In the past, laminated glass was usually installed in the windshield, with side and rear windows being tempered only.
The difference is that tempered glass is per-stressed so that when it cracks, it shatters into many tiny and dull pieces. Laminated is the same thing, but with layers of plastic sandwiched with layers of tempered glass. Laminated glass will still shatter, but will be held together by the plastic layers.
In an emergency, small improvised, or purpose built tools meant to shatter tempered glass will be useless if the glass is laminated.
The problem wasn’t the glass.
The problem was using wtf touchscreen controls to shift between drive and reverse. Mrs. Chao confused the two then died.
Shitty UI kills another person. Tesla fucking up basic UI design is the real villain here.
I still blame Jeep for thinking a rotating selector was a good idea for a gear shifter. RIP Anton Yelchin.
I thought his jeep issue was that P on the dial didn’t actually guarantee the parking pawl was engaged to stop it from rolling. Separate from the lack of positive engagement with the P position, more about the physical disconnect between the two. Unless that was just the non-offensive language version of “user didn’t turn the dial all the way and our polite warning chime was too polite”
At least you can still feel the rotating Jeep shitty gear selector.
Touchscreen controls on a Tesla have no feel or feedback. It’s a touchscreen.
Sounds like both things are a problem?
I’m more inclined to blame Tesla’s electronic locks and confusing manual override before blaming the windows though
Quick, do you know which panel to remove to find the non-electronic manual override in a Tesla? Car is sinking fast and the electronics just shorted out from the lake.
But sure, tons of bad design decisions here. It’s hard to blame any one of them as the singular cause. If Tesla had easier to use manual override doors instead of electronic locks, if the windows could be broken, if the screen wasn’t a confusing touchscreen mess, etc. Etc. Lots of factors and all are the cause.
find the non-electronic manual override in a Tesla?
a Tesla? There’s a legitimate point y’all are missing where they are different per model or over time
Probably doesn’t help that Teslas guess which direction you want to go in and you have to change it if it’s wrong. https://www.autoblog.com/2021/01/28/tesla-new-gear-shifter-guesses-direction-you-want/
Yeah, only on the newer ones tho. My buddy got I wanna say a 2022? And it doesn’t have that. He specifically said if it did, he wouldn’t have bought it.
she could have not floored it into a lake, but maybe I’m the only person that doesn’t go balls out when they’re backing out of a spot.
Accidents happen, and people panic. Maybe she thought she was pressing the breaks and made the problem worse. I highly doubt anyone would do it intentionally.
So then why blame the car?
By default, Teslas are set in “one pedal driving” mode, which makes it so that the wheels won’t turn without the throttle/accelerator being pressed. That’s a different interface and behavior from the traditional automatic transmission, where simply lifting the foot off the brake pedal allows the vehicle to roll either forward or backward, depending on whether it’s in D or R.
The selection of the “transmission” setting of P R D in a Tesla also doesn’t have tactile feedback that subtly communicates which direction it’s set to.
The combination of the two means that the car is different in these ways and can contribute to mistaken gear selection plus application of the throttle, compared to a typical car.
i felt more than a little sick to my stomach at “one pedal driving”.
Ahh, no. Plenty of automatic vehicles will either not move or move very slowly when idling in drive, and you will always need to accelerate if you’re facing uphill.
It definitely sounds like the driver was at least partially to blame.
Because they have changed the car controls radically. It’s not intuitive for many people.
The car relies on systems which add undue complexity and area for failure in unforeseen circumstances. Solenoid doors have been around since the 50s, but there are reasons they were never common until Tesla decided to use them.
I’m not saying the lady is blameless and it’s all the cars fault. But design decisions on the Tesla do makes them more difficult to use/escape from in an emergency situation.
Cause people want to blame the car?
Because insufferable Tesla fanbois have for literally fucking years told us that touchscreen controls are better.
No they aren’t you dumb fucks. When you cant feel reverse vs feeling drive, people will get confused. And when you get confused on a 3 ton 600horsepower vehicle, people fucking die.
