Wow that's a shitty headline. It makes it seem like the the truck went ED-209 in their ass. As far as I can tell from the article they couldn't be rescued because of the fire.
Well that and the fact the people inside and outside have tremendous difficulty opening a door or window if power fails.
In situations where emergency responders can't open a door, they try:
To smash a window. Which is difficult if the window is designed to stop 9mm parabellum.
Cut the door posts with the 'jaws of life'. Which is difficult if they can't smash the windows, and even more difficult to cut stainless steel bulletproof panels.
Basically the Cybertruck is the only commercial vehicle designed not to be opened.
I acknowledge there are manual ways to do this inside the car, but they are hidden and drivers (let alone occasional passengers) don't practice this, and so don't remember at times of stress.
These are specific points in UK road safety regulations and those are just 2 of the reasons why the UK banned the CT.
Yes it's a horrible thing to have happened, and I'm sorry for the loss of life, but from reading the article it's not clear how the vehicle being a cyber truck was a contributing factor. One person was rescued. To me it seems the real problem was the 19 year old driver that was drunk.
A preliminary investigation revealed police were unable to extinguish the flames of a Tesla Cybertruck after a crash in Piedmont in November, trapping three and resulting in their deaths
I appreciate the information, It just wasn't in the article at all. The part you quoted didn't explain anything. Only stated the make and model. It's not clear why from the article.
You're getting downvotes by the anti-Tesla hate. But you are correct.
It being a Cybertruck didn't really have anything to do with it. One person was saved, so clearly they were able to get into the vehicle and to the passengers.
Car fires happen all the time, people die in ICE car fires every day. There are an average of 33 car fires every hour in the US. But only the Tesla fires make headlines all the time.
It wasn't a random passerby it was a motorist behind the tesla who saw the crash happen and immediately rendered aid - as the article explains.
Even they could only get 1 person out, so clearly the other three were trapped. No doubt by the intensity of temperature preventing further aid, if not because the electrics then failed trapping the other three.
My point was it was a random civilian that helped, not a trained first responder, like I already pointed out.
Or the other three were already dead from the crash itself. We don't know from the article, because yet again, the article doesn't actually mention anything new. There is no new information here that wasn't already obvious in November when this happened.
The Alameda County Coroner's Bureau said driver Soren Dixon, 19, and passengers Jack Nelson, 20, and Krysta Tsukahara, 19, suffocated from smoke inhalation. Burns contributed to the deaths, the bureau said.
Teslas are the only vehicle that require the occupants to open hidden compartments to access emergency door latches during a fire. So long as that "feature" exists, it should be presumed the cause of every occupant death in a fire until conclusively proven otherwise.
Ah yes, I forgot that door handles are the exact same design in every vehicle from a manufacturer regardless of interior differences. Always the same handle no matter how badly it fits.
I've never had trouble opening a door. You have a Tesla though so you're probably used to having to explain to people how to do otherwise trivial things in your "car of the future". Like how to open the glove box, enter and exit the vehicle, etc.
No, 90% of people have no problem. The few that don't see the button on the door handle, usually go straight for the emergency handle. A very small percentage aren't the type to grab things randomly and just ask if they're not sure.
Everyone focuses on the dumbest takes and experiences, not the real world average. Actually owning a Tesla for the last 6 years and experiencing all of this personally, including long distance trips, and even supercharging on CA on those trips, made me realize just how most online posts about them aren't accurate.
And how defensive some people get when their opinion based solely on reading shit online is challenged by someone with actual experience.
Everyone focuses on the dumbest takes and experiences, not the real world average.
It's completely legitimate criticism that Tesla makes ordinary things difficult for no benefit. In some Tesla's it can be damaging to the car to pull the "emergency handle." That's just legitimately stupid.
I get that "most of the time" everything is fine. But the fact that it's not "all of the time" is just... Why?
And I've seen people ask where the handle is in my buddy's BMW. There's always going to be idiots. Acting like those are the most common group, or even near the average, is stupid.
In some Tesla's it can be damaging to the car to pull the "emergency handle."
This is the case for most vehicles with frameless windows. They have to move the window up and down to seal against the frame and to clear the frame. Tesla isn't anywhere near the first company to have frameless windows, they've existed for several decades, since at least the 1980s. There are a few old vehicles that predate electric windows, and usually have common issues with weather sealing, so it wasn't common until after electric windows allowed for better sealing since the glass could move up under the frame after closing the door. With all of those, if you aren't opening the door in a way that moves the glass, or if the window mechanism is damaged or inoperable for any reason, there can be damage. No one ever likes to talk about those other cars though when this topic comes up, because that tends to undermine the general assumption that it's something only Tesla does.
I'd like to jump in here and point out there is an easy solution to this...
Make a 2 stage handle. 1st stage opens the door with the electronics, pull the handle further to engage the manual override. This is what Ford does in the Mach-E.
So yeah, it's a shitty design to have the emergency door handle as a separate hidden feature.
Oh yes, I forgot that the exact shape and position of this handle is the exact same on those vehicles as well. None of them are the exact same, that's the entire point of the complaints.