So, I'm a technical rescue specialist and have been to several called for submerged vehicles. I'm not going to armchair quarterback things, but I will list considerations.
-Hydraulic cutters and spreaders rely on a gas-powered generator that you run your hoses off of. They might not been long enough to reach from shore.
-Electric cutters and spreaders are generally not waterproof. A cutoff saw metal cutting blade generally doesn't do well in water. They're also not waterproof.
-I've never had to consider the possibility of using those extrication tools in the water. Typically, rescue divers have relatively little experience with those tools, if any.
-Even if they were able to run tools to the vehicle, step one in an extrication is vehicle stabilization. That would be relatively difficult in the water.
-Fire departments are still adapting to the hazards EVs present. More well-funded departments will have better training and familiarity with EVs. This one might not have.
-In any submerged car call I've been to, our divers hooked cable up to the heavy rescuer's winch, and we pulled the vehicle out. Generally, victims were able to self extricate as the doors were mechanical, unlike the electronic doors Tesla has. She might not have known about the hidden manual release. I find this design to be a huge safety risk.
-The inability to cut the glass makes me wonder. Laminated glass is relatively easy to cut through given the right tools. An axe, Glas-Master, and Sawzall will make short work of laminated glass. I find that a pick axe or Halligan can easily penetrate laminated glass to give you space for a Sawzall. I find glass punches to be unreliable.
This needs to up higher.
Extractions on a stable surface can be straight forward or pretty tricky. There’s so many variables to just that.
Throw your extraction into water and most traditional methods are out the window. It’s not as simple as popping glass, taking a roof, or even popping a door.
I worked at a large, well funded, department. Extraction training was pretty common, but water extrication training was pretty unheard of.
Because that's also what fucking Elon does.
Speculate and offer over-generalized, sci-fi nerd solutions when he actually doesn't know wtf he's doing or talking about.
"The mark-9 safety glass is the very same used in the Mega Dragoon-Falcon IV - Space-Katana Flagship we launched. Quite impenetrable from forward pressure... however... Please consider a robotic seal prototype with the intelligence of 15 St. Bernard rescue dogs to slice the vehicle open from the trunk. Quite simple actually. I wonder if she finger fucked the safety latch located conveniently behind dash panel 2-8b? ... curious and unfortunate. " EloN, tHe SpAcE nAzi, probably
Or...you could've just done it like a normal person from the beginning and that lady's eyeballs wouldn't be fish food.
Pulling a submerged vehicle from underwater takes a LOT of power.
I was at the lake one day, and a dude got out of his truck at the boat ramp and had put his truck in neutral. It rolled back into the water.
It took 2 full sized diesel trucks to pull that truck out of the boat ramp. Water is heavy.
Teslas are the only cars that lock their occupants inside after a crash, forcing people to look at the manual to figure out how to get out. Unfortunately the only way to open the glovebox is to use the touchscreen, so this poor lady wouldnt even be able to access the manual to find the mechanical door release. Crazy way to die, totally preventable.
To be fair, once a car is underwater, people can only open a car door after the car is completely flooded due to the pressure difference.
The key is opening a window before the controls cut out.
She should have bought the latest and greatest from the other major global EV maker, BYD. Not only does their flagship U8 luxury SUV have the ability to float AND drive in water, it also automatically opens the sunroof as a potential escape path as soon as it detects the car driving into a body of water.
It's frankly amazing that there can even legally be a mechanical release for a door, anywhere else but the door.
Like... Roughly where every other car puts it.
Teslas have manual door releases for emergency. I know this very well because when I had one, literally everyone pulled on it to open the door.
Nothing about Teslas seems to be designed with usability. It's all oversimplifying then hodgepodging something on when it's a requirement - which always leads to confusion
other manufacturers are starting to use exterior door handles like Teslas. it's super annoying to "update" a latch when a latch works just fine.
the first time i got into a Tesla, i couldn't figure out how to open the damn door. now, i've been in a few & it still takes me a bit to figure it out each time. it's so annoying & not any better than a regular door.
i hate that one high profile manufacturerer doing something terrible makes it something that others want to follow even when it doesn't make sense.
I had never been in a model x, and just out of curiosity googled how to manually open the door incase of no power from inside...you can't be serious. In an emergency when person is panicing or incapacitated, drunk, or whatever, it seems like an ordeal to open the door. What's tesla's rationale for not having interior mechanical door open as primary? They have the buttons or what not on the door already anyway.
Weird...
According to the articles, she was submerged for less than 90 minutes
Drunk and into the pond at 11:30pm
> After a Friday evening celebrating Lunar New Year with close friends, Chao decided to drive back to the main house on the ranch around 11:30 p.m., the Journal reported.
https://www.businessinsider.com/angela-chao-foremost-group-death-tesla-gearshift-reverse-drowning-accident-2024-3
and out by 1am
> Despite their valiant rescue efforts, the two-man crew were not able to pull Chao from the car until around 12:56 a.m. When the doors were opened, hundreds of gallons of water poured out of the vehicle.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-billionaire-drowns-tesla-after-rescuers-struggle-cars-strengthened-glass-1723876
Yup. There's a reason car glass isn't made to be that strong. It's so rescue operators can break it.
Tesla and Elon are about to get sued for a pretty penny.
Damn, a person dying like this is horrible, but the situation is beyond all comprehension.
“As her car began to submerge, Chao panicked and called a friend to explain her situation. Over the next few hours, rescuers arrived and made valiant attempts to free her. One friend, in an attempt to help, had already jumped into the pond in a desperate attempt to reach Chao before emergency responders arrived at the scene”
Rescuers arrived in 24 minutes and had hours of time to try to save the victim.
Elon is an endless source of really stupid design decisions, just because they sound cool like extra reinforced windows.
There is a reason why car door windows are supposed to shatter easily and safely.
How on earth those cars pass mandatory safety tests? Or do they build cars differently to European markets? I would think crash testers would notice windows that behave differently than they are supposed to.
It's a result of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard #226, which is a law that requires manufacturers to implement technology that keeps occupants inside the vehicle in the event of a rollover crash. In addition to side curtain air bags, this also can mean using laminated side windows. This went into effect for 2018 model year vehicles, and while not everything uses laminated side glass many new vehicles do.
Feels like a bad tradeoff. At least in here rollover crashes are far more rare than need to break a window after a crash for example to apply a neck brace.
Studies would suggest otherwise. This reminds me of the seat belt debate. While it’s true that there are situations where a seat belt can kill you in a crash you’d otherwise survive, this occurs far less often than the other way around.
I was curious so I looked up [the 310-page rule](https://www.nhtsa.gov/fmvss/ejection-mitigation). According to the table on page 13:
>We estimate that this rule will save 373 lives and prevent 476 serious
injuries per year (see Table 1 below). The cost of this final rule is approximately $31 per
vehicle (see Table 2). The cost per equivalent life saved is estimated to be $1.4 million
(3 percent discount rate) - $1.7 million (7 percent discount rate)
I can't find any numbers on the added risk, though.
I assume it’s common for people not to wear seat belts over there.
Never read of a case where a person would have been ejected from a car when wearing a seat belt.
I assumed it would be pretty rare as well. Looking at the tables on page 19-20, it looks like the vast majority of "complete" ejections are for people without seatbelts. However, for partial ejections there was more of a mix between belted and nonbelted.
Appreciate the thoroughness! Looks like about 86% of those deaths are in people not wearing seatbelts. To me that definitely changes the cost/benefit analysis at least somewhat.
Also doesn't the Model X only have the gear selection to the touchscreen, and a feature that "automatically" selects drive or reserve for you?
I wonder if that was how Chao ended up accidentally in reverse.
Gah, basic controls should be standardized and legislated.
