Tesla's Dangerous Doors (electronic door latches) - Can Rivian please not follow this trend?

[Hereforthesnacks]

It's a solution, but not a good one. My wife takes Uber and it's often a MY. She isn't going to carry a hammer in her bag. I keep hammers in our cars.

Also, if the crash was minor enough for me to break glass and climb out, there is a good chance 12V is still operational. Doing that with few fractures would be close to impossible.

Definitely not a perfect solution. agree these new door apparatuses are stupid. I don’t need a handle that presents. And I don’t need anything complicating already fraught scenarios.

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[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

One of the problems is easy to solve: owners need to RTFM. Owners use and live with their vehicles everyday. The car is their property. No one else is more responsible for their survival (and of their passengers) than the owners themselves.

First responders are given training. Rivian regularly donate vehicles to be burned, smashed, wrecked and chopped up for this specific purpose. But, also true that you can't expect every single first responder to be in the know (so, again, ultimate responsibility falls on the vehicle owners to do the simple task of RTFM). This is unavoidable without standardization across entire auto industry.

Vehicle manufacturers need to be more thoughtful in how they design the reserve mechanical release. It needs to be tool-less and intuitive (w/o need to RTFM). Lucid's solution, per coverage on Bloomberg TV this AM, is a good example to follow. They designed their release lever to be both electronic AND mechanical (pull harder to activate the mechanical back-up). This intuitive approach solves everything.

 

[azbill]

Ford just issued a safety recall for the Mach E due to this issue. But their solution of keeping the HVB connected and supplying 12V does not work for a crash that takes out power.

Worst case is this; car is on fire with baby in the back in a car seat and unable to get back into the car to rescue the baby.

 

[bhopkins]

While I agree that first responders (fire, police, etc.) may have training , other first responders (good samaritans) likely won’t have that training. Door handles need to be mechanic and intuitive to use.

 

[BigSkies]

While these suggestions of carrying hammers and tools to break glass are all well and good, we can probably expect ~1% of drivers to take these precautions.

While the best alternative is a simple door handle that you pull once or (maybe) twice.

 

[CarGuyCarl]

Huge disappointment going to e-latch, but that's where a lot of the industry is going. Amazing how trying to design out a supposed "mechanical complication" just leads to a bunch more complications like secondary mechanical back ups and having to teach your customer base what to do after having just gotten into an accident.

 

[JohnB R1T]

EMS is gonna try the normal door handles once and if they can't open the door & see that the people inside are either unresponsive or cannot open the door(s) themselves, they will break their way in (break glass, jaws of life, etc.).

All well and good if EMS/Fire is nearby. Now consider that scenario when they are 10 minutes or more away. That is an eternity when you're in a car that you want out of

 

[VandalSibs]

All well and good if EMS/Fire is nearby. Now consider that scenario when they are 10 minutes or more away. That is an eternity when you're in a car that you want out of

The person I was replying to asked about how EMS would get in. I answered them.

To give my answer to your question, you either break the window, or follow the steps on the owners guide to use the various manual releases.

On this subject, overall I'm in agreement that it should be easier, than removing a panel but I'm not metaphorically yelling on the Internet about something that I can't change - there are better ways to get feedback to Rivian or if one wants to get government rules involved, they should reach out to the elected officials.

 

[carsly]

I'm all for Team Manual Door Latches. We've used them for nearly 100 years and if it ain't broke...

It's not just Rivian and Tesla, BMW, GM and it seems like everyone else is headed down this bizarre path.

 

[JohnB R1T]

The person I was replying to asked about how EMS would get in. I answered them.

To give my answer to your question, you either break the window, or follow the steps on the owners guide to use the various manual releases.

On this subject, overall I'm in agreement that it should be easier, than removing a panel but I'm not metaphorically yelling on the Internet about something that I can't change - there are better ways to get feedback to Rivian or if one wants to get government rules involved, they should reach out to the elected officials.

I didn't ask a question. I'm just of the opinion that it should not require anything non-intuitive for a "lay person" to open a door to help someone inside who may or may not be incapacitated. So you broke a window...Now what? Ever tried to get a person out of a car window when you can't open a door?

 

[VandalSibs]

I didn't ask a question. I'm just of the opinion that it should not require anything non-intuitive for a "lay person" to open a door to help someone inside who may or may not be incapacitated. So you broke a window...Now what? Ever tried to get a person out of a car window when you can't open a door?

You asked me to "consider a scenario" - that sounded like a question to me, so in my response I "considered" it. Apologies for my misuse of a word...

FYI, the rest of that post will show me pretty much agreeing with you - the doors should be easier to open from the inside, for all doors!

On the subject of the ease of getting someone out thru a door vs a window - well yeah, duh it's harder! But in an emergency situation (which this whole thread is all about & started as such), you get out of the vehicle (or get a person out of the vehicle) in any way that you can.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

You asked me to "consider a scenario" - that sounded like a question to me, so in my response I "considered" it. Apologies for my misuse of a word...

FYI, the rest of that post will show me pretty much agreeing with you - the doors should be easier to open from the inside, for all doors!

On the subject of the ease of getting someone out thru a door vs a window - well yeah, duh it's harder! But in an emergency situation (which this whole thread is all about & started as such), you get out of the vehicle (or get a person out of the vehicle) in any way that you can.

If there is fire, or danger of fire, or other forms of immediate threat, first responders are just going to go to Jaws of Life instead of figuring out how to open doors. In that sense, this "news" is more sensationalism than anything. Especially with Tesla being a popular easy target these days.

 

[eRacer]

EMS is gonna try the normal door handles once and if they can't open the door & see that the people inside are either unresponsive or cannot open the door(s) themselves, they will break their way in (break glass, jaws of life, etc.).

I hear you. However, I'd rather be pulled out of an open door than through a broken glass window.

Do the Rivian Exterior door locks automatically unlock in an "emergency/crash detected state"? When it unlocks, do the exterior door handles function similar to the "Car Wash" mode?

If this is the case, then my concerns are invalid.

 

[VandalSibs]

I hear you. However, I'd rather be pulled out of an open door than through a broken glass window.

Do the Rivian Exterior door locks automatically unlock in an "emergency/crash detected state"? When it unlocks, do the exterior door handles function similar to the "Car Wash" mode?

If this is the case, then my concerns are invalid.

That's a good question to ask Rivian - I can't find anything in the owner's guide (at least for my 2023 R1T [aka Gen 1]) related to that kind of behavior...

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Here’s the better question, is there any reason why electronic door locks are better? Why are manufacturers using them? As multiple people have mentioned, these door locks are becoming rather popular. If it’s just a design choice they should bring back manual. If it’s something else maybe it’s worth evaluating the trade off.

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