Go shove the shitty defense of touchscreen controls up all your collective asses. Tesla fanbois are insufferable.
Anyway, human computer interaction folks (HCI) have been talking about these issues for literally a decade. Tesla vehicles are prone to sudden unintended acceleration. Tons of people have gotten locked inside a Tesla unable to escape. Etc. Etc. Tons of terrible UI issues and human control issues. It’s well known at this point.
Anyway, human computer interaction folks (HCI) have been talking about these issues for literally a decade. Tesla vehicles are prone to sudden unintended acceleration. Tons of people have gotten locked inside a Tesla unable to escape. Etc. Etc. Tons of terrible UI issues and human control issues. It’s well known at this point.
These folks just wanna fanboy/girl over being scammed by their favorite billionaire for the lol memes.
The main problem is that all these companies have no experience with ISO26262 or Functional Safety for Road Vehicles. Replace “Tesla” with “BYD” and look at the number of news headlines regarding exploding cars in China.
Only benefit that comes from cars coming from the big 3 is that there’s at least a few years of experience behind the design (even if its a bad one) so that it at least it doesn’t blow up, or lock you in when its on fire.
Show us on the doll where the tesla drivers annoyed you?
Right here sir, where all the dead people are from obvious safety glitches.
Tesla cars can’t even reliably open their doors when they catch on fire or sink into a lake. Electronic locks, electronic touchscreen shifter, electronic death traps.
You can’t even turn on the windshield wiper without dumb electronics getting in the way of stupid Tesla’s.
Yeah this is a little nutty seeing people with axes to grind.
An old lady drives her 2005 car through a restaurant entrance and people blame the driver and say things like “driving tests should be mandatory every X years.” A woman in a Tesla launches her car into a lake and people jump to the drivers defense, make excuses as to why the driver isn’t responsible, and want to complain about whatever bullshit the CEO tweeted out in the last week.
It’s almost comical to witness.
she made a mistake. good design could have prevented her crash, and less negligent design should have let her live. absolute worst case scenario, it should have been an expensive mistake, but not a fatal one.
Hertz stopped offering Tesla rentals because Teslas are designed to go balls out when the pedal is lightly touched and too often that involves straight into a wall or a lake
personally i like to sit on my bike and just topple over, then start crying
I don’t know about you, but in these parts we spin the gear selector to random, floor it and yell “JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL!”
One pedal braking makes this a bit tricky for people who are not used to it and/or panicking. You spend decades of your life having a seperate “go” and “stop” pedal, and then suddenly they’re the same one. You have your foot over the accelerator, lift a bit and feel the deceleration as if you’re pressing the brake.
Suddenly, something darts behind you, and your brain says “I’m feeling deceleration, so your foot is on the pedal that stops things” and you slam on it like you would the brake pedal. I’ve done it with the clutch/brake after hopping back and forth between a manual and automatic a few dozen times after a very long day of vehicle testing. Muscle memory is a powerful thing and your brain’s mental model of the world is not always correct.
Imagine if water spilled or leaked from the window onto the touchscreen, try using a wet smartphone… Could be touchscreen device malfunction or misclick causing the Tesla fatality
Good thing Teslas are known to not leak at all
I feel the sarcasm dripping from this comment…
You seem to have very detailed information on how the accident happened. Care to share?
Within minutes of saying her goodbyes, she called one of her friends in a panic. While making a three-point turn, she had put the car in reverse instead of drive, she said. It is a mistake she had made before with the Tesla gearshift. The car had zipped backward, tipping over an embankment and into a pond. It was sinking fast. Could they help her?
it shatters into many tiny and dull pieces
Those pieces are not dull. They’re just not jagged and shaped like knives like normal glass. I accidentally broke the rear window on my truck and, thinking it was dull like you described, started to pick it up with my hands. Big mistake.