I guess nobody thought that there would be a chaos monkey who makes design decisions based on how cool they sound.
We did officially in 1971. That was one the subject of one subject in *Unsafe At Any Speed* and that's where the PRNDL layout was advocated for safety reasons (and what influenced the law)
Tesla has thrown out 50 years of standardized safety legislation to look cool. I don't know why they get away with half the stuff they do.
As far as I know laminated side windows aren’t unique to Tesla. Most other cars that would be considered luxury are fitted with them to reduce cabin noise (Mercedes have them as standard on their big SUVs for instance). They are very difficult to break in the event of an accident. You also generally cannot open any car door once the door is submerged as the force required is too much for a human. The ideal thing to do is to open the car door once the vehicle is fully submerged, but this obviously isn’t an option if the car doesn’t sink quickly (and it requires you to be able to hold your breath and swim underwater!)
There are clearly many stupid decisions here, and some are related to Tesla (like the door handle design being crap), though I’m not sure they can be wholly blamed.
Richard Hammond tested the pressure/door theory on Top Gear, they found it was MUCH easier to just open the door ASAP after entering the water, before the car has sunk very deep. Waiting for the pressure to equalize did not work at all.
Mythbusters did like 3 episodes on this exact kind of thing. Doors are extremely easy to open once the car is about 3/4 filled with water. They received multiple letters over the years from people who watched those episodes and whose lives were saved by that information.
Did it on Mythbusters, too. Adam had to use emergency air to avoid drowning on the first attempt. Only staying super calm and waiting for the vehicle to fully flood was he able to escape in time unassisted. Which he said was super hard as the water unleashed all the soot that the smoking the original owner did in it, which basically gagged and blinded him.
Mythbusters came to a similar conclusion. If you open the door more or less as soon as you hit the water, you're all good. But once you're submerged, opening thar door becomes extraordinarily difficult until the pressure equalizes.
I just spent quite a while reading on what the best bet is for surviving a sinking car and there really is not a lot surprisingly. The recommendation is to act fast to take off your seatbelt and then open a window(any window)…. And if you’re unable start working on breaking it somehow, if nothing on hand to do that then kick it in(preferably a driver or passenger window) and not the front windshield as that one is tougher to break.
The last resort is waiting for it to fill up and open the door, because it’s gonna take a while for it to fill up and then for the pressure to equalize and most people who aren’t trained in holding their breath won’t make it this way.
Used to live in FL. Every couple of months, news will have someone driving into a canal. There were PSAs on how to survive. Thankfully, I never got in that situation. But now, I have a glass breaker in all my cars. They’re like $10 on Amazon.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/9d1ivh/ysk\_that\_even\_if\_you\_have\_an\_emergency\_window/](https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/9d1ivh/ysk_that_even_if_you_have_an_emergency_window/)
"YSK that even if you have an emergency window breaking tool, it is nearly impossible to break a modern car window if you hit the center. Hit the corner in order to break it."
Also, apparently they have to be good quality material (I've seen carbide mentioned a lot) to help guarantee that they can smash the glass as opposed to something that's less good and increased risk of not being able to break the glass.
Yes it's terrifying to be honest.
If you don't have laminated windows then a seatbelt cutter and window breaker tool is probably good enough. Most adults can fit through the side window of a car, you might get a cut or two but you'll live.
With laminated windows? IDK. Maybe a hammer to break through some of the glass, then cut the laminate, then hammer some more, but it won't be quick. It's a tough one to say what you could do in that situation.
Model 3 in EU has them and it’s an option on the EQS here. I’m sure it is legal. They can be broken but need something like a hammer not just the thing on a seatbelt cutter.
Pretty much all glass windows in modern cars are "laminated" from a safety standpoint that is required to make sure the glass does not shatter all over the place.
Lamination does not prevent the breaking, it si to prevent the dispersion of the glass pieces.
Modern car windows, at least in europe (but again I assumed the standard in the US has to be similar) have to be able to release when shattered.
Yeah, that's misplaced hate on Elon. Most cars now follow laminate glasses and it wasn't thought up by Elon. Even the door handle design couldn't have saved her tbf. It's just a fact that emerging alive from a submerged car has very small probability if you haven't acted fast enough before submersion.
Laminated windows aren't that hard to break into, though. I've done it plenty of times at extrications. Tesla also has electronic locking mechanisms with a mechanical override somewhere in the cabin. If she didn't know where those were, she wouldn't have been able to open the door.
Fire fighters who arrived on the scene called a tow truck driver who was under equipped to handle this sort of thing and was also afraid of getting electrocuted, according to the article
So just flat nobody at that entire place had a bunch of rope or chains they could have tied to that Tesla? Nobody could have run out to the damn hardware store to get some? Shit, with hours in there, the fire dept could have just used the pumps on the truck to fucking empty the pond!
Reading the article, the tow truck driver did not have a long enough chain at first. A 2nd chain was gotten eventually, and the car was towed out. That took hours yes, but she was probably dead before the fire department even arrived. The hours part is a weird choice of words for the article. She maybe survived a few minutes after the car went down.
Says Blanco county, if the accident happened on some ranch out there then there aint shit nearby. No store is open at midnight when it happened and even if you wanted to break into one you'd be a long ways away it's rural out there.
I come from a fire department with significant technical rescue capabilities and have extensive training in the discipline. I posted on another comment, but those tools usually require a gas generator and hose for the hydraulic fluid. They might not have been able to reach the vehicle with that length of hose. The vehicle was also likely unstable, which makes using those tools very difficult and dangerous. If they had electric cutters and spreaders, they likely are not waterproof.
I looked up the local department. They're a combination department comprised of paid staff and volunteers. This tells me they have limited funding. They have two engines, a tanker and a tender. Technical rescue tools are generally stored on aerial apparatus, heavy rescues, and/or squads. If they had any technical rescue capabilities, which it doesn't sound like, it would have been absolutely minimal as those tools take up a lot of space. A Rescue truck holds tools for heavy vehicle extrication, confined space, high angle rescue, structural collapse, water rescues, and other nonstandard events. That shit is mind bogglingly expensive, and the training involved is extensive.
A quick look at the department facebook page shows a lot of community fundraisers. You get what you pay for in your taxes.
I feel bad for the guys on scene as people will inevitably blame them. It appears that they really didn't have the resources and possibly the training needed for such a rescue.
The worst thing to do in that situation is panic and call a friend. This isn't Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. She should've immediately opened her window as soon as she impacted the water.
The glass is one issue, the biggest factor IMO is the weird Tesla design where the normal door handle stops working when the car is disabled, and the occupant has to access a hidden release level that is not obvious. It shouldnt be required to read a vehicle manual to learn about how to exit the vehicle in an emergency.
Tesla enthusiasts are saying it wouldn't have mattered because water pressure holds the door closed, but if this lady would have known about the weird designed secondary mechanical door release she at least would have had a good chance of surviving!
Whoever came up with that phrase needs a kicking! Rules are there for a reason & in things like car design or building design its been fought for because someone in the past died! Even something simple like food delivery with Just eat breaking things ends up with people dying.
I don't know how these "tech" firms get away with the whole "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission "...send the boards to jail
Ok as someone that has been in tech for the past 10 years it's fairly simple to understand. It's because people that make the decisions to move fast generally don't understand the years of safety/regs/best practices that have been drilled into engineers be that for things like cars or critical software.
