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Comment by MrFoof | Hacker News Reader

GM also has electronic primary door release mechanisms in their vehicles. So if the car has no power, you can’t open the doors from inside.

Granted, because of regulatory requirements there is STILL A MANUAL RELEASE… on the floor, near the chassis sill (and might be driver-seat only). So you save money going to electronic releases, but still have to put a manual one in anyways.

The glovebox is merely annoying (though I can think of edge case situations where it could lead to your death), but with the door release, there are documented instances where it HAS led to someone’s death: https://jalopnik.com/texas-man-and-his-dog-die-after-getting...

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> GM also has electronic primary door release mechanisms in their vehicles.

They often have them hidden, though.

The other day, a friend of mine had his keys on the table. His car key was the common "oblong box" variety. A small black box, with a couple of buttons.

I asked him if he'd ever had a battery issue, and he said no, but he had nightmares about it.

I then showed him his "hidden" manual key (usually, there's a fingernail slot).

Then, we had to spend some time, looking around his car, for the keyhole.

It turned out to be under the driver's side door handle, covered by a plastic plug.

I am very surprised the regulations are not more stringent than that. Requiring a manual door release on every door should be the bare minimum.

At a height that is reachable by anyone with the myriad of disabilities that would prevent you from being able to lean down and search the floor near your seat in the middle of the night on an unlit road. Not even bringing in damage to the car.

Also, finding the release in a panic when you haven't used it frequently or at all could be difficult.

Current regulations weren't written when this was feasible. Regulators are always playing catch-up game.

Sounds risky by manufacturers to be caught out by this

They probably already have lobbyists at the ready should these concerns appear as a blip on some political agenda. :(

How does electronic release save money (or when is the breakeven), considering the engineering of the electronic / sw system and the new emergency release system vs adapting the usual manual system to a new car model?

It feels a bit like what happens when you have too many designers with too little to do.

Electronic locks create future revenue opportunities! Maybe the next auto industry innovation will be subscription doors. "Upgrade your vehicle from 3 doors to 4, just $19.99/month!"

if you're doors won't open when the power goes out, that is just frikkin' stupid.

Not only stupid. That is plain criminal.

I was in a car crash as a child. Two cars caught fire, although I didn't realise it until I got out.

My door was blocked by another vehicle, as was my dad's. He was busy trying to get my sister to open her front passenger door, so he could clamber out after her.

The other rear door was damaged, and I had to pull the latch and then kick it to open it. (Not sure how that would work with one of these small manual release things.)

But parents: if you have a daft car with electronic doors, make sure your children know where the manual release is, both front and rear.

It might also be good to have a car window breaker tool (or maybe more than one) someplace easy to reach. They usually also include a seat belt cutter so you can get out of the crash has jammed your seat belt mechanism.

Some newer cars have switched from tempered glass to laminated glass for their side windows though which may make these tools useless on your car, so check that first.

Here's an article on these tools [1]. Here's one on the move to laminated glass [2].

Here are some links to window breakers that you might be able to find in stock locally and a couple at Amazon [3,4,5,6,7].

[1] https://www.thedrive.com/reviews/29811/best-car-window-break...

[2] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/aaa-laminated-glass-emerg...

[3] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Auto-Drive-2-IN-1-Rescue-Tool-Sea...

[4] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Hyper-Tough-3-In-1-LED-Flashlight...

[5] https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/custom-accessories/cust...

[6] https://www.amazon.com/RESQME-Original-Emergency-Keychain-Se...

[7] https://www.amazon.com/Emergency-Escape-Breaker-Reflective-S...

> It might also be good to have a car window breaker tool (or maybe more than one) someplace easy to reach.

Not to worry, I keep one in the glove box.

Just don’t store it in the glove box… An otherwise perfect place for it.

How does this work in a plain-old car with child locks set on the rear doors?

My children had opened the doors while the car was moving at least once before I had to use the child locks; now, as far as I can tell, nobody is getting out of the back doors unless they're opened from the outside.

Uninjured children can probably climb through to the front and use those doors, even if the driver is injured. I would think a 5 year old should manage that? But they would be familiar with how the doors normally open, and probably not an emergency release handle.

(I was 11.)

I was thinking more of the scenario of the front doors are blocked so the adults need to climb in the back to get out.

My children are only 1yo and 3yo so younger than your story. I don't imagine needing the child locks when they're that age.

Maybe they disable if an airbag is triggered? Could also be the child lock requires constant current, so that it’s off by default?

Maybe on some supermodern cars (which probably won't open at all after the crash breaks a few computers in there). But in all cars I have owned, the safety switch was mechanical, not electronic. If it's working, you can lower the window and open from the outside. But generally, children old enough to be able to take care of themselves in a car accident should probably have the safety unlocked already.

That's it isn't it; by the time my children are old enough to be able to do this, the child locks won't be on. I guess that's when they're old enough to be told not to open the doors "until it's safe" and actually listen and understand.

In my car they're mechanical, as I assume they still are in most modern, non-hyper-modern cars (like Teslas) so my curiosity was more of a "is there an exit strategy if the child locks are on and it's not possible to exit through the front doors"?

There's no mechanical override inside the boot (trunk) that I'm aware of and the mechanical child locks also have no internal override (that I'm aware of).

I guess in case of emergencies, the windows are the best exit strategy in such a hypothetical situation.

My impression is that all cars are intended to have a safety unlock in the trunk. I assumed it was mostly in case someone gets stuck inside, but maybe it's to escape through back seats in an accident.

That sounds super hard to pull off though, especially if injured and with an adrenaline rush that might help you problem solve but if this stuff is never habitually used it seems like a challenge even with no stress or urgency.

It's an escape room unless you've read the manual closely and practiced...

This is why I have a seatbelt cutter/ window break tool in the center console

This sort of thing will keep me burning fossil fuels and using older model cars.

This sort of thing is why I'll never buy a car in the first place. It's cheaper and doesn't burn fossil fuels.

Heck, "not buying a car" is one of those very few decisions I took when I was young which resulted in me not being in debt for the rest of my life.

Don't buy a car, buy real estate somewhere you don't need one is properly good advice!

My wife (I don't drive myself) has a VW eUp. Fully electric, no touch screen, manual doorlocks. It's not very big, though.

This nonsense is starting to appear in ICE cars too.

The glove box is where I keep my safety hammer.

Time to put a safety glovebox crowbar in your center console.

No good, the button to open the center console is located on a touchscreen inside the glovebox.

Hey no problem, I drive with the touchscreen anyway.

Really sounds like I'll have to.

Same with Tesla. It’s dumb.

The model s door latch will electronically release at the beginning of travel, and if that hasn't worked, continuing to move the latch will open the door mechanically.

Don't blame GM for something Tesla popularized...

That's incredibly naive.

It sounds like you're saying it's okay to do stupid stuff as long as someone popular does it first.

The OP's comment implies that GM is responsible for this trend, whereas they may simply be trying to meet consumer demand. Many consumers would like their cars to feel as "premium" as a Tesla and they are willing to vote with their wallet.

Isn't this how most of the 'civilized' world operates?

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