Gotcha. Never struggled to get into or out of my Mach E. Had one guest that needed an explainer (78 yo MIL).
As I understand the manual, p 81 for 2023 MY, the rear door interior handle requires a double pull. The first pull unlocks the door, and the second pull unlatches the door. Or so the manual says. I think this applies regardless of 12 v status. Disclaimer, I have not “tested” exiting the car from the back seat . Neither has Pebbles the ?. She says one of the reasons she maintains a staff of humans is to perform tasks like opening doors?.
To be clear, this accident, in Canada had ZERO to do with doors not opening from the inside. This was a violent, high-speed accident that was so bad part of the battery was ejected from the vehicle. One person was rescued by people who broke a window to gain entrance. A 1965 car with the doors locked would have the same issue - people on the outside being unable to open the locked door.
In addition , on the Mach E, the “Post-Crash Alert System” is designed, among other things, to “unlock all doors in the event of a serious impact that deploys an airbag or the seatbelt pretensioners.” MY 2023 manual p 309. Could the system fail in the event of a catastrophic failure of the vehicle structure as in the Tesla crash described above? I don’t know. And I agree all accidents involving serious personal injury or death are catastrophic regardless of the degree of property damage.
The WI accident happened on a narrower two lane road lined by large trees about 11:15 pm. The car left the road and hit a tree. I have not seen reports of how fast the car was traveling or whether the victims died upon impact. People who live in the area claim, online, drivers tend to “drop the hammer” in this stretch of two lane. Whether speed or other factors, such as a tire failure, were involved in this case with a major structural failure of the car, I don’t know, nor do I know if the local authorities have issued any final reports. It’s possible that being an electric vehicle didn’t make the consequences worse than if it had been an ICE vehicle. Either way, lives lost is a tragedy.
As @rreddy3 notes below, you should not be making any claims that anyone was trapped in a Tesla and couldn't get out". That has no basis in fact at this time.
Right.
It is possible for the Door Control Module to fail in a way that prevents the door from being opened at all, even from the inside. Happened on my vehicle and the dealership had to break the door panel to release the latch and repair. Alleged cause was water intrusion due to a bad seal on the window. Maybe not a likely mode of failure in a fire, but if you dirve the car into a lake . . .
Thanks for that analysis. Seriously. It’s a bit overdue in this thread.
Nope, not primarily anyway. Every little bit of parasite drag adds up to a lot of drag. Drag is an EV range killer. It all matters. The option was to go with flush door handles similar to Tesla. Those are more complex than regular car door handles and adds even more complexity and failure points.
Agreed, if only this Forum had a search that members could use to find threads before they ask the same question over and over.
I agree. FWIW, I have better luck googling a question than using the forum search function. Often google will bring up Forum hits for me more readily than searching here.
