen the episode because of how scary it was to watch the water pour into his cab.
Spelling
Adam Savage has said that that was the most terrifying myth they’ve tested, and I’m pretty sure even with all of their divers and support crew he thought he was going to die.
I think part of it was the fact that they used an old smoker’s car. I remember him talking about the nicotine burning his eyes and all the smoke and nicotine clouded up the water making seeing anything even more difficult.
Better yet, smash the front wind shield (after seatbelt is off or cut) to get out sooner
Smash anything but a windshield. I’ve needed to violently remove a windshield when replacing it (time was running out and tool shops were closed). Wearing protective glasses and pushing with both legs is what it took to somewhat loosen it, but not immediately remove it. Windshields are a multilayer structure of plastic and glass. Side windows are just glass.
This is a Tesla right? Those door handles are electric, so you need to hope the cars electrics hold and not short. Or you can find the emergency release in the door pocket.
I’ve heard they have some manual door latch backups? do you know if they’d be affected as well?
They’re completely manual. There’s a manual door latch literally right below the button you’d press inside to open it.
Pull that up & the door unlatches to open.
They’re literally designed in for emergencies.
It’s the same in the model 3, Y, & S.
I just watched the video above. I’d say it’s a criminally bad design, because the emergency open is completely hidden from the casual observer and completely blending in with the other colors and shapes of the armrest. This makes it useless in an emergency.
There is a reason why Fire extinguishers, seatbelt release buttons, emergency exit signs, emergency brakes in trains etc. are all designed in bright, red stand-out colors with big letters on them.
Ah I was confusing the front and rear doors. From this video it looks like it’s in the door arm rests, while the rear door is burred in the rear door pocket under a flap. Both appear to operate the latch manually so no electricity required.
There’s no way kids will be able to get out of the car if their parent is unconscious in the front seat…
Stop saying it out loud. Elon can only get so hard.
If the backups aren’t the door handles themselves, where are they located, and how many owners and passengers know about them?
They’re mechanical and hidden behind a panel
Perfect for the emergency situation where you would need them!
Luckily there’s reinforced windows that can’t easily be broken either. I wonder if the EU models are the same because I have a hard time believing that this isn’t breaking several safety regulations. This whole thing is such an ironic and frankly idiotic freak accident.
you can find the emergency release in the door pocket.
Not without some training first. They are inexplicably hidden. I imagine Elon laughing aloud when he reads of people drowning in Teslas, frantically trying to figure out how to escape.
Tragic way to die. I wouldn’t wish this even on my worst enemies.
We all watch the videos of how to deal with this exact situation but in reality only a few people would be able to react accordingly to save themselves.
The article describes the area of water as a “pond” but the vehicle was fully submerged. Rescuers had trouble with rescue attempts due to the depth. Seems more like a lake to me.
I appreciate this. I’m astounded by the callous lack of empathy of some of these other comments.
It was cold out, so she decided to take her Tesla Model X SUV for the four-minute drive rather than walk.
It says everything.
A four-minute drive is like a 20-minute walk. If it was really that cold, I may have done the same thing.
The way you portray it, “it says everything,” is not fair - and yes, I know we’re talking about a billionaire. Like, she deserved to die because she didn’t want to walk in the cold.
Her death shouldn’t have happened the way it did. And again, yes, I know she’s a billionaire, fuck billionaires, etc etc. But her mistake was her not being careful while driving, and potentially the car not being safe enough (e.g. doors jam-locked?)
It’s 100% Tesla’s fault. Mechanical way to open doors is not obvious and hidden, sometimes all together missing. And car relies on power to open the door, which runs out when submerged. Shit car with shit ideas. There’s a reason why windows easily shatter on cars and Musk and his cult followers seem to think getting out of car in case of emergency is less important than sounding cool.
The pressure of the water against the door would’ve prevented her from opening it regardless of the door’s mechanical features or power supply issues.
The windows not shattering is absolutely a Tesla design flaw, but there’s no way that woman was ever going to open a door from inside a submerged car.
True, but there’s some more.
