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

[SwampNut]

You might want to stay away from Boeing airplanes. They require electricity to depressurize the cabin. If the cabin can’t depressurize there is no way to open any of the exits because they are all plug doors.

Well, not a problem on many Boeing planes where the doors have automatic self-removal.

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[Singletracker]

You might want to stay away from Boeing airplanes. They require electricity to depressurize the cabin. If the cabin can’t depressurize there is no way to open any of the exits because they are all plug doors.

I’ll keep that in mind. Unfortunately, when flying, I don’t have the same # of options that are available when purchasing a personal vehicle.

 

[Taco Corp]

I've gotten used to the button release in Gen2 front seats, but the backseat release solution is just ridiculous. In an emergency, no way someone in the backseat will know to rip apart that panel to exit.

Love my Rivian's, but I don't love the lack of manual release for the door handles, or the ability to just reach over and adjust the air vents without going through the screen. Still drives me crazy that you can't just manually adjust the louvers. Both work fine, I guess, but it seems like something else that can break and be expensive to fix or in the case of the rear doors, outright dangerous.

 

[SwampNut]

The vents are a great feature that I love. I've always basically had two positions for all my cars; blowing at me when I'm overheated, blowing around me for comfort when I'm not. The Rivian gives me those two with a button. Much better than manually messing with them.

 

[2kwik4u]

there are better ways to get feedback to Rivian

For me.....that will be the loss of a customer. I won't own another vehicle that requires a bluetooth connection to enter, or that requires electric power to exit.

Electric door latches are a step too far in the wrong direction and I won't own another Rivian because of it. So I'm giving my feedback with my wallet.

 

[2kwik4u]

The vents are a great feature that I love. I've always basically had two positions for all my cars; blowing at me when I'm overheated, blowing around me for comfort when I'm not. The Rivian gives me those two with a button. Much better than manually messing with them.

The vents are the second largest point of frustration for me. I want more than two positions and I adjust the vents multiple times per drive. I took a test drive and didn't like them, thought I was just being too critical about them. Nope, they suck FAR FAR worse than I expected.

 

[JohnB R1T]

For me.....that will be the loss of a customer. I won't own another vehicle that requires a bluetooth connection to enter, or that requires electric power to exit.

Electric door latches are a step too far in the wrong direction and I won't own another Rivian because of it. So I'm giving my feedback with my wallet.

Neither the fob nor the RFID card requires a bluetooth connection to "enter" (nor to operate the vehicle). You don't even HAVE to have a PAAK set up.

EDIT - I guess I should have said "Addressable Bluetooth".

 

[iowa_don]

Break the window.
EMS people are experts at this.

With the laminated side window glass (two pieces of glass with plastic between) in the Tesla and the Rivian, breaking the glass doesn't work. Even "broken" it is still a barrier to getting out. Check out the DAErik YT video "BREAKING: Putting Tesla's New Laminated Glass to the Test" from four years ago. Especially read the second comment from a firefighter.

 

[iowa_don]

For reference on gen 2 vehicles:

Gen 1 doesn't have this problem as the rear door handle is already mechanical.

Tesla is especially terrible. The rear door release on the Model S, for example, is hidden under the back seats behind a small carpeted panel. There is no way anyone could find that in an emergency unless you drill this regularly. For someone who almost never has rear seat passengers and who generally does not care about safety, I agree with OP that this trend is pretty absurd.

For as much as safety has forced expensive design changes to cars, it's kind of ludicrous that these door releases are allowed at all.

Yeah, I found that in the car manual and I looked at the rear doors. Darned if I can see how to remove the piece they say I can remove to open a rear door if there is no power. The fronts appear easy to open.

 

[beatle]

Yes, the G2 front doors still have a mechanical latch like any other car.

 

[stormbreaker]

For reference on gen 2 vehicles:

Gen 1 doesn't have this problem as the rear door handle is already mechanical.

Tesla is especially terrible. The rear door release on the Model S, for example, is hidden under the back seats behind a small carpeted panel. There is no way anyone could find that in an emergency unless you drill this regularly. For someone who almost never has rear seat passengers and who generally does not care about safety, I agree with OP that this trend is pretty absurd.

For as much as safety has forced expensive design changes to cars, it's kind of ludicrous that these door releases are allowed at all.

What the actual F is with the rear door? In a actual emergency this is a reasonable actionable solution?

Keeping my gen1. I certainly hope the R2 isn't saddled with this design.

 

[Rividiculous]

Yeah, I found that in the car manual and I looked at the rear doors. Darned if I can see how to remove the piece they say I can remove to open a rear door if there is no power. The fronts appear easy to open.

Has anyone used the mechanical release on the rear doors? I’d like to try it (assuming I can find it) but can I test it out without messing up the door? Ideally, I’d like to have my kids use the mechanical release a few times just in case they ever HAVE to use it in an emergency.

Thanks!

 

[Kaiju]

You might want to stay away from Boeing airplanes. They require electricity to depressurize the cabin. If the cabin can’t depressurize there is no way to open any of the exits because they are all plug doors.

I...er. While Boeing has definitely not made headlines lately for their safety focus, I'm going to admit here that I feel much better about someone not being able to open the door at 30 000ft than I do about not being able to in a scenario in which the ECS fails and overpressurizes the cabin on the ground at the same time the outlet valve and all associated backups have also failed.

It reminds me of a story concerning the space shuttle where there was one hatch in the crew area that opened outwards to vacuum, meaning all anyone had to do to kill everyone on board was to open the latch. It took one brush with an astronaut making some vaguely suicidal statements for that latch to be fitted with a lot of duct tape and eventually a padlock.

Anyhow, uh. Hopefully those who design automotive door handles contend with different problems. Personally I hate electronic door handles and it was one of the reasons I opted for a late-run Gen 1 instead of a Gen 2. Even if there's redundant electronic and manual releases it smacks to me of the same energy as the motorized center console. Added for some sort of gee-wiz factor rather than utility because the market apparently demands an expensive vehicle have lots of gadgetry, only to cause a new problem if the vehicle loses power.

Speaking of, does anyone stow their glass-breaking hammers in the center console?

 

[CrazyOne]

Neither the fob nor the RFID card requires a bluetooth connection to "enter" (nor to operate the vehicle). You don't even HAVE to have a PAAK set up.

Both G1 and G2 fobs are Bluetooth. RFID is more like an emergency key. It is not practical for daily use IMO.

Traditional fobs are not Bluetooth. Having said that, IDK if we can blame the flaky key on Bluetooth.

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