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Numerous Tesla owners say they've been trapped inside their EVs after they lost power.
(www.businessinsider.in)
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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This is how the BMW a friend owns works, and it's not an EV. The unlock button in the driver's seat just stops working if the car is off.
How do I know this? I decided to stay in the car while my friend went to go get something, and it auto-locked as he walked away. After about 5 minutes of trying everything I could think of to get out (including attempting to climb into the boot, which was too small for anything except a malnourished child to fit through), he came back and unlocked it.
There is no manual way to unlock the door from the inside. I checked the driver's manual. It says it's impossible to do without "special knowledge" and does not provide any pointers on how to do so. The friend asked a guy at the BMW place after a service how to unlock it from the inside, and he said "oh, yeah, there's no way to do that," and laughed it off.
Previous BMW models weren't designed like this. I can't imagine what they'll do to the next generation...
This sounds like a very dangerous design.
BMW thinks so too!
How idiotic. Manual interior trunk releases were mandated for a reason. BMW designers saw that and said "hold my beer!"
How is that even legal? It sounds like that is literally going to kill people.
A recent Corvette did kill its confused owner and his dog.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-his-dog-found-dead-after-becoming-trapped-inside-corvette-n373316
At last, able-bodied adults will join kids and pets in checks notes dying in a hot car
Yep. It's going to kill people.
Teslas have manual door releases on the front doors though.
Im surprised thats not a NHTSA mandate. Its a safety thing. Like why you have to have a windsheild and mirrors on a car. Even if you can remove the windshield (ie: Jeep Wranglers) if you are caught on the road with it down, you are gonna get a ticket.
Motorcycles arent cars and arent treated as such. But anyone thats driven one knows how shitty it is to drive one with no protection on your face. Even a juicy bug at 70 mph doesnt feel awesome.
The same ones that also say you cant drive with a cracked windshield.
Windshield regulations are also done at the state level.
I’m not really interested in getting into a giant pedantic argument about the specific crack conditions you can and can’t drive with. It’s not really even the point nor is it what I stated (and let’s be serious you know what was meant). And if it makes you sleep better, whatever, you win. Your a DOT genius.
As to the windshield question. I have gotten multiple tickets for it, in my younger years when I would muck around in my shitty jeep wrangler. But im not really that invested to go digging through all the intracacies of DOT, nhtsa and state laws on the matter. Because I don’t really care.
Have a good day
Isn't there a way to submit that idea to the NHTSA?
I believe you can write them. Based on this, it does appear to mandate that you have to have a release on the inside. bUT it doesn’t say it has to be manual and it doesn’t necessarily say it has to be operable at all times.
That said, at the least, it would seem BMW would be in violation of the spirit of the law at least, and probably the letter too.
Teslas less so since they have an manual override but it being hidden and not well labeled is it’s own issue.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/08-000497-16-jan-09-rewrite
TIL Teslas are better designed than this BMW model 🤷♀️
Listen, r/technology needs its antimusk fix, OK? Teslas are pig piles of shit and people who likes theirs are simply too stockholmedf/sunkcost/whatever to see it.
Given the heated seats subscription, we can make a guess...
"Fire Detected! Unlock rapid vehicle disembarkation service? Single use €199.95. Taxes calculated at checkout. €19.95 convenience fee. Want it immediately? Instant delivery just €29.95. To purchase, just install BMW EZcape app from Google Play or Apple App Store! Registration, compatible device and registration required."
Weird. When I got my VW ID.3, I once left the wife inside and (out of habit) locked the car. Everything was okay until she opened the glove box and the alarm went off, but she was still able to open the door and leave the car. And then glare at me.
Never lost power yet, but the door IS purely mechanical so I can’t imagine being trapped inside.
The previous generation BMW car my friend owned worked fine. This is a new regression, and if you look further up the thread, you'll see I've posted a photo of page 86 of the BMW handbook where BMW acknowledges their own bad design and pushes the responsibility onto the owner to not lock people inside the car. While also having an auto-lock feature which is on by default.
It would be good to find out if this design was intentional or somehow just not tested until they had produced these models. The wording makes it seem that way.
Okay - I’ll grant you that, having not owned a BMW since my old 2002 days. I’m perhaps responding to the general discussions points of poor user controls and interactions rather than the rabbit hole of BMW quirks.
DRM doors. You want to get out of the car? Pay up!
Which model?
330i
BMW I have has the same thing going on. I was working on the car and thought to unplug the battery before continuing to work, unplugged it, closed the trunk, with my tools inside, closed the other doors and went inside for a snack. That was a rough day. I figured out that jumping the car would let me pop the trunk real quick and that saved me. Horrifying few hours before finding that out though
Yeah, uhh...it's pretty stupid. The more I think about it, the more shocked I am that BMW is so aware of this that they need two separate warnings for it in the handbook, but make it the owner's responsibility not to put themselves in that situation..?
If that where me I'd find some way to install a manual door release
That's extra or a subscription.
Car is on some sort of lease program where you trade it in for the next model after a few years. There would need to be some way of installing a manual release without causing damage to the car...or preventing BMW from taking it back.