Hacker News Reader

I own 2019 model 3. Car is falling apart which is why consumer reports Tesla in last place in reliability. Won’t fix things under warranty either, they claimed I hit a something when my front suspension failed which is a very common issue in my car. Also paid for FSD, but not getting upgraded to the new hardware like Musk promised so will never get true FSD. Worst car I ever bought.

What compelled you to buy FSD?

Promise of a self driving car.

Harsh lesson, but, yeah. You should never pay upfront for something which does not currently exist and may never exist.

Why don't you ask for a refund ?

It was mentioned on the Tesla earning's call in Q2 or Q3 2025 that HW3 FSD customers will likely be moved to a version of HW5 that accommodated the older camera sensors.

Why not just make HW4 backwards compatible? Why wait til 2027 to bring backwards compatibility to HW3? HW3 isn’t even on the latest stack any more, it’s on FSD12 and HW4 is on FSD14.

That is just another Musk lie and is never going to happen.

> for the most part outside the Cybertruck they have decent products

your definition of "decent products" is different from mine.

15 People Have Died in Crashes Where Tesla Doors Wouldn’t Open [0, 1]

0: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-22/tesla-doo...

1: https://archive.is/VpB1H

How often does it happen in Chevys or Toyotas? Getting trapped in a car after a crash is common enough that there’s a cutesy nickname for the machine used by rescuers to get people out.

Getting trapped in a crushed car is quite different from the door handles not working or not being discoverable in an emergency.

Sure. How often do other cars’ doors get stuck? Just because the handle is there doesn’t mean the door will open after a violent kinetic event.

If I can't open the door on my CR-V after a crash it will be because there has been serious damage to the door itself or to the frame around the door. The locking and latching mechanisms are entirely in the door and do not rely on any other systems in the car to function. If the door is not severely damaged I can unlock it. If the frame is not damaged then if I can unlock it I can open it.

The incidents people are talking about with cars with electric locking or latching mechanisms I believe are where the door cannot be unlocked because the locking or latching mechanism depends on other systems in the car, typically the 12V power system.

A collision that takes down the 12V system but causes no damage whatsoever to the door or frame can then leave you with a door that would open just fine if you could unlock it, but you can't unlock it because it has no power.

Does the Bloomberg reporting distinguish between these cases?

One of their examples involves a driver who called 911 post-crash and reported they couldn’t open the door. Teslas have mechanical door handles on the interior of the front doors. It’s not hard to find. In fact, it’s so obvious that passengers unfamiliar with the car tend to use it rather than the button.

So what happened here? Did he never try the mechanical handle, or did he try it and it somehow didn’t work? Given how easy the handle is to find, I’d bet on the latter. And there’s nothing about this which makes me think your CR-V’s latch would have fared any better.

Did Bloomberg distinguish between “occupant would have been saved if there had been a mechanical handle” and “occupant would have been saved if the structure hadn’t jammed the door”? It doesn’t sound like it.

The basic fact is, people do get stuck inside crashed cars for all sorts of reasons. Electronic door handles add a new failure mode. But I’d like to know how the aggregate incidents compare, not just declare to be dangerous because it’s an additional failure mode.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GzXEhkI-Y3k

This is not even remotely close to what I'd call "so obvious." The fact that to some people the button is even less obvious than the nearly-invisible "emergency" handle is not credit to your argument, I think.

There's a reason this video exists, and there is a reason many rideshare drivers with Teslas have stickers all over the place explaining how to use the thing. I suspect that's all related to the reason that Tesla is being investigated for trapping people.

You're right, it would require thorough analysis to fully bottom out (that's what investigations are for)

The reason rideshare drivers have stickers is because they don’t want people using the emergency release. It makes an alarm sound and scrapes the glass on the trim a bit when you use it.

I have one of these cars. I’ve never had a passenger who couldn’t immediately open the front door from the inside. I have had most of them try to open it the “wrong” way.

