this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
471 points (99.0% liked)

Not The Onion

16291 readers
548 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Tesla owners are modifying their cars to be escapable if the car catches fire, because the doors stop working like normal and you need to rely on well-hidden mechanical overrides.

Which... feels pretty dangerous, like that's the worst possible time for the doors to stop working like normal.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] RickC137@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)

That's just for a few models and just on the front two doors, the rear you have to remove a panel you also have to know exists because it's not marked in hivis. The fun one is that Tesla says you break your warranty if you actually use any of the manual releases including the y's really accessible front one.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I recently went car shopping, and I had considered an EV. I told someone this, and she immediately started recommending Tesla to me, despite Elon's bullshit. She tried to tell me that Elon's insanity doesn't change that Tesla is the "best product in the space".

I have to admit, Elon's bullshit was a big factor in not even giving Tesla the time of day, but there's also issues just like this one. I do not want a car that prioritizes gee-whiz geegaws over basic safety like this.

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago

I think she just added an extra word. Tesla does make the best electric car that is currently in space, because none of the other manufacturers have shot one up there yet.

[–] coaxil@lemm.ee 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Having now driven basically all the EV vehicles available in my country, from the byd range to Hyundai, Nissan and Tesla, Tesla is just a straight mess of a vehicle by comparison, and don't even get me started on the Tesla indicator thing. Oh and they feel cheap on the inside, even the plaid and other high end ones. Lol

Yeah, I ended up going with a Hyundai. I take delivery on it later this week, and I can't wait.

[–] sirico@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

Renault are killing it with their current EVs, Kia and byd are pretty good alternatives

[–] SulaymanF@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Tesla’s advantage was their charging network and that advantage evaporated when Musk opened the network to all other cars so he could slurp up that NEVI money (the money that Trump is ending).

Now there are multiple better alternatives to Tesla.

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 100 points 2 days ago (8 children)

The manual door open on some models of Teslas require removing 2 panels that are not labeled and need a diagram to know how to remove them. Another requires removing the speaker grill and pulling an unlabeled wire.

Even once the manual door release is pulled, without power you need a firefighter's upper body strength to open the door, and it's likely that flames and poisonous smoke will be coming up any tiny gap you can create by pushing open the door a little.

Just willful disregard of your customers' lives.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Honestly, this seems more like incompetence. They hired tech bros to make a car, not safety engineers. How these cars got through safety regulations is beyond me.

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've been saying this a lot lately because it seems like arc words for the zeitgeist we're living through but good gods above and below it just keeps being relevant:

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

When shit's this stupid, it doesn't matter whether they meant it or not...

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Point taken.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 44 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Simple, the regulations don't talk about any of that shit.

US road regulations are a blend of smart, fucking stupid, and just plain missing regulations.

The fact any current "standard" pickup trucks are allowed on the road despite nearly half the population being short enough that they can't see over the hood is just one of the most obvious examples that the US road regulations are pointless to try and make sense of.

[–] AtariDump@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

Now, guess which of those two vehicles is regularly used for anything that actually requires a truck bed vs which of those is used to pick up kids from school.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This all sounds mostly right to me. But the regulations aren't pointless, they're just incomplete. I'm still quite happy that we have these protections.

And also, you tend to only get regulations on issues after they've proven to be a problem. It's like warning labels, if you see a label that says "don't put your hand here" it may be because someone did once, and it was bad.

So with that in mind, there hasn't previously been any need for regulations on door handles that don't work without power, because it's never been an issue before. Now that we see a need for that kind of regulation, we may see it go onto the books. Now it's true that we shouldn't have to spell that kind of thing out in legislation, but (and I can't stress this enough) people can be very dumb...

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

no they probably want you to die after the accident so that you can't tell people how the auto drive feature drove you into the building

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

But how else would Tesla sell futurism to its customers? Door handles and keys are old tech, we need 21st century tech, at all cost!

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 40 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 10 points 2 days ago

OH NO I LOLLED

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 63 points 2 days ago (5 children)

How is this legal? Who let these vehicles on the road?

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 41 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I, for one, am baffled.

How didn't this get recalled after the first escapable entrapment death? I could find 12 fire deaths where the occupants were evidently trapped, and that was just my dumb ass Googling for an afternoon for recent cases, I'm sure there's more.

[–] TrippyHippyDan@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

Sarcasm (but also sadly likely Tesla's take): How are you so sure they wanted to get out?

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall?

You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).

A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall.

If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.

If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

You don't tend to write a rule stating "passengers must be able to easily escape the vehicle in an emergency" until some tech bro makes it hard.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 17 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I did not realize how fucking stupid the gear selector was. I'm even angrier than when I started, and I started pretty angry.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Wow that's a extremely stupid shifter control

Stupider than the "volume knob repurposed as a shifter" from Jeep

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 9 points 2 days ago

Regulators figured nobody would be stupid enough to mess that up and no paragraphs are needed to make things explicit. Then came Elon who thought that technically correct is the best kind of correct so he made this abomination of a manual release.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

if only there was an easier way of not getting trapped in a car...

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago

Yeah but that's really hard to do and has never been invented before!

[–] Matt3999@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Another reason not to buy a Tesla

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (7 children)

At this point I don't know why anyone is buying those death-traps. For me any benefit from the self-driving feature is outweighed by the safety and poor build quality issues.

I recently got a Volkswagen with adaptive cruise control, and I'm absolutely in love with it. Never needed the car to fully drive itself, that's what public transport is for...

[–] Sporkbomber@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Take a look at comma.ai and openpilot to see whether your car is compatible. I've put about 100k miles on my comma running on my Honda Civic. Then you get a working car that's not a deathtrap and improved self driving features.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

You're not missing anything on the self driving side... Teslas only use cameras, so can never and will never actually be self-driving. Not competently, anyways.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't know why anyone is buying those death-traps.

I've got good news, then! Fewer and fewer people are buying the illegal immigrant's dangerous and overpriced swastikar, with new buyers dropping and trade-ins rising every day as public support for the emerald mine nepo baby nazi dwindles daily.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 days ago

I would not expect US auto regulations to improve for at least 3.5 years, minimum.

[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You need to grab the ripcord with your right hand, conveniently placed above the heart, and thrust it forward and up.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] andybytes@programming.dev 8 points 2 days ago

These stupid cucks...

[–] BadlyTimedLuck@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Huh, this reminded me of Five Nights at Freddy's and how even with murderous robots around, there is a safety precaution where the doors open incase power goes out.

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›