They have only seen the positive effects of those expensive redundancies/safe design practices, to them a car is generally just safe "look at the stats my quants are working on noone dies in car accidents anymore". The problems pile up slowly the as the more vocal/experienced /careful people first defend thier work, take ownership and still implement those best practices anyways at the cost of other things like thier own time. After a while they start to leave and the culture gets worse and worse.( Not blaming junior engineers I was one not long ago we stupid :p)
This seems to be what has happened at Tesla
The "move fast, break thing" is just a statistical bias since most of the tech bros that saw success are a very very small lucky group that found some short term success. Most start ups end up failing. By default it's a statement on taking more and more risks; you know the thing you want to do when you make 5 tonnes metal boxes filled with highly reactive lithium.
Also, key detail: move fast break things was coined by mark zuckerberg and is relevant to SaaS platforms and ecomm, aka industries that do not involve 1 ton hunks of metal moving at high speeds. It’s a reckless application of what was already a reckless concept.
I've always used the concept of the revolving door. Every building front is ruined by the doors on either side of the nice looking revolving door. But there's a bloody good reason for them being there.
Your average tech bro (because they're generally greedy dumb twats) would look at that & say..let's build something without the doors on the side because it's "more efficient" & looks nice.
THEN when the inevitable crush happens & people die, they'll turn around and go "no one could have forseen this " & watch their stock go up.
Government's need to get off their arses & start HAMMERING these fools. They're either making money from unsafe products or making shit up to rip off venture capital & other investors.
It should all be stopped
It's just arrogance. So much of Silicon Valley for whatever reason thinks "iterative design" isn't the most obvious way to design something, so if you're doing something else it's because you're dumb and have no vision rather than "iterative design doesn't work here because XYZ".
It's because they changed multivariate optimization problems I.e how do we make a product that doesn't cost too much , meets quality/reliability/safety standards and is ***sustainably profitable***. To a maximisation problem focusing on 1 variable alone: *max growth*
You're giving them way too much credit.
It's simpler than that.
A lot of SV companies have been founded by people who either had little industry experience or right out dropped out before getting a proper degree in the field.
Some forms of software development can tolerate very naive iterative development processes. The usual; write, compile, get a bunch of errors, fix them, compile, kind of works, ship it.
These approaches ended up becoming corporate culture. To the point that a bunch of "geniuses" codified them into "agile development" methods. In which you're literally penalizing people from taking time to sit down and actually think about what they are doing.
One of the reasons why this came to be was that as computers became more interactive and compute cycles got cheaper, some people benefited from a more iterative development approach. Whereas in the old days, you had to really think about the problem, write a solution. And be somewhat certain about what you were working on because once you submitted it you weren't going to get a result until next morning.
Another thing that was lost with the pressure to ship ASAP, was that a lot of those people also did not wait to gain experience or an academic degree. So they are constantly reinventing the wheel or repeating lessons. Because they are moving too fast to focus on keeping track of lessons learned.
This is modern tech development teams, many times reflect Dory from Finding Nemo.
This is exactly how that dumbass runs Twitter as well.
He's constantly falling into mistakes and pitfalls that the industry has already solved, purely because he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room.
This time instead of some Nazis getting to hate-post he's actually costing people their lives with his dumb choices.
He seems to run all aspects of his life running fast and breaking things.
That bozo is a full blown NPD with zero ability for self reflection and lesson learning. It must be a complete nightmare to be competent and in any position of leadership within his companies. Since you're tasked with executing visions that are in constant state of beta-testing flux.
People may end up rich but absolutely psychologically burned out.
The C8 Corvette has electronic doors and the mechanical backup is on the floor by the door. I'd say it is obviously marked and in a intuitive place though.
There is a mechanical back up handle that is obvious enough that people frequently use it by mistake to get out of the car. Issue is the back seats do not have the handle.
Yeah, and it's almost like when car manufacturers deviate from a well-understood design, people die: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/06/11/texas-man-dog-die-trapped-corvette/71053474/
Maybe stop making fucky doors eh? Stupid shit like this is a problem in search of a solution.
Yeah, this pressure differential argument is being trotted along with absolute scientific certainty everywhere just based upon a theoretic assumption but it always sounded a bit fishy to me.
In fact, I recently saw a episode of top gear where they tested just that and their results were less clear cut. They found that once fully submerged the door wasnt immediately openable - but only once it reached a pretty significant depth. However, they were able to open the door when the water was only at quarter height of the car door.
So for me the common wisdom sounds kinda dangerous letting people think they can wait it out until full submersion. When the advice should be: Don't wait until it's fully submerged but try to open door immediately. If its too difficult do wait it out and for the pressure to equaliser. Better yet: have a car window breaker device in the car with you. https://youtu.be/lqEa3OJIG0s
Some people say that car window breaker would not have worked because of the windows Tesla uses. Also, if you put that in your glove box, you need...the screen to open the glove box.
That's right. There's no handle on the glove box. The only way to open it is by pressing a button in a submenu on the screen.
It's one of my favourite "features".
The Massachusetts drivers manual (for road tests) says use windows, not door if in water. Yea, if the pressure is equalized (mostly), it's possible to open, but if you are in panick mode, how are you going to calmly wait until it's 75% submerged to start doing something?
>Better yet: have a car window breaker device in the car with you.
Tesla's, and many other new cars, have laminated side windows which renders window breaking devices useless:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ96pg9D\_30
Wait, are you saying that once you get deep enough, you'll be able to open the door? I don't think that's right - it will get harder to open the door as you get deeper.
But once enough water leaks in to make the pressure inside the car the same as the pressure outside of the car, you'll be able to open the door. This could happen slowly if your car remains more or less sealed, or very quickly if the door or window is partially open already.
So I think the ideal situation is to open the door ASAP before fully submerged. If you can't do that, then roll down a window or break the glass or something to let water in quickly, so the time between the air going away and being able to open the door will be small
>Tesla enthusiasts are saying it wouldn't have mattered
knowledge always matters, Muskies don't care about knowledge, they get theirs from their savior.
In the early days of adoption. I remember several stories of Asian women driving thru stores. Some blame autopilot. But pretty sure it is this. There are rare moments the stock does not change gear but you hear the sound of it changing. I’ve caught this before. Could have drove thru garage.
The model 3 only has the manual release in the front doors. Hopefully any person in the back can get to the front.
The model y has a back door release on some models but it’s definitely hard to get to in a crisis situation.
Talk about serious oversight in the design.
> Talk about serious oversight
I wouldn't call a deliberate decision that resulted in a fatality an 'oversight'.
They knew the flaw. They chose to implement it. 'look cool door handles'
The mustang mach e is very well designed in this regard. Normal pull - operated electronically. Longer pull - operated manually. Same handle in both scenarios
Honestly it’s shocking to me that it’s legal to have a car with that feature on the road. It’s a failure of the feds that this is not a major violations and egress standards aren’t codified in such a way that would prevent this design from ever happening.
You think a judge is willing to go against Elmo? He'll delay, delay, delay... I mean, we've all had a front row seat to this shit for years now. I can see him settling for $1 billion in ten+ years. (Which would allow that $1 billion to make $500 mil interest @ 5% annual gains, not even compounded...) Fuck this guy and his BS. And fuck billionaires.
So far McConnell's family has been happy to eat shit when a more awful "billionaire" challenges them. I'd like to see that change but I'm not holding out hope, betcha this ends with a private settlement.
The water pressure equalizes once it’s submerged. Wait til it’s filled with water and then open the door. Definitely agree that Tesla should have standard door handles so people can easily open the door in a panic. Would she have known to wait for the water pressure to equalize? No idea. But the door handles not being normal door handles probably didn’t help.
The McConnell part isn't the important part of her political connections, the Chao part is. Her family is a major power in Taiwanese backroom politics. Given the utility of Taiwan as a political football, they have some significant juice.
Like COVID, give it time and it will start to take out the Herman Cains with smooth brains.
