Arizona toddler rescued after getting trapped in a Tesla with a dead battery
theverge.com
theverge.com
E.g. the ground fault protection has alot of false positives.
The led battery is way more robust to abuse and faults than a lithium battery, too.
If your Tesla senses a fault in the low voltage system it will cut the connection to the high voltage pack and send you a message saying "pull over your car may not restart" depending on the fault, this message will stay up for hours or even days. At this point your 12V batter is no longer being recharged. Once the battery gets really low the warning messages get more intense and the car will literally not move. At this point the doors still work, usually for hours. There is a ton of warning before your doors won't open.
This is for the lead acid case of older cars. Newer cars have a 12V lithium ion battery with higher capacity that may behave differently.
Next gen Tesla's (starting with the cybertruck) use 48V low voltage architecture that is 4x lower current. Tesla now has the scale to develop the 48V automotive supply chain internally in spite of the resistance from incumbent OEMs.
Overall I give this story a 3/10. Mostly FUD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator_death
I did just read an article where the trapped person, on calling tesla support from inside the locked car, was told there is a "secret" mechanical release under the arm rest. I guess they only want those in teh know to be able to escape 8-/
Personally, I just bought a used Nissan Leaf, with the mechanical door handles, and other mechanical buttons and controls as one of the primary reasons. Putting everything in a touchscreen in a car should be illegal. Just like electric door handles.
E.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=child+locked+themselves+in+c...
In both cases the child is in the car and the door cannot be opened.
In my city, the fire department solves the problem by bashing out a window, just as in this case. I know this because that's what happened when a friend locked in her baby.
That seems more like "exactly the same" than "not remotely the same" to me.
I'll bet it happens dozens of times across the country every single day.
You can't open the door if the battery is dead (or, presumably, the battery has removed by a would-be car thief).
I'm not sure why one of these is a "failure of the car" but not the other.
If the Tesla cars defaulted to "doors open" when the battery was dead/removed, people would be complaining about that.
In both cases, the end outcome is exactly the same: the window gets bashed out by the fire department.
Edit: when a friend of mine locked her kid inside a conventional car a number of years ago, and the fire department broke the window, I assure you the incident did not even make the local news, much less go national.