You just unlocked a very unpleasant memory of picking up small glass pieces with my hand. Like you said, big mistake and the worst was that I didn’t notice it was cutting at first…
One time I was climbing a rock in a park in Illinois, and reached up into a pile of finely-ground glass.
I managed to pick all but one little piece out of my fingers. That one piece was so far in I couldn’t get it.
Later on, I couldn’t find it. So I figured it had come out.
But a few weeks later my palm itched and that fucking piece of glass poked its way out of my palm.
AHHHHHHHH FUCK
Yeah, they’re absolutely sharp. But since they’re not point, you’ll end with a hundred tiny cuts, instead of a giant shard stabbing through your torso…
Yeah, the part where it separated from the rest of the glass isn’t usually stabby or cutty; but the edges along the corners of the piece sure as hell are! I learned this the hard way…
Good news for 2023 Honda HRV owners, because the rear glass shatters spontaneously on its own.
Kia/Hyundai from 2011 to 2022 have that beat with their entirely key less ignition and universal free ride share program.
Better safe than sorry…
This is astroturfing.
The issue with Tesla has never been that the windows are hard to break. The issue is that the rear doors are electronic with manual override hidden in a camouflaged panel at the bottom of the door pocket. A door pocket that was added to hold things. Those things will block access to the emergency door open.
If you’re underwater you’re not gonna be able to open the doors without breaking the window unless there’s an explosive. But partially submerged when 20% of the door is still above water then yes it should be possible to still open the door
As Mythbusters proved, you wait until the car is almost full of water, and then open the door.
So what you are saying is that maybe you should read the fucking manual before piloting a two ton death machine at highway speeds?
When you bought your car did you physically check to see how the rear seatbelts are operated or did you assume they were standard because of safety standards?
People buy products assuming the minimum standard of safety that has been there for 50 years is still there.
On the model X that was involved in the drowning, no one should be expected to read the user manual to find out the door open latch is a pull string behind the speaker grill.
First of all, yes - I do believe that we should normalize knowing how to operate the safety systems in the cras we drive. It’s crazy to me that’s even controversial. I do actually read the manuals for all the cars I own.
But second, I think there is some confusion here. For the driver and front passenger, there is a clearly visible manual release on the door in the model X. It’s so prominent, most inexperienced users and guests believe it is the primary release The pull behind the speaker grill is the manual release for the rear seats.
On the other hand, an experienced driver might forget it’s there since they never use it. Add in a high-stress situation, and you get a problem.
So you’re saying that the people who need to read the manual are the people in the back seat?
You know, all those Tesla passengers who go out and buy a Tesla manual for some light reading just in case a friend or Uber driver ever happens to give them a ride?
Do you know how to open your back door if the child lock is enabled?
No, because I don’t enable the child lock and would be disturbed if I got in an Uber that had it enabled.
… Astroturfing… For who? Lol.
Someone important died drowning in a Tesla so it’s in the news. This story attempts to get the general population to think the problem is hard to break glass to deflect from Tesla’s design flaw.
Instead of, “Tesla has a serious design flaw that will trap passengers.” everyone is talking about, "all cars have hard to break windows.
It’s a strawman. No one has complained about hard to break glass windows. Emergency window hammers have been sold since the 1940’s. But people have been trying to bring Tesla’s unsafe doors to public attention.
Sheriff’s deputies even stood on top of it during the rescue efforts, trying to bust open a window.
I think it’s ok to let people know that the little window breaker doohickey they have stashed in their console for emergencies might not do shit if they have laminated windows (many newer cars).
There are lots of reasons this can be an issue outside of Tesla making shitty doors- a child or dog trapped in a hot car, an unresponsive/unconscious person, doors jammed during a crash and occupants are injured or unconscious.
If anything is being distracted from here, I think it’s probably that the woman may have been drunk. She was celebrating with old friends, it was after a late dinner. She was on a private road on an estate where it wouldn’t have been a crime to drink and drive. It’s easy to confuse forward and reverse in a Tesla, apparently, but she launched herself over an embankment and far enough into the middle of a pond that rescue workers didn’t have a long enough cable to reach the car. Most people don’t just floor it from the get go.