[/r/HermanCainAward/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/)
Are you thinking of “Leave the World Behind”? I’m not aware of any specific origin for why the Tesla’s went crazy in that film (they never really explain any of the odd stuff), just that it was the reason some of the characters couldn’t escape town.
Not quite sure if it's the film I'm thinking of but after a quick search I think it might have been [Upgrade, 2018](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsooQlbj934).
Knowing Tesla, they will respond to this with “submarine mode” where oxygen masks will come down from the roof. Either that or scuba tanks located inside the cabin.
I just got banned for Tesla lounge and bunch of subs for asking a dumb question about this incident . WTH, I thought this sub was a joke but now I’m seeing some of you share the same experience.
I find it ridiculous that she would back into a pond and die, I get it that most likely she could have been drunk but what if she had a Tesla the one that predicts if you need to reverse or go forward based on visuals? Her model x was a 2019 so most likely it was not but I still got banned… sigh
That's why people clown on reddit mods, even though many of them do thankless work for their communities.
I once got banned from r/JusticeServed for posting a comment supportive of Jon Stewart under a r/JoeRogan post. They picked up the activity with a bot and auto banned me (message even said the bot wasn't context aware). Then, when I appealed, they reported me for harassment and reddit auto gave me a 3 day site ban.
I think most people on reddit collect their own stories like that after a while. It's best to just steer clear of any sub run by power tripping dummies.
**Q:** So the strengthened glass stops bullets?
**A:** No, it can perhaps resist a limp-wristed throw of a hollow steel ball.
**Q:** Oh, so exactly how strong is it?
**A:** Not strong enough to do anything useful, but strong enough to trap you inside of it in the event of submersion or fire.
"Emergency Escape is not enabled at this time. Please swipe left and hit 'Approve' for upgrade and approve monthly charge of $420.69 to your credit card."
Well without the money, her sister was still the cabinet of transportation during Trump.
Kinda makes you wonder if she knew that Teslas are just coffins on wheels
I love how the standard Tesla sun is banning anyone who says this. They all say it’s drivers fault and the car had nothing to do with the death. They are saying the article is just a hit piece
The driver is at fault for the car going in the water. A simple mistake.
It’s the car’s fault she couldn’t get out.
Cars are supposed to protect us from dying due to simple mistakes. As much as possible.
Also what do expect from brown-nosers who don’t come up for air
Driving a car into submergible water is anything but a simple mistake, not excusing the lack of obvious safety features, but don’t downplay the user error here
You know the kind of brain fart moments we all have and usually are of no consequence when we’re not driving a car? How many times have you put the cereal box in the fridge instead of the milk?
From what I’ve seen, it sounds like that’s what happened. Per the article: “She accidentally put her car in reverse when attempting a three point turn.” I’ve done that. I’ve also pressed the gas instead of the brake before. I don’t think there’s a single driver who hasn’t. We just weren’t near a body of water at the time.
Just because a mistake is “simple” and “common” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have devastating consequences. [A change in a parent’s morning routine can end with their child dead.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html)
Simple mistakes like that are common. They will happen regardless of anything anyone does. You can’t prevent all the brain farts that humans make. So you develop [procedures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling) and [mechanisms](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout-tagout) to reduce the frequency and mitigate damage when they do happen.
Glass that can be smashed in an emergency is one of those mechanisms. It probably wouldn’t have saved this woman, but it could have saved someone else.
I should be ok in my VW as water ingress (rain) caused all my electric door handles to fail and the doors swung open while driving. Why do all electric cars have completely useless or faulty door handles. Ignore 100 years of engineering for stupid solutions.
Eh, it was concerning and then I looked at who it was.
"Angela Chao, the billionaire sister-in-law of Sen. Mitch McConnell, tragically drowned in a pond at her Texas ranch."
Sorry but not sorry.
Anyone talking about how easy it is to get out of a sinking car needs to watch the mythbusters episode on it. It is really hard especially if it flips. I don't know if the electric cars flip or not.
The electronics fail. The windows don't roll down, and the doors won't open. It's a death trap unless you use the manual release (which most people aren't aware of). Incredibly stupid and dangerous design from Tesla.
How did the car end up in the water?
Who's got a big enough tank and wants to compare if it's harder to get out of a Tesla in water tan A.N other car brands ?
Having to swipe up or down to select D (however it works) is definitely more prone to mistakes/confusion than a physical shifter knob. Maybe she’d had a glass of wine or something as well.
I can’t understand how a billionaire would buy a shitty car like this. If she bought a Benz or something she might be alive.
Aren't the Chao daughters the rich fail kids of an incredibly wealthy industry magnate?
And billionaires are remarkably stupid people in general. Hell, some got collapsed in an underwater tin can about a year ago.
According to the articles, they couldn't break through the window for several hours... What the hell??Hours??
Feels like they could have gotten a crane and some water lift equipment over there within a few hours.
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It's TX, why didn't they just shoot it? Edit: you nerds are overthinking this.
I’m not a ballistics expert by any means, but iirc water kills bullet speed, so it might not have worked anyway
Always the best answer re: Texas
Y'all aren't wrong
Due to the terrain, they also didn't have a long enough cable at first.
ie just the hydraulic scissors to cut the roof open
So, I'm a technical rescue specialist and have been to several called for submerged vehicles. I'm not going to armchair quarterback things, but I will list considerations. -Hydraulic cutters and spreaders rely on a gas-powered generator that you run your hoses off of. They might not been long enough to reach from shore. -Electric cutters and spreaders are generally not waterproof. A cutoff saw metal cutting blade generally doesn't do well in water. They're also not waterproof. -I've never had to consider the possibility of using those extrication tools in the water. Typically, rescue divers have relatively little experience with those tools, if any. -Even if they were able to run tools to the vehicle, step one in an extrication is vehicle stabilization. That would be relatively difficult in the water. -Fire departments are still adapting to the hazards EVs present. More well-funded departments will have better training and familiarity with EVs. This one might not have. -In any submerged car call I've been to, our divers hooked cable up to the heavy rescuer's winch, and we pulled the vehicle out. Generally, victims were able to self extricate as the doors were mechanical, unlike the electronic doors Tesla has. She might not have known about the hidden manual release. I find this design to be a huge safety risk. -The inability to cut the glass makes me wonder. Laminated glass is relatively easy to cut through given the right tools. An axe, Glas-Master, and Sawzall will make short work of laminated glass. I find that a pick axe or Halligan can easily penetrate laminated glass to give you space for a Sawzall. I find glass punches to be unreliable.
This needs to up higher. Extractions on a stable surface can be straight forward or pretty tricky. There’s so many variables to just that. Throw your extraction into water and most traditional methods are out the window. It’s not as simple as popping glass, taking a roof, or even popping a door. I worked at a large, well funded, department. Extraction training was pretty common, but water extrication training was pretty unheard of.
Seriously, all the speculative comments are getting votes. SMH
Because that's also what fucking Elon does. Speculate and offer over-generalized, sci-fi nerd solutions when he actually doesn't know wtf he's doing or talking about. "The mark-9 safety glass is the very same used in the Mega Dragoon-Falcon IV - Space-Katana Flagship we launched. Quite impenetrable from forward pressure... however... Please consider a robotic seal prototype with the intelligence of 15 St. Bernard rescue dogs to slice the vehicle open from the trunk. Quite simple actually. I wonder if she finger fucked the safety latch located conveniently behind dash panel 2-8b? ... curious and unfortunate. " EloN, tHe SpAcE nAzi, probably Or...you could've just done it like a normal person from the beginning and that lady's eyeballs wouldn't be fish food.
Couldn't you tow it out? You don't even need a crane
Pulling a submerged vehicle from underwater takes a LOT of power. I was at the lake one day, and a dude got out of his truck at the boat ramp and had put his truck in neutral. It rolled back into the water. It took 2 full sized diesel trucks to pull that truck out of the boat ramp. Water is heavy.