> they don’t want people using the emergency release. It makes an alarm sound and scrapes the glass on the trim a bit when you use it.

wait. waitwaitwaitwait.

previously, you said:

> Teslas have mechanical door handles on the interior of the front doors. It’s not hard to find. In fact, it’s so obvious that passengers unfamiliar with the car tend to use it rather than the button.

I'm having trouble believing those two things are both true.

are you seriously saying that Teslas have an "emergency" mechanical door handle...and it's placed in an obvious spot where passengers tend to grab for it...but using it sounds an alarm and scrapes up the car?

Yep. Model 3/Y do, anyway. I don’t think there’s typically any damage, but the potential is there. The alarm is a quick alert sound, similar to what you get if you open a door while in drive, or simultaneously press the accelerator and brake pedals.

It’s a silly design choice. But not, in my opinion, a dangerous one.

> How often does it happen in Chevys or Toyotas?

three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and whataboutism from Tesla apologists

from the article I linked:

> In an effort to take a comprehensive and systematic look at this issue, Bloomberg sought to examine every fatal EV crash in the US involving a fire. From there, the reporting centered around cases in which there was documented evidence that victims had survived initial impact, and that nonfunctional electric doors had impeded either the occupants’ efforts to escape or rescuers’ attempts to save those inside the vehicle.

this has nothing to do with the Jaws of Life. this is about the car catches fire and the door handles stop working.

One of the reasons the door handle would stop working is if the structure was bent enough to jam the doors.

Let me lay this out for you very clearly:

There are a number of possible reasons that any car's doors might not work. Tesla, Ford, Toyota, doesn't matter. Those are just due to the laws of physics. No one is disputing that.

Teslas have an additional reason that their doors might not work in an emergency. And given the frequency with which it sounds like this is happening, it may be much more common in an emergency scenario for this particular situation to occur than for any of the others.

No one is claiming that any other car on the road is 100% safe in all situations. They are pointing out that Tesla has this extra, totally unnecessary, method of killing its occupants. Dying in terror. Trapped.

What you're doing is effectively like saying, "It's not bad that Evil Water™ With Cyanide kills you! People drown in water all the time! You can even die by drinking regular water if you drink too much! You really shouldn't focus on the cyanide in Evil Water™ With Cyanide!"

That’s a pretty good analogy. Water with cyanide in it does exist. How much of a problem is it? If given a choice between this world and an otherwise identical world with no cyanide-containing water, how eager are you to make the switch? If someone says to you that you should switch because 15 people died from cyanide water, would it be reasonable to inquire about the prevalence of other water-related deaths before making your decision?

Given that, to make the analogy work, the Evil Water™ With Cyanide costs more than most other water, and both types are readily available...I rather think I would never have picked up the Evil Water™ With Cyanide in the first place.

You’re in the grocery aisle choosing between, for whatever reason, almond milk and Coca Cola. Which one is healthier? I say, the almond milk contains cyanide so obviously the Coke is healthier. You’d have to be crazy to even ask how healthy Coke is after I told you that almond milk contains cyanide, right?

You really are absolutely determined to insist that this should not be a factor for anyone in deciding whether to get a Tesla, aren't you?

To the best of my knowledge (and I would be willing to bet money on it), no one in the history of the world has died from the cyanide in almond milk. Despite many millions of cartons of almond milk being sold and consumed every year.

A nontrivial number of people are known to have died specifically because of this failure of Teslas. It is not a hypothetical. It is a real, measurable danger.

Is that number high enough for any given person to choose not to get one? Well, it's high enough for me. And I think that arguing that it shouldn't be even a consideration, as you appear to be, is, at best, disingenuous, and at worst, actively risking people's lives for the sake of supporting a company you happen to like.

I’m absolutely determined to convince people to judge based on all the relevant facts.

An absolute shitload of people die in cars every year. It’s the most dangerous thing most of us do. I want to know what the increment is here. How does it compare to, say, my refusal to cut hamburgers out of my diet?

I’m not arguing it shouldn’t be a consideration. I’m arguing it should be considered as part of the totality of the evidence.

