
(TargetDailyNews.com) – Drivers are discovering that Electric Vehicles (EV) have a number of disadvantages, including limited range, slow charging, scarce charging stations, and bad performance in cold weather.
But one Arizona woman found a much more dire problem in her Tesla: she was trapped inside the car when its battery died. Thanks to the car’s all-electric controls, she had no way to get out. Identified only as “Diane,” the woman told the media that she had been “pretty happy” with her car and that it was “fun to drive.”
Until it wasn’t. Diane said she went to take the car for a drive after it was completely charged. Or so she thought. After she got in and closed the door, “everything shut down.” Windows would not open. Doors would not open. “I was trapped,” Diane said.
The next part seems almost unbelievable and would cause most people to ask what in the world Tesla designers were thinking. Diane thought to check the owner’s manual for instructions on how to exit the car with a dead battery, but the glove box itself only opens by an electric control.
Diane said she called a friend to ask for help out of her predicament. When the man arrived, he found there was no way to open the car at all from the outside. The trouble is, there was no way for Diane to open it from the inside, either.
In a scene that could only happen in the tech-obsessed 21st century, Diane took out her cell phone, opened the Tesla app, and was finally able to communicate with a company rep. The staff told her there was a “secret latch” to open the door, and where to find it. It’s a head-scratcher: why would something so important as a manual latch to exit an electric car be “secret”?
“It’s very unnerving, to say the least,” Diane said.
Diane is not the only driver who has encountered these problems. Teslas have two batteries. One is large and powers the car in motion, while a smaller battery gives power to controls such as doors and windows. When both are dead, drivers get stuck unless they know where the secret escape latch is. Unhelpfully, that latch is on the underside of the door, and no label or marker is pointing to it.
Diane said several other Tesla owners told her they had no idea about the manual latch, either. This article shows the latch for those interested.
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