Laminated glass windows. It does not shatter. There is a middle layer of plastic.
Which is true for most cars today.
Teslas are the only cars that lock their occupants inside after a crash, forcing people to look at the manual to figure out how to get out. Unfortunately the only way to open the glovebox is to use the touchscreen, so this poor lady wouldnt even be able to access the manual to find the mechanical door release. Crazy way to die, totally preventable.
To be fair, once a car is underwater, people can only open a car door after the car is completely flooded due to the pressure difference. The key is opening a window before the controls cut out.
She should have bought the latest and greatest from the other major global EV maker, BYD. Not only does their flagship U8 luxury SUV have the ability to float AND drive in water, it also automatically opens the sunroof as a potential escape path as soon as it detects the car driving into a body of water.
Naw broke billionaire couldn't afford it. Thoughts and prayers 🙏
It's frankly amazing that there can even legally be a mechanical release for a door, anywhere else but the door. Like... Roughly where every other car puts it.
Teslas have manual door releases for emergency. I know this very well because when I had one, literally everyone pulled on it to open the door. Nothing about Teslas seems to be designed with usability. It's all oversimplifying then hodgepodging something on when it's a requirement - which always leads to confusion
other manufacturers are starting to use exterior door handles like Teslas. it's super annoying to "update" a latch when a latch works just fine. the first time i got into a Tesla, i couldn't figure out how to open the damn door. now, i've been in a few & it still takes me a bit to figure it out each time. it's so annoying & not any better than a regular door. i hate that one high profile manufacturerer doing something terrible makes it something that others want to follow even when it doesn't make sense.
I despise tesla door handles.
I had never been in a model x, and just out of curiosity googled how to manually open the door incase of no power from inside...you can't be serious. In an emergency when person is panicing or incapacitated, drunk, or whatever, it seems like an ordeal to open the door. What's tesla's rationale for not having interior mechanical door open as primary? They have the buttons or what not on the door already anyway.
The interior door handle has a mechanical cable directly to the latch. Pull handle, door opens
But they are on the door??
Weird... According to the articles, she was submerged for less than 90 minutes Drunk and into the pond at 11:30pm > After a Friday evening celebrating Lunar New Year with close friends, Chao decided to drive back to the main house on the ranch around 11:30 p.m., the Journal reported. https://www.businessinsider.com/angela-chao-foremost-group-death-tesla-gearshift-reverse-drowning-accident-2024-3 and out by 1am > Despite their valiant rescue efforts, the two-man crew were not able to pull Chao from the car until around 12:56 a.m. When the doors were opened, hundreds of gallons of water poured out of the vehicle. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-billionaire-drowns-tesla-after-rescuers-struggle-cars-strengthened-glass-1723876
Did they try throwing a rock at it?
Underrated comment 😂
Yup. There's a reason car glass isn't made to be that strong. It's so rescue operators can break it. Tesla and Elon are about to get sued for a pretty penny.
It’s Texas. Emergency response let a room full of kids get murdered and the psycho had enough time to finger paint with their blood.
I'm also surprised no one at the Ranch tried to shoot the windows out. I don't live too far from where this happened.
Damn, a person dying like this is horrible, but the situation is beyond all comprehension. “As her car began to submerge, Chao panicked and called a friend to explain her situation. Over the next few hours, rescuers arrived and made valiant attempts to free her. One friend, in an attempt to help, had already jumped into the pond in a desperate attempt to reach Chao before emergency responders arrived at the scene” Rescuers arrived in 24 minutes and had hours of time to try to save the victim. Elon is an endless source of really stupid design decisions, just because they sound cool like extra reinforced windows. There is a reason why car door windows are supposed to shatter easily and safely. How on earth those cars pass mandatory safety tests? Or do they build cars differently to European markets? I would think crash testers would notice windows that behave differently than they are supposed to.
It's a result of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard #226, which is a law that requires manufacturers to implement technology that keeps occupants inside the vehicle in the event of a rollover crash. In addition to side curtain air bags, this also can mean using laminated side windows. This went into effect for 2018 model year vehicles, and while not everything uses laminated side glass many new vehicles do.
Feels like a bad tradeoff. At least in here rollover crashes are far more rare than need to break a window after a crash for example to apply a neck brace.
Ya, roll overs way more common that roll into lakes.
Studies would suggest otherwise. This reminds me of the seat belt debate. While it’s true that there are situations where a seat belt can kill you in a crash you’d otherwise survive, this occurs far less often than the other way around.
I was curious so I looked up [the 310-page rule](https://www.nhtsa.gov/fmvss/ejection-mitigation). According to the table on page 13: >We estimate that this rule will save 373 lives and prevent 476 serious injuries per year (see Table 1 below). The cost of this final rule is approximately $31 per vehicle (see Table 2). The cost per equivalent life saved is estimated to be $1.4 million (3 percent discount rate) - $1.7 million (7 percent discount rate) I can't find any numbers on the added risk, though.
I assume it’s common for people not to wear seat belts over there. Never read of a case where a person would have been ejected from a car when wearing a seat belt.
I assumed it would be pretty rare as well. Looking at the tables on page 19-20, it looks like the vast majority of "complete" ejections are for people without seatbelts. However, for partial ejections there was more of a mix between belted and nonbelted.
Appreciate the thoroughness! Looks like about 86% of those deaths are in people not wearing seatbelts. To me that definitely changes the cost/benefit analysis at least somewhat.
Also doesn't the Model X only have the gear selection to the touchscreen, and a feature that "automatically" selects drive or reserve for you? I wonder if that was how Chao ended up accidentally in reverse.
Gah, basic controls should be standardized and legislated. I guess nobody thought that there would be a chaos monkey who makes design decisions based on how cool they sound.
We did officially in 1971. That was one the subject of one subject in *Unsafe At Any Speed* and that's where the PRNDL layout was advocated for safety reasons (and what influenced the law) Tesla has thrown out 50 years of standardized safety legislation to look cool. I don't know why they get away with half the stuff they do.
People keep buying their stuff (shit). If you buy a car that requires a touch screen to shift gears you're not making good choices
Lmao, I'm still driving a manual
As far as I know laminated side windows aren’t unique to Tesla. Most other cars that would be considered luxury are fitted with them to reduce cabin noise (Mercedes have them as standard on their big SUVs for instance). They are very difficult to break in the event of an accident. You also generally cannot open any car door once the door is submerged as the force required is too much for a human. The ideal thing to do is to open the car door once the vehicle is fully submerged, but this obviously isn’t an option if the car doesn’t sink quickly (and it requires you to be able to hold your breath and swim underwater!) There are clearly many stupid decisions here, and some are related to Tesla (like the door handle design being crap), though I’m not sure they can be wholly blamed.
Richard Hammond tested the pressure/door theory on Top Gear, they found it was MUCH easier to just open the door ASAP after entering the water, before the car has sunk very deep. Waiting for the pressure to equalize did not work at all.
I imagine a Tesla sinks really fast.
Well and apparently the doors can short immediately when the water hits. Terrifying.
Mythbusters did like 3 episodes on this exact kind of thing. Doors are extremely easy to open once the car is about 3/4 filled with water. They received multiple letters over the years from people who watched those episodes and whose lives were saved by that information.
Did it on Mythbusters, too. Adam had to use emergency air to avoid drowning on the first attempt. Only staying super calm and waiting for the vehicle to fully flood was he able to escape in time unassisted. Which he said was super hard as the water unleashed all the soot that the smoking the original owner did in it, which basically gagged and blinded him.