It’s one of the various factors.
The whole issue is that those window hammers won’t work as well with laminated windows, and now laminated windows are mandated. Maybe someone can point to data suggesting that the laminated windows are safer on average for some reason though.
Another is unintuitive door open versus emergency door open. First car I ever saw do that was a Corvette, and yes people have gotten trapped in those without knowing what to do either. At least older Tesla model got it right, the emergency open is opening it harder. Well except exterior handles not working on an emergency, which Cadillac lyric and mustang Mach e also get wrong.
Broadly speaking, also sticking all the features into touchscreen or capacitive touch is also a bad and industry wide trend, which Tesla is the poster child of taking it too far.
Also, early on cars were trying to figure out human factors of transmission, and safety problems caused “PRND” to be mandated. Now we had that actor killed by Chrysler’s fancy shifter, and Tesla also having a weird shifter that might have contributed to this accident.
Also you have the fact you had a pond near a car travel area with no fencing or guardrail. Another is the consequence of choosing to have a private 900 acre residence in a remote area and what that means for speed and quality of rescue attempts. So it’s not all about car design, but there are multi important factors to consider.
Also the thousands of non billionaire deaths we don’t specifically talk about have a lot to say about what we may do better
This is coming up because of the recent drowning, right? Is someone saying the driver was unable to escape because she was unable to open a back door? It would make sense of there was an issue with rescuers unable to break rear windows, but how is the inaccessibility of the internal rear door emergency open cord relevant to this case?
And Tesla, being the helpful sort, also makes it hard to open the doors in an emergency. The front might have manual door release mechanism somewhere - good luck finding it when the car is on fire or sinking. The rear… not so much.
EuroNCAP is changing its testing regime to negatively score manufacturers who remove critical physical controls and it should probably include door handles in that regime.
I feel they should outright ban them from sale, not just reduce the score.
Not that I disagree with you generally, but in the recent case, manual door release wouldn’t have helped, as it’s basically impossible to push open a car door against the water pressure outside a submerged car.
Yes, you wait for pressure to equalize. But in a Tesla after pressure has equalized and you could open the rear door, the manual rear seat door open is a pull string under a camouflaged panel at the bottom of the door pocket. A door pocket that is probably filled with stuff because Tesla added the door pocket so you can put stuff in it.
It’s intentionally designed to be unsafe.
It’s still possible to open it before the car submerges. It’s also possible to open it if you have the wherewithal to wait until the inside is nearly full. That’s providing you know where the damned release lever is. But if you’re panicking and pulling the electronic release and nothing happens then you’re going to die no matter what. Same too if the car is on fire or whatever.
We need HARD rules and regulations for car door handles and common controls. This push for screens and lack physical elements needs to stop.
You’re not breaking a tempered glass without the designated tool either and almost nobody has that. There’s this famous clip of a news anchor demonstrating how “easy” it is to break a car window with a hammer and he needed like 8 attempts.
My algo shows me nonstop car break ins in the Bay area ( for some reason or another) and they have gloves and it’s amazing how quick they shatter.
Because they have special ceramic tools. Windows will always be incredibly easy for thieves to break with no effort, but they’re incredibly hard for people without specialized burglary tools to break.
Specialized tools oversells it. A chipped sparkplug will work.
Yeah, they’re nothing fancy, but that’s their sole purpose. People aren’t carrying around spark plugs unless they’re car thieves.
I’ve seen videos of them shattering when a coffee mug or spark plug hits them. Sometimes it takes a couple tries.
I don’t know how common they actually are, but I see car window breaker & seatbelt cutter gizmos being sold all over the place. I know I keep one in my car where I can easily get to it, though my car emergency kit is probably better stocked than most people’s, and most first responders also have them in their kit.