I can guarantee you that there are cars out there much more dangerous than a Tesla. (Anybody want a used Pinto?) If you were ever presented with that choice, I bet you’d have no problem understanding that the one with the electronic door handles is the better choice. And yet when I try to apply this idea more generally, I get attacked, belittled, and accused of risking people’s lives.

> One of the reasons the door handle would stop working is if the structure was bent enough to jam the doors.

right...if a car gets T-boned, that might jam the doors such that they couldn't open. that's true of every model of car.

I have a non-Tesla car, with "old-fashioned" manual door handles. if I got rear-ended, and my driver's side door wasn't physically damaged, I can reasonably expect that my door handle still works, right?

on a Tesla, that's not true. a rear-end collision that damages the electrical system can cause doors that are physically undamaged to stop working. that is a ludicrous design flaw.

People seem confused about the issue.

You can still get out in a Tesla in that situation. There’s a mechanical release. Depending on the model, it’s either the regular handle, or a big obvious thing that people tend to pull instinctively instead of pushing the button.

The issue here is the exterior handles. Those are only electronic.

One of the reasons I’m skeptical of this reporting is that it doesn’t seem to distinguish. They talk about conscious, mobile drivers being trapped after a crash. If that happens, it’s not because of electronic door handles.

Jaws of life

> it's been a great car.

It's not really that great of a car. I mean it's driving an iPad, basically. Also, they've been plagued with reliability issues eg limiting how much you can adjust your seat because they're so prone to breaking [1].

Also, the Cybertruck is an unmitigated disaster in practically every way.

> EVs are very much a luxury item

In the US, this is kinda true but largely due to trade barriers. Things would be very different if we could buy BYD cars.

Charging is part of the problem too combined with how much Americans drive. But Americans partly drive so much because there's practically zero robust public transit infrastructure that forces people to drive, we build houses really spread out and a common charging network isn't a state priority like it is in China.

> very slow to adopt NACS

So, Tesla's Supercharger network was the only moat Tesla had for their cars. Even now, I believe Tesla charges third-party users significantly more [2].

> An EV can last significantly longer than ICE vehicles

I see what you're saying but battery degradation is a serious problem over time, such that EV depreciation is super high.

Also, some ICE vehicles are super reliable and some of those are weirdly banned in the US. I'm thinking specifically of the Toyota Hilux. Japanese cars in general were banned (after lobbying from the auto industry) because of their extreme reliability and low price.

> I have absolutely zero interest in lease deals

Each to their own but IMHO leasing is the smartest way to currently "own" an EV, given the depreciation.

[1]: https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/tesla-now-monitors-how-ofte...

[2]: https://insideevs.com/news/710822/tesla-supercharger-cost-fo...

> It's not really that great of a car. I mean it's driving an iPad, basically. Also, they've been plagued with reliability issues eg limiting how much you can adjust your seat because they're so prone to breaking [1].

Do you own one? I've had one for 6 years and I've never had issues with it, it's the best car I've ever owned. I've driven lots of other EVs, and none are close.

> Things would be very different if we could buy BYD cars.

We've had BYDs and other EVs for many years in Australia, and EVs are still a luxury item.

> Each to their own but IMHO leasing is the smartest way to currently "own" an EV, given the depreciation.

I've never understood Americans and leasing. Aside from specific styles of novated/chattel leases (where there is a tax benefit), leasing a car seems to almost always be a worse deal.

> We've had BYDs and other EVs for many years in Australia, and EVs are still a luxury item.

Australia is much closer to the US than China in terms of public transit and EV infrastructure. In China, now the majority of new car sales are EVs. There are chargers everywhere and much of the time you don't need to drive because any decently sized city has robust and cheap public transit.

Australia isn't as car-dependent as the US but it's honestly not that far off. Perth, for example, is akin to Los Angeles in car dependence as well as cars owned per capita.

> I've never understood Americans and leasing.

It's complicated. It's not strictly better but it's not strictly worse either. It depends on if you want or need to drive a relatively new car vs holding on to a car until it falls apart.