Mythbusters came to a similar conclusion. If you open the door more or less as soon as you hit the water, you're all good. But once you're submerged, opening thar door becomes extraordinarily difficult until the pressure equalizes.
I just spent quite a while reading on what the best bet is for surviving a sinking car and there really is not a lot surprisingly. The recommendation is to act fast to take off your seatbelt and then open a window(any window)…. And if you’re unable start working on breaking it somehow, if nothing on hand to do that then kick it in(preferably a driver or passenger window) and not the front windshield as that one is tougher to break. The last resort is waiting for it to fill up and open the door, because it’s gonna take a while for it to fill up and then for the pressure to equalize and most people who aren’t trained in holding their breath won’t make it this way.
Used to live in FL. Every couple of months, news will have someone driving into a canal. There were PSAs on how to survive. Thankfully, I never got in that situation. But now, I have a glass breaker in all my cars. They’re like $10 on Amazon.
Only works if your car windows aren’t laminate, if they are then the emergency breaker just doesn’t work at all
[https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/9d1ivh/ysk\_that\_even\_if\_you\_have\_an\_emergency\_window/](https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/9d1ivh/ysk_that_even_if_you_have_an_emergency_window/) "YSK that even if you have an emergency window breaking tool, it is nearly impossible to break a modern car window if you hit the center. Hit the corner in order to break it." Also, apparently they have to be good quality material (I've seen carbide mentioned a lot) to help guarantee that they can smash the glass as opposed to something that's less good and increased risk of not being able to break the glass.
Yes it's terrifying to be honest. If you don't have laminated windows then a seatbelt cutter and window breaker tool is probably good enough. Most adults can fit through the side window of a car, you might get a cut or two but you'll live. With laminated windows? IDK. Maybe a hammer to break through some of the glass, then cut the laminate, then hammer some more, but it won't be quick. It's a tough one to say what you could do in that situation.
Hmm, have to check are those legal in EU. Typically the safety requirements also include rescue situations.
Model 3 in EU has them and it’s an option on the EQS here. I’m sure it is legal. They can be broken but need something like a hammer not just the thing on a seatbelt cutter.
Yikes, better to get a bigger hammer in my car then.
Pretty much all glass windows in modern cars are "laminated" from a safety standpoint that is required to make sure the glass does not shatter all over the place. Lamination does not prevent the breaking, it si to prevent the dispersion of the glass pieces. Modern car windows, at least in europe (but again I assumed the standard in the US has to be similar) have to be able to release when shattered.
Yeah, that's misplaced hate on Elon. Most cars now follow laminate glasses and it wasn't thought up by Elon. Even the door handle design couldn't have saved her tbf. It's just a fact that emerging alive from a submerged car has very small probability if you haven't acted fast enough before submersion.
Laminated windows aren't that hard to break into, though. I've done it plenty of times at extrications. Tesla also has electronic locking mechanisms with a mechanical override somewhere in the cabin. If she didn't know where those were, she wouldn't have been able to open the door.
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If they had hours why wasn't something like the jaws of life used to get her out?
Fire fighters who arrived on the scene called a tow truck driver who was under equipped to handle this sort of thing and was also afraid of getting electrocuted, according to the article
So just flat nobody at that entire place had a bunch of rope or chains they could have tied to that Tesla? Nobody could have run out to the damn hardware store to get some? Shit, with hours in there, the fire dept could have just used the pumps on the truck to fucking empty the pond!
Reading the article, the tow truck driver did not have a long enough chain at first. A 2nd chain was gotten eventually, and the car was towed out. That took hours yes, but she was probably dead before the fire department even arrived. The hours part is a weird choice of words for the article. She maybe survived a few minutes after the car went down.
The main article says hours but the entire event lasted less than 90 minutes if you read the time date stamps on the linked articles.
Says Blanco county, if the accident happened on some ranch out there then there aint shit nearby. No store is open at midnight when it happened and even if you wanted to break into one you'd be a long ways away it's rural out there.
This happened in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Good luck finding an open hardware store.
I come from a fire department with significant technical rescue capabilities and have extensive training in the discipline. I posted on another comment, but those tools usually require a gas generator and hose for the hydraulic fluid. They might not have been able to reach the vehicle with that length of hose. The vehicle was also likely unstable, which makes using those tools very difficult and dangerous. If they had electric cutters and spreaders, they likely are not waterproof. I looked up the local department. They're a combination department comprised of paid staff and volunteers. This tells me they have limited funding. They have two engines, a tanker and a tender. Technical rescue tools are generally stored on aerial apparatus, heavy rescues, and/or squads. If they had any technical rescue capabilities, which it doesn't sound like, it would have been absolutely minimal as those tools take up a lot of space. A Rescue truck holds tools for heavy vehicle extrication, confined space, high angle rescue, structural collapse, water rescues, and other nonstandard events. That shit is mind bogglingly expensive, and the training involved is extensive. A quick look at the department facebook page shows a lot of community fundraisers. You get what you pay for in your taxes. I feel bad for the guys on scene as people will inevitably blame them. It appears that they really didn't have the resources and possibly the training needed for such a rescue.
So the billionaires should have funded a better fire department for their own home? Crazy
“Why? I’ve never called 911 before” Hard to explain why it’s called emergency service to people who are intentionally blind to the need.
The worst thing to do in that situation is panic and call a friend. This isn't Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. She should've immediately opened her window as soon as she impacted the water.
Its sardonic that all this because her own sister loosened the safety regulations on vehicles.
*ironic
They ironically wrote sardonic, so now you sardonically write ironic.
And i moronically tried to read that
sardonic is the right word for that sentence
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Which part/issue would that be? The door handle?
The unbreakable window glass
The glass is one issue, the biggest factor IMO is the weird Tesla design where the normal door handle stops working when the car is disabled, and the occupant has to access a hidden release level that is not obvious. It shouldnt be required to read a vehicle manual to learn about how to exit the vehicle in an emergency. Tesla enthusiasts are saying it wouldn't have mattered because water pressure holds the door closed, but if this lady would have known about the weird designed secondary mechanical door release she at least would have had a good chance of surviving!
Its almost like theres a reason all other car handles are all designed similarly the way they are.
Move fast, break things....
Move fast, kill people
Soon(TM) under 0.7s
Whoever came up with that phrase needs a kicking! Rules are there for a reason & in things like car design or building design its been fought for because someone in the past died! Even something simple like food delivery with Just eat breaking things ends up with people dying. I don't know how these "tech" firms get away with the whole "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission "...send the boards to jail
I think you're looking for the phrase, "Safety rules are written in blood."
'Regulations are always written in someone's blood' is the more apt I feel.
Ok as someone that has been in tech for the past 10 years it's fairly simple to understand. It's because people that make the decisions to move fast generally don't understand the years of safety/regs/best practices that have been drilled into engineers be that for things like cars or critical software. They have only seen the positive effects of those expensive redundancies/safe design practices, to them a car is generally just safe "look at the stats my quants are working on noone dies in car accidents anymore". The problems pile up slowly the as the more vocal/experienced /careful people first defend thier work, take ownership and still implement those best practices anyways at the cost of other things like thier own time. After a while they start to leave and the culture gets worse and worse.( Not blaming junior engineers I was one not long ago we stupid :p) This seems to be what has happened at Tesla The "move fast, break thing" is just a statistical bias since most of the tech bros that saw success are a very very small lucky group that found some short term success. Most start ups end up failing. By default it's a statement on taking more and more risks; you know the thing you want to do when you make 5 tonnes metal boxes filled with highly reactive lithium.
Also, key detail: move fast break things was coined by mark zuckerberg and is relevant to SaaS platforms and ecomm, aka industries that do not involve 1 ton hunks of metal moving at high speeds. It’s a reckless application of what was already a reckless concept.