Also an automatic center punch will usually do the trick as well, it’s a fairly common tool, though in an emergency it may not be practical to go rooting through your toolbox to find one.
pretty insane that cars don’t just come with the tool already in a special holder at the bottom of the door “pockets”
like it would cost them dollars to do so, no one will notice if you just bake that into the price of the car and i do believe it’s generally considered a good idea to keep your customers alive so they can buy another car.
They’d go the way of the cheap little tire change kit, if the car even has a spare. Nobody would remember where it is, and it’s probably buried under whatever junk is stuffed in the pocket.
It pisses me off to no end that 2 of the 3 cars I’ve owned have not had a spare, but that shitty flat repair kit. Thankfully, the one time I needed a spare I had one, as the flat repair kit would have been worthless the day I clipped a curb on a turn and completely blew out my tire.
Fucking cheap asses making life harder for people…
Yep. The shrinkflation of cars. Cutting out extras like spares to save a buck. Yeah it’s weight that affects economy, but I don’t want to calculate the weight of a 40lb spare on gas consumption vs the cost of the tire or a tow service. FWIW the do make these little collapsible/inflatable spares that can fit in small spaces, but I’d be wary of them with some AWD cars. Can really F up the limited slip allowed in some of the systems.
FWIW the do make these little collapsible/inflatable spares that can fit in small spaces, but I’d be wary of them with some AWD cars.
That honestly sounds worse than using a donut, and the one car that came with a donut got it replaced with a full-sized spare because fuck donuts.
It seems that you don’t know the lengths auto makers will go to save litteral cents on a model line. Adding dollars is absolutely not something done lightly.
Doesn’t cost dollars, literally cents. A tiny hard rock super glued to the key fob should be enough to shatter the tempered glass
Yes, but remember that you’re dealing with MBAs who make it their sole purpose to save pennies. Pennies saved on a few million cars equals more than their salary, which means they keep their job. So fuck a few people dying.
I have one on my pocket knife that goes with me almost everywhere.
Wasn’t it also the door opening mechanism was electronic and it stopped functioning once underwater?
Even a purely mechanical door can be extremely difficult to open when partially submerged. The pressure of the water will hold the door shut until the water equalizes on both sides of the door.
But yeah, once totally submerged and flooded an electric door likely won’t open while a mechanical one will.
Yup, that’s what I learned about being in a flooding car. Wait until it’s filled with water and you’ll be able to open the door since the pressure is equalized. But not having the option at all is bonkers, however someone else mentioned that tesla does have a manual lever, in which case it makes this whole debacle even more tragic and stupid.
There is apparently a manual lever hidden underneath the button, but that sure does seem like a bad design idea in an emergency.
There is apparently a manual lever hidden underneath the button,
“hidden”
It doesnt look marked to me. If someone saw a door like that they would have absolutely no idea that was a lever/button unless they read through the entire owner’s manual. Which let’s be honest, nobody does that these days.
Its not the best picture, but it also has finger holds underneath. For someone looking to pull something, this gets pulled.
Is a door handle ever marked?
Usually manual release safety levers or buttons have red or yellow markings on them, yes. Sometimes they have a logo or icon to denote what they open, and sometimes they are marked with “PULL TO OPEN” or some other similar phrase.
Interesting, I didn’t know that, I’ll have a look in my car next time I get in it.
Does that only apply to doors than normally have an electronic way of opening them?
It could be a massive red lever with “EMERGENCY OPEN” text on it and the Tesla haters would still find something to complain about.
This is about the rear door. The rear door manual override is under the carpet here:
https://images.app.goo.gl/MTFkjk8JPUu4iK7n7
The most recent update added a red latch. It’s still in the bottom of the door pocket.
That’s the front. This is about the rear window. Show the rear door manual override.
Why would the driver of this car, which drowned, be sitting in the rear?
The title of the article is about passenger/rear seats being hard to break.
Fair point, and no the rear does not have manual release. I wish it it.
