I'd expect that the passengers may not have known about the emergency releases. It's also possible the releases failed, but all of them?

The article does a poor job of mentioning that those releases are standard to the vehicle. It's discussed elsewhere in this thread too, where they also provided the Model Y's manual.

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html

I mean if there's electronics that control the speed and steering he could just force people to drive straight into a wall at full speed

As if this is hard to believe....

There are no PEs signing off on "consumer products," or even little things like airplanes.

(Seriously, PEs are only relevant in engineering fields where design is easily governed by standards, such as HVAC and civil.)

The people who design the Tesla cars are not engineers. They're a bunch of tech geeks who think they're engineers.

I mean, ask yourself this why is. Every single automobile that exists today with the exception of the Tesla can handle rain and car washes with absolutely no issues and yet Teslas have to have a special button to close off certain parts of the car so that the air intake doesn't get too wet otherwise the car ends up stinking horribly of mildew.

They won't because this would require a trial where rich people wouldn't benefit, which is a waste of government resources, which goes against the Department of Government Efficiency's goals. More efficient to throw these poor souls' families under the bus.

Where's the Safety FMEA! Show me the FMEA!

Risk 3452.7: feature, door. Function, opens during fire, failure mode: won't open during fire, trapping people inside. Cause: the darn things are electronic! So if the battery fails in a big ass fire with people inside, those fuckers are gonna cook real good! Engineering controls in place to prevent the failure mode: 200,000 units delivered in time! As in it took time to deliver the units. Risk rank: 😉 it's Frank! 😄 My name's Frank! Not rank!

Well I'm glad we took time to mitigate these risks.

most Teslas come with manual release levers.

MOST?

Now, now, remember correlation is not causation. Maybe it's not the unintuitive design; maybe a disproportionate number of idiots buy Teslas?

In the case of the model Y referenced, this release is under a mat. You wouldn't see it in normal operation.

I have a Civic with a manual door handle, but after reading your comment ... I think I'm going to get one to leave in the car just in case.

The spring-loaded kind are a lot easier to use in a cramped car and by people with less upper body strength. However, those won't work on newer cars with dual-pane or laminated glass

I've seen people say that emergency window hammers don't work with Tesla windows as they're laminated in current models.

Would that work in a car that purports to have bulletproof windows?

How the fuck is being sad about preventable deaths “outrage culture”?

Why does stoposto promote Shitty Post Culture?

I think it's more like

Car on fire PANIC!!! OH SHIT I can't just pull this door handle to get out. Oh God it's so hot, what's happening ... (Get disoriented) ... Trying to find a way out still. A series of steps with a hidden release has to happen - hope you knew that before you climbed in.

Yeah many cars do have electronic doors, but they can be easily opened without electricity in a simple way. Yank the handle.

For some reason Tesla thought that was a bad idea. It's stupid, I know they should have broken a window but when you're panicking going on years of experience opening car doors you're going to try to open them the way you know how.

So, yeah, it's not just because it's a Tesla - it's because it's a dangerous and dumb engineering choice that they made which puts people's lives in danger unnecessarily.

If there was a burning car and I had to open your Tesla's door from the outside to save you, you're dead because I wouldn't be able to figure out how to use the handle, regardless of whether the thing was still powered or not.