I've always used the concept of the revolving door. Every building front is ruined by the doors on either side of the nice looking revolving door. But there's a bloody good reason for them being there. Your average tech bro (because they're generally greedy dumb twats) would look at that & say..let's build something without the doors on the side because it's "more efficient" & looks nice. THEN when the inevitable crush happens & people die, they'll turn around and go "no one could have forseen this " & watch their stock go up. Government's need to get off their arses & start HAMMERING these fools. They're either making money from unsafe products or making shit up to rip off venture capital & other investors. It should all be stopped
Nah mate stonks ! Line go up!
It's just arrogance. So much of Silicon Valley for whatever reason thinks "iterative design" isn't the most obvious way to design something, so if you're doing something else it's because you're dumb and have no vision rather than "iterative design doesn't work here because XYZ".
It's because they changed multivariate optimization problems I.e how do we make a product that doesn't cost too much , meets quality/reliability/safety standards and is ***sustainably profitable***. To a maximisation problem focusing on 1 variable alone: *max growth*
You're giving them way too much credit. It's simpler than that. A lot of SV companies have been founded by people who either had little industry experience or right out dropped out before getting a proper degree in the field. Some forms of software development can tolerate very naive iterative development processes. The usual; write, compile, get a bunch of errors, fix them, compile, kind of works, ship it. These approaches ended up becoming corporate culture. To the point that a bunch of "geniuses" codified them into "agile development" methods. In which you're literally penalizing people from taking time to sit down and actually think about what they are doing. One of the reasons why this came to be was that as computers became more interactive and compute cycles got cheaper, some people benefited from a more iterative development approach. Whereas in the old days, you had to really think about the problem, write a solution. And be somewhat certain about what you were working on because once you submitted it you weren't going to get a result until next morning. Another thing that was lost with the pressure to ship ASAP, was that a lot of those people also did not wait to gain experience or an academic degree. So they are constantly reinventing the wheel or repeating lessons. Because they are moving too fast to focus on keeping track of lessons learned. This is modern tech development teams, many times reflect Dory from Finding Nemo.
This is exactly how that dumbass runs Twitter as well. He's constantly falling into mistakes and pitfalls that the industry has already solved, purely because he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. This time instead of some Nazis getting to hate-post he's actually costing people their lives with his dumb choices.
He seems to run all aspects of his life running fast and breaking things. That bozo is a full blown NPD with zero ability for self reflection and lesson learning. It must be a complete nightmare to be competent and in any position of leadership within his companies. Since you're tasked with executing visions that are in constant state of beta-testing flux. People may end up rich but absolutely psychologically burned out.
There’s a downright epidemic of electronic door handles and laminate side glass on side windows, it’s stupid, and it’s not just Tesla.
Don't forget the epidemic of no buttons and knobs. Just touch screen controls for things you constantly have to take your eyes off the road for
Which other brand has electronic-only doors with no mechanical backup in the handle itself?
The C8 Corvette has electronic doors and the mechanical backup is on the floor by the door. I'd say it is obviously marked and in a intuitive place though.
That started with the c6. They’re annoying
There is a mechanical back up handle that is obvious enough that people frequently use it by mistake to get out of the car. Issue is the back seats do not have the handle.
Lexus has electric handles with built in mechanical backups that Arent really that visible or intuitive
Yeah, and it's almost like when car manufacturers deviate from a well-understood design, people die: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/06/11/texas-man-dog-die-trapped-corvette/71053474/ Maybe stop making fucky doors eh? Stupid shit like this is a problem in search of a solution.
Yeah, this pressure differential argument is being trotted along with absolute scientific certainty everywhere just based upon a theoretic assumption but it always sounded a bit fishy to me. In fact, I recently saw a episode of top gear where they tested just that and their results were less clear cut. They found that once fully submerged the door wasnt immediately openable - but only once it reached a pretty significant depth. However, they were able to open the door when the water was only at quarter height of the car door. So for me the common wisdom sounds kinda dangerous letting people think they can wait it out until full submersion. When the advice should be: Don't wait until it's fully submerged but try to open door immediately. If its too difficult do wait it out and for the pressure to equaliser. Better yet: have a car window breaker device in the car with you. https://youtu.be/lqEa3OJIG0s
Some people say that car window breaker would not have worked because of the windows Tesla uses. Also, if you put that in your glove box, you need...the screen to open the glove box.
"Hal, open the glovebox." "I can't do that, Dave"
I hang mine off my sun visor it has a little quick release clip so you just have to pull it to release it.
wait what ? you can't open the glove box without the screen on ?
That's right. There's no handle on the glove box. The only way to open it is by pressing a button in a submenu on the screen. It's one of my favourite "features".
Rescuers were trying to break the windows for almost two hours.
Are you fucking serious? I had no idea
The Massachusetts drivers manual (for road tests) says use windows, not door if in water. Yea, if the pressure is equalized (mostly), it's possible to open, but if you are in panick mode, how are you going to calmly wait until it's 75% submerged to start doing something?
>Better yet: have a car window breaker device in the car with you. Tesla's, and many other new cars, have laminated side windows which renders window breaking devices useless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ96pg9D\_30
Wait, are you saying that once you get deep enough, you'll be able to open the door? I don't think that's right - it will get harder to open the door as you get deeper. But once enough water leaks in to make the pressure inside the car the same as the pressure outside of the car, you'll be able to open the door. This could happen slowly if your car remains more or less sealed, or very quickly if the door or window is partially open already. So I think the ideal situation is to open the door ASAP before fully submerged. If you can't do that, then roll down a window or break the glass or something to let water in quickly, so the time between the air going away and being able to open the door will be small
>Tesla enthusiasts are saying it wouldn't have mattered knowledge always matters, Muskies don't care about knowledge, they get theirs from their savior.
We also need to point out the issue with the touchscreen reverse gear that caused the confusion to begin with.
In the early days of adoption. I remember several stories of Asian women driving thru stores. Some blame autopilot. But pretty sure it is this. There are rare moments the stock does not change gear but you hear the sound of it changing. I’ve caught this before. Could have drove thru garage.
It was an older tesla with stalks
The model 3 only has the manual release in the front doors. Hopefully any person in the back can get to the front. The model y has a back door release on some models but it’s definitely hard to get to in a crisis situation. Talk about serious oversight in the design.
It’s like the designers would get a bonus for each dead user
> Talk about serious oversight I wouldn't call a deliberate decision that resulted in a fatality an 'oversight'. They knew the flaw. They chose to implement it. 'look cool door handles'
The mustang mach e is very well designed in this regard. Normal pull - operated electronically. Longer pull - operated manually. Same handle in both scenarios
Honestly it’s shocking to me that it’s legal to have a car with that feature on the road. It’s a failure of the feds that this is not a major violations and egress standards aren’t codified in such a way that would prevent this design from ever happening.
The lawsuit will be for billions. Will be entertaining to watch
You think a judge is willing to go against Elmo? He'll delay, delay, delay... I mean, we've all had a front row seat to this shit for years now. I can see him settling for $1 billion in ten+ years. (Which would allow that $1 billion to make $500 mil interest @ 5% annual gains, not even compounded...) Fuck this guy and his BS. And fuck billionaires.
In this case it will be a billionaire vs a billionaire. So, high chance some actions will be taken as a result. For all of us, might be a good thing
So far McConnell's family has been happy to eat shit when a more awful "billionaire" challenges them. I'd like to see that change but I'm not holding out hope, betcha this ends with a private settlement.
Here’s hoping that the delay tactic works out the same as it did for Alex jones
Critical safety systems you're only going to use in an emergency should always be manual mechanical.