I hate Tesla and traded mine in after only two months of ownership, but in no way is the lever hidden or not extremely obvious. In fact it is more obvious than the button. Several times I had passengers try to use the manual lever, which doesn’t lower the window when used. After the second person did it, moving forward I told every person who hadn’t been in my car before to use the button before getting out. Was one of the many reasons I traded it in.
But that’s because they were used to other cars. If you’re used to pressing the button, that’s where you’re gonna go in a panic. Fear basically shuts down higher thought processes so you act fast rather than carefully. So the same reflexive action you use to exit in normal circumstances would be the only thing you can conceive of if you’re on fire or drowning.
Another detail is that she was on the phone with people as she was sinking
So what happened with this woman dying, could she not pull the lever?
I have no idea. I wasn’t there and didn’t even know about it until right now. Door could have been jammed shut after the accident like any other door that firefighters keep their jaws of life for.
Yeah it likely sunk into mud thus rendering all the debate over water pressure and lever location mute.
shouldn’t emergency switch and latched be colored different.
yes
Anyone know of a reasonable tool that can get through laminated glass and be kept near the drivers seat?
In the states? Gun.
Rest of the world? Crowbar?
Not a handgun if you want to be able to exit through the opening. Under water? Not sure a shotgun will even be helpful unless you fire at all corners to break it up more thoroughly.
18 pounder cannon, as the founding father’s intended.
Use the same type of glass tool as before to shatter it. Then just push it out of the way. It’s still the same glass. It just stays held together with the plastic.
Will that work when you’re submerged underwater and the pressure of the water is pushing against the glass?
Instead of pushing out, the water pressure will make it fold in on its own after you crack it.
The recommended (and slightly terrifying) advice is to let the car fill first. Basically, use the time and air to prepare yourself. When the car fills, the pressure will equalise, and you can push the windscreen out with your feet.
Unfortunately, unless you’ve thought it through beforehand, most people panic.
I would assume that when shattered it becomes flexible so you can move it out of the way
A “Glass-Master” is what I used in the fire service. Goes a lot faster than you would think.
vixtorinox (swiss army) rescue tool. It’s a locked knife - most probably illegal in many places.
They make safety glass shatter tools and they usually also come with seatbelt cutters attached to them as well. Looks like a really large, sharp ballpoint pen tip.
These don’t work on laminated glass.
I thought ‘victorinox rescue tool’ works for laminated glass. It even has glass cutter.
Small bits of ceramic, like from a broken spark plug easily shatter any tempered glass even when thrown lightly. https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/why-do-spark-plugs-break-windows
They asked about laminated glass not tempered glass.
The reason Tesla was in the news over this was because a rich lady reversed into a pond. So the rear windows wouldn’t be facing up in that situation…
I guess those vehicles’ drivers should always roll down their windows when near bodies of water in case they go in
Tempered glass windows offer better theft protection which is why they are increasingly used.
Laminated*
They’re used for noise insulation not theft. In theft it’s just a minor inconvenience. Shatter the window with a rock, then punch the floppy laminated shards in.
No, more often, it’s smash the laminated window, get confused and then smash another window. If the 2nd window isn’t laminated, they’re in, if it is laminated too, then they smash your quarter glass since they’re basically never laminated.
Unsafe back seat passenger exit starts earlier than that, my 2005 Saturn had a set of horrible doors. I avoided carrying more than one passenger as often as possible.
Your 2005 Saturn didn’t have electronic locks that failed when the 800Volt battery pack touches water.
The number of Tesla drivers getting locked in and dying is disturbing. Who puts a safety critical electronic only lock tied to the main battery pack? Tesla, that’s who.
Fire? Your electronic locks fail and you die. Water? Same same. Etc. Etc.
Keep ranting, but the door locks run off of the 12v.
Is there a separate 12v battery, or are the 12v bits run from a dc-dc converter powered by the high voltage system?
There is a separate 12v that gets recharged by the HV.