Over here, ice roads are opened on typical winters on several smaller bays. The instruction to drivers is:
- don’t wear a seatbelt
- if ice breaks, open your door swiftly (get out first, then think about calling people)
- if you can’t open the door, lower your window swiftly
- if you can’t lower the window, break it (the side window, not the windshield - a windshield is multilayer laminate, too strong to break quickly)
Typically, if a car sinks on an ice road, people are likely to get out. A crank-operated window is handy in such a case. But regardless of instruction, sometimes folks do die. :(
In general, I would not like to experience any sort of extreme incident in an over-engineered car. I’d prefer something from the 1970-ties, but with airbags.
Always carry a glass breaker in your car within reach of the drivers seat
New Teslas have laminated glass, not tempered glass. It does not shatter.
So they’re death traps
Gotcha
I’ve just learned that laminated glass is now mandatory across all models since 2020.
My car’s headrests have a glass breaker tip at the bottom of the metal bars that you use to raise/lower them. I imagine this is standard in many modern-ish cars.
New Teslas have laminated glass, not tempered glass. It does not shatter.
WTF, how can they just make a change like that, and it get approved to be on the road?
Youtube comment,
Tesla that crashed into a pole, it was on fire, and the driver was trapped behind the laminated glass. Scary situation.
The first in crew that responded had a firefighter try to break the glass with a conventional window punch device, that didn’t work.
Then he tried smashing it with some forcible entry tools, that didn’t work either.
The driver ended up dying. It took 45 mins to extinguish the flames and 15 mins to get the car doors open.
I’ve just learned that laminated glass is now mandatory across all models since 2020.
Is laminated glass why my rented chevy bolt has so many pits? Car’s only got 7k miles on it, but when I drive toward the sun it’s like driving into a glitter storm.
I don’t know. But windshields have been laminated glass since forever.
Makes me think of the supposed bullet-proof cyber truck glass… Odds are much more likely you’ll be trying to escape your car than be under a hail of gunfire lol.
Those aren’t glass breakers, and you probably can’t shatter the glass with those. Car windows are incredibly strong.
https://carseatblog.com/38120/mythbusters-vehicle-headrests-are-meant-to-break-vehicle-windows/
Yeah, a fully closed car side window is extremely strong. However if you’re able to crack it just a bit it is far easier to break.
Yeah, but it’s way harder under water.
I punched a window and broke it back in the day, but that was a junk car from the 80s we were destroying. And I was outside of it with all the room in the world.
Trying to do it while seated inside would have been impossible, and underwater all that pressure against the other side spread out equally makes it really umpossible. It’s basically a giant cushion that absorbs and distributes the force. If you do break it, all that water pressure is going to push it straight in your face, and chances are you’re just going to let the water in, but not create a whole big enough to climb thru. Certainly not u til your car is full of water and pressure equalizes.
If you’re worried about this enough to carry a glass breaker, take a page from the Kia boys and make sure it’s ceramic. Even steel with a point is going to be difficult. But ceramic will shatter it with almost no effort. Gotta keep on bipping
Also, I’ve just learned that laminated glass is now mandatory across all models since 2020. Glass breakers won’t save you.
Oh no
Anyways
If your car ever gets submerged, unbuckle your seatbelt, roll the windows down and once the water gets high enough in the car, you can open the door or climb through the window. This is pure panic from someone who should know better.
In an old car with crank windows, that’ll work. In a new car, the electrics have to still be working, and in a Tesla the OS has to still be running.
If you can’t get the windows down before the water pressure seals them shut, it’s still survivable without a glass breaker if you keep your wits about you and the car doesn’t flip. You’d need to take a deep breath right before the interior completely fills with water and then just sit there until the pressure mostly equalizes. There was at least one reported case of someone in a submerged car specifically crediting their survival to Mythbusters successfully showing just that, but a variation of the scenario involving the car flipping while sinking into deeper water later proved to be much less survivable.
Someone else in this comment thread pointed out that Tesla’s windows are laminated and not tempered so a glass break doesn’t actually work on them.
I just did a quick “fact check” as I was writing this and apparently there are multiple cars that are going to laminated glass windows. I’ll have to add that to the list of things I don’t want and have to check next time I’m shopping for a car.
I’ve just learned that laminated glass is now mandatory across all models since 2020.