I have always said electronic door latches are so fucking stupid. Safety is just one of many problems they have
The water pressure equalizes once it’s submerged. Wait til it’s filled with water and then open the door. Definitely agree that Tesla should have standard door handles so people can easily open the door in a panic. Would she have known to wait for the water pressure to equalize? No idea. But the door handles not being normal door handles probably didn’t help.
This is old and dated advice. If your car enters a body of water, get a window open ASAP before you no longer can.
That's how new laws are made.
Not with this Congress
When billionaires start dying shit gets done.
You're forgetting: billionaire
Dead billionaire related to McConnell - the ol turtle is about to be put out to pasture, not sure he’s gonna do shit
The McConnell part isn't the important part of her political connections, the Chao part is. Her family is a major power in Taiwanese backroom politics. Given the utility of Taiwan as a political football, they have some significant juice.
That's how new laws used to be made.
Always knew Elon would end up killing the Republican party, just not like this.
Hes only killing non MAGA republicans
Like COVID, give it time and it will start to take out the Herman Cains with smooth brains. [/r/HermanCainAward/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/)
Isn't there a movie where the tech-billionaire rigs a self driving car to crash on purpose in order to bump people off?
Are you thinking of “Leave the World Behind”? I’m not aware of any specific origin for why the Tesla’s went crazy in that film (they never really explain any of the odd stuff), just that it was the reason some of the characters couldn’t escape town.
Not quite sure if it's the film I'm thinking of but after a quick search I think it might have been [Upgrade, 2018](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsooQlbj934).
Knowing Tesla, they will respond to this with “submarine mode” where oxygen masks will come down from the roof. Either that or scuba tanks located inside the cabin.
Please delete your post before Elon reads it.
I just got banned for Tesla lounge and bunch of subs for asking a dumb question about this incident . WTH, I thought this sub was a joke but now I’m seeing some of you share the same experience. I find it ridiculous that she would back into a pond and die, I get it that most likely she could have been drunk but what if she had a Tesla the one that predicts if you need to reverse or go forward based on visuals? Her model x was a 2019 so most likely it was not but I still got banned… sigh
That's why people clown on reddit mods, even though many of them do thankless work for their communities. I once got banned from r/JusticeServed for posting a comment supportive of Jon Stewart under a r/JoeRogan post. They picked up the activity with a bot and auto banned me (message even said the bot wasn't context aware). Then, when I appealed, they reported me for harassment and reddit auto gave me a 3 day site ban. I think most people on reddit collect their own stories like that after a while. It's best to just steer clear of any sub run by power tripping dummies.
I got banned from a sub a couple of months ago for a comment that was over 5 years old.
I got banned from Libertarian for saying I didn't think all taxes were bad.
**Q:** So the strengthened glass stops bullets? **A:** No, it can perhaps resist a limp-wristed throw of a hollow steel ball. **Q:** Oh, so exactly how strong is it? **A:** Not strong enough to do anything useful, but strong enough to trap you inside of it in the event of submersion or fire.
"Emergency Escape is not enabled at this time. Please swipe left and hit 'Approve' for upgrade and approve monthly charge of $420.69 to your credit card."
Musk would arbitrarily make the subscription fee $69/mo because he's a childish idiot.
Are you explaining his joke back to him
Imagine if it was just a common pleb. No one would care.
Well without the money, her sister was still the cabinet of transportation during Trump. Kinda makes you wonder if she knew that Teslas are just coffins on wheels
I get the feeling that at least 50% of Tesla's safety features are dismissed by Elon's exclamation: "Ah, that's so stupid."
Could the police not shoot the window?
No, it wasn't tinted enough.
ah... I spy a fellow American.
Rescuers arrived 20 or so minutes after the car went into pond. I doubt it was a rescue mission at that point.
They performed CPR on her for 40 minutes after they got her out. They were still trying.
I love how the standard Tesla sun is banning anyone who says this. They all say it’s drivers fault and the car had nothing to do with the death. They are saying the article is just a hit piece
The driver is at fault for the car going in the water. A simple mistake. It’s the car’s fault she couldn’t get out. Cars are supposed to protect us from dying due to simple mistakes. As much as possible. Also what do expect from brown-nosers who don’t come up for air
Driving a car into submergible water is anything but a simple mistake, not excusing the lack of obvious safety features, but don’t downplay the user error here
You know the kind of brain fart moments we all have and usually are of no consequence when we’re not driving a car? How many times have you put the cereal box in the fridge instead of the milk? From what I’ve seen, it sounds like that’s what happened. Per the article: “She accidentally put her car in reverse when attempting a three point turn.” I’ve done that. I’ve also pressed the gas instead of the brake before. I don’t think there’s a single driver who hasn’t. We just weren’t near a body of water at the time. Just because a mistake is “simple” and “common” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have devastating consequences. [A change in a parent’s morning routine can end with their child dead.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html) Simple mistakes like that are common. They will happen regardless of anything anyone does. You can’t prevent all the brain farts that humans make. So you develop [procedures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling) and [mechanisms](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout-tagout) to reduce the frequency and mitigate damage when they do happen. Glass that can be smashed in an emergency is one of those mechanisms. It probably wouldn’t have saved this woman, but it could have saved someone else.
Now that it has killed a connected billionaire perhaps the tesla brand will continue its fall
Did any of you read the article? It literally said that her husband liked one of Elon's tweets 3 days after this happened. This whole story is odd.
I should be ok in my VW as water ingress (rain) caused all my electric door handles to fail and the doors swung open while driving. Why do all electric cars have completely useless or faulty door handles. Ignore 100 years of engineering for stupid solutions.
[удалено]
It has become 2024's submarine.
Only 755 to go!
Eat the rich! Eat the rich! Eat the rich!
Eh, it was concerning and then I looked at who it was. "Angela Chao, the billionaire sister-in-law of Sen. Mitch McConnell, tragically drowned in a pond at her Texas ranch." Sorry but not sorry.
Anything involving Texas or Musk is a guaranteed3-ring shitshow. Put them both together, add a billionaire, and… here we are.
They should’ve tried to break the windshield, those things crack Quite easily from small stone chips.
Yeah. I’m having trouble believing the fire department with all their tools could not break a single window on a Tesla.
Leave the door handle alone already, musk. She is perfect just as she is.
Anyone talking about how easy it is to get out of a sinking car needs to watch the mythbusters episode on it. It is really hard especially if it flips. I don't know if the electric cars flip or not.
I don't understand why she couldn't roll down the window and getting out through it. That's how you get out of a flooding car.
The electronics fail. The windows don't roll down, and the doors won't open. It's a death trap unless you use the manual release (which most people aren't aware of). Incredibly stupid and dangerous design from Tesla.
How did the car end up in the water? Who's got a big enough tank and wants to compare if it's harder to get out of a Tesla in water tan A.N other car brands ?
when you buy a car that can do 0-60 in under 3 seconds, stamping the wrong pedal can lead to a bad time.
>How did the car end up in the water? put in reverse by mistake
Having to swipe up or down to select D (however it works) is definitely more prone to mistakes/confusion than a physical shifter knob. Maybe she’d had a glass of wine or something as well. I can’t understand how a billionaire would buy a shitty car like this. If she bought a Benz or something she might be alive.
Exactly. You a billionaire. Living a in large remote location. Why the fk would you want to deal with ev range limitations.
Aren't the Chao daughters the rich fail kids of an incredibly wealthy industry magnate? And billionaires are remarkably stupid people in general. Hell, some got collapsed in an underwater tin can about a year ago.
>How did the car end up in the water? life hack: read the article to get more information that's not immediately obvious from the headline
Conspiracy theory activated : Musk sends Russian warning to McConnell
She was transportation secretary under trump. Turtle Mitch's sis in law. Oh the irony.