Some will talk down leasing because new cars depreciate the most in the first 2-3 years, which is true. But leasing gives you the option of just handing it back or paying the balloon payment if the car hasn't depreciated as much as predicted (and priced in). This happened in the pandemic when car prices skyrocketed and, for example, used trucks were selling for at or above the MSRP of a new car for the same model because you simply couldn't buy the new one (at or below MSRP).

> There are chargers everywhere and much of the time you don't need to drive because any decently sized city has robust and cheap public transit.

It's definitely not the density of major Chinese cities, but all major cities in Australia have plenty of EV chargwrs and public transport.

> Australia isn't as car-dependent as the US but it's honestly not that far off. Perth, for example, is akin to Los Angeles in car dependence as well as cars owned per capita.

You've picked the most isolated city in the world as your example, with a heavy lean to FIFO workers and disposable income. But even going with it, Perth has high public transport usage [1] and has halved its costs for patrons in the last year [2]. This was an election promise and important to people.

I'm sorry, but I think you're pulling things out of the air here, what you're saying simply isn't accurate.

1. https://www.pta.wa.gov.au/news/media-statements/public-trans...

2. https://www.wa.gov.au/government/media-statements/Cook%20Lab...

> It's definitely not the density of major Chinese cities, but all major cities in Australia have plenty of EV chargwrs and public transport.

I'm sorry but if you think ANY Australian city has good public transit, it's because you simply haven't been to any city with good public transit. Pick pretty much any major city in SE Asia and compare.

> You've picked the most isolated city in the world as your example

Irrelevant. Public transport is within a city. It doesn't matter if that city is 100km from another city or 3000km.

> with a heavy lean to FIFO workers

FIFO workers account for <3% of Perth's population so irrelevant.

> Perth has high public transport usage

It does not. If someone works full-time or is a student they account for about 400 boardings per year. At 148M annual boardings that's 370,000 people averaged out in a city of 2.3M. And I don't even know how they're accounting for transfers (eg bus to train, ferry to bus or train).

All Australian cities have commuter oriented public transport where the goal is just to go between the CBD and home so that's what most people do. As soon as you want to go anywhere else, you have to go via the city, which kills its usefulness.

Also, all of these cities have substantially grown in recent decades to the point that they have significant public transport deserts. So inner Sydney has relatively OK train support but inner Sydney is horrendously expensive to live in. The majority of Sydney's population will live in Western Sydney now, which by comparison is a desert.

So you'll also find that even when people do use public transport, a lot of them are driving to a train or bus station first.

So, even if you can go into the city for work and you choose to do so, you still have a car because you want to go places that aren't work.

I didn't pick Perth randomly. I picked because I know Perth from back when Padbury was the limit of the city in the north and when Rockingham (let alone Mandurah) were basically separate cities and not just part of a seamless unplanned urban sprawl like it is now. I've known Perth from a time when more than half the suburbs that exist now didn't exist.

But what's clear to me is you simply don't know what good public transport is. Go to New York, even London, a whole bunch of European cities, any major developed city in SE Asia or pretty much any city in China (or even Japan) then get back to me.

LA has a rail system too. And buses. And they go downtown. In spite of that the density and the rates of car ownership and cars per capita are pretty similar to Perth. Or Greater Sydney. Because all of them are heavily car dependent.

> We've had BYDs and other EVs for many years in Australia, and EVs are still a luxury item

Are they very heavily tariffed? You can get electric cars made by Dacia (European), Hyundai (Korean) and BYD (Chinese) for under 20k in Ireland. That’s well under the average cost of a new car (40k); hardly luxury.

(Granted, I assume average distance driven is _way_ higher in Australia than Ireland, which may make shortish-range cars less viable.)

EDIT: Was curious, looked it up.

> The BYD Atto 1 [also known as the Seagull and Dolphin Surf in some markets] is the cheapest electric car in Australia starting from $23,990 plus on-road costs

That’s 13k euro. There is no world in which that is a luxury car.

The Atto 1 is one of very few (maybe the only?) EVs in Australia under $40k AUD. It has a range of 200km (in best conditions) and launched about 3 weeks ago.

Whilst it may have an impact and change it, the fact remains currently EVs are significantly above a normal base model new car price in Australia and this has made them a relatively luxury item.

Also for clarity, I am stating it is a luxury item - i.e outside the spending of a normal household, not a luxury car, which has its own definitions in Australia.

[1] You say it like it is a bad thing? Next you will say car manufacturers are monitoring engine temperature...

120 sec of usage in 300 sec is plenty. If they did 599 sec in 600 sec, you'll still complain because you are here to complain; you are not a user.

Car letting me know I'm stressing the motor is a good thing.

I oil change once a year. I fill in gas once every like 7-10 days, half the time someone pumps it for me. It takes five minutes, maybe. I don't need to fuss about range, chargers or connect my car as it were a phone when I'm home every day. I find EVs an inconvenience. There are many reasons why choose an EV, and I just might, but these are not.

Would you prefer if your phone required a trip to a dedicated refilling station once a week, even if it only took 5 minutes?

Because that's the kind of logic you're implying about your car – that it's more convenient driving somewhere once a week rather than just plugging it in at night before bed.

I'm not driving somewhere special though. I have plenty of gas stations around. I don't think this is outside the norm, most communities have gas stations along their main roads.

Now if you reframed the question and said "visit once a week to charge your phone but you wouldn't have to think of the battery or charger rest of the time".. doesn't seem half bad.

If you have a home charger, it's like having a gas station right where you park. That's where EVs win. It takes me 2 seconds to plug in the car when I get out of it and I have a full tank whenever I need to use it.

I think apartment complexes are where EVs have a bigger problem. What's needed to make EVs a lot more convenient is more L2 charger (or even L1 chargers) in a lot more locations.

> I oil change once a year. I fill in gas once every like 7-10 days, half the time someone pumps it for me. It takes five minutes, maybe. I don't need to fuss about range, chargers or connect my car as it were a phone when I'm home every day. I find EVs an inconvenience.

I suspect I spend less time plugging in my car when I get home than you do filling up with petrol per annum. Having to stop at a service station is objectively less convenient than plugging in when you get home.

Congrats on only needing to do an oil change once per year. I need to do 3-4. I’ve done stuff to make it less annoying but I would still love to get an EV as my next car and not need to.

How many miles does your car/oil filter support

Service interval for the car is 15,000km. Some manufacturers even do 30,000km, synthetic oils support that but I prefer to just put it in once a year, at about 15k.

This is well said.

Tesla, for all their problems, is the only manufacturer you can count on prioritizing and long term updating their EVs.

There’s also Rivian. My R1S is my favorite car I’ve ever owned and this is going to be their “Model 3 year” when the R2 comes out. There’s also Lucid and Zoox.

And the Chinese manufacturers, of course. If you haven’t been outside the US lately you don’t realize just how popular BYD is everywhere but here. I’m in Thailand at the moment and they are everywhere. Mexico too.

We are on the waiting list for the Rivian R2. Looks promising! The other Rivians are too big. I am in Canada and we don't really have access to many Asian made EVs.

Why? They're an energy errr robotics err AI company now. Seems to me like they're all but calling it quits on cars.

> prioritizing and long term updating their EVs

Is that a euphemism for having an aging lineup? Not releasing anything new -- ??? --> must be prioritizing (huh?) and long term updating old ones?

Very objective comment surely, comming from an account that has only 2 comments ever on HN, both praising their Tesla. Definitely not a bot.

Im not a bot. I also don't believe I was praising Tesla. I won't buy another one even if I haven't had any issues with the one I currently have. My Model 3 has honestly been a great car for me. If it was any other manufacturer I would have absolutely bought another one. I will only consider an EV but I won't buy another Tesla. It's pretty unfortunate TBH.

> I also wouldn't consider a Tesla at this point

How does the above fit into your "bot" hypothesis?

Huh? This guy just declared he'll never buy another Tesla again. How is that giving it praise?