Burnend alive inside a Tesla as rescuers fail to open the car's door
71 comments
·September 19, 2025freetonik
seszett
All modern cars have been locking the doors for the last 20 years or so, as far as I know. At least here in Western Europe.
The door handles still work from the inside, they mechanically unlock the door unconditionally, meaning nobody can be trapped inside even by manually locking the doors.
The exception is if you flip the "child safety" switch which disconnects the inside door handle of the rear doors.
null
freetonik
>All modern cars have been locking the doors for the last 20 years or so, as far as I know.
Yeah, and I would always disable that feature. Perhaps that was wrong to do, and now that I don't have a choice it's actually safer for me and my passengers.
piker
I hate this "feature". Was there a rash of children jumping out of cars that lead to its creation? It just seems like such a narrow set of facts where a child is big and smart enough to open the door but dumb enough to jump out and get seriously hurt. Opening a moving car door is presumably quite difficult given the aerodynamic pressure on the body. So the car would have to be moving rather slow and yet turning and moving fast enough that the child couldn't avoid disaster.
RandomBacon
I'm renting a 2025 Chevy Malibu sedan in the U.S. right now, and for the driver door, I have to pull the handle twice. The first pull unlocks it, the second pull opens it. I think it is digital and not mechanical.
There is no mechanical lock I can pull on, just a push button with a light to indicate that the door is locked. I hate this car.
MarkusWandel
I thought that about my car (a Honda) as well, having not RTFM. In this case at least, there's a touch sensor on the inside of the handle. Lay hand on it, wait half a second to unlock, pull. No double pull needed.
tpm
I've got a 2012 Toyota Avensis and it does not lock the doors automatically.
magnetometer
The doors of an ID.3 will unlock automatically when the airbags are deployed. It's described in the AutoLock section of the owners manual.
3D30497420
This is part of the Euro NCAP standard:
> Automatic Door Locking (ADL): System in the vehicle whereby the door latches automatically lock once the vehicle has reached a certain speed. They should also automatically unlock in the event of an accident, post impact.
https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/43396/euro-ncap-rescue-extric...
They also have a section for electric retractable door handles (5.3), including
> It is assumed that by design the door handles will extend outwards ready for use when the SRS system deploys any airbag/detects a severe impact or the door handle remains in its retracted position but can be grabbed nevertheless by the first responder without any tool.
I wonder if Tesla's don't do this? Or if it didn't in this case?
TheCraiggers
That, presumably, is an electronic/computerized feature, not mechanical. So if the car is damaged enough to not have electricity, or that board was damaged in whatever caused the airbags to deploy, then the doors won't automatically unlock.
Given the kinds of things that could make an airbag go off, I wouldn't bet on that feature working when needed.
freetonik
Thanks! I stand corrected, I have missed that part in the manual.
gpderetta
There are crash sensors to trigger air bags, pre-tension seatbelts, cut off the fuel pump and so on. You would think that some engineer must have thought about auto-unlocking doors!
dfox
The reasoning behind the auto-locking feature is that when the doors are locked it adds to rigidity of the car and thus decreases the likelyhood of the passanger cabin collapsing on the occupants. Auto unlocking the doors would completely defeat the reason for that feature.
The actual mechanism of how the door works as kind of "configurable deformation zone" usually involves somewhat thick steel rod running down the middle of the door that on hinge side abbuts similar strength member in the chasis and on the latch side connects to the latch. The latch has two distinct positions depending on whether the door is just latched or locked and the only latched position is not strong enough to hold the potential impact forces..
alwa
Huh! Autolocking behavior has bothered me for as long as I remember seeing it, and I’d love to believe that it improves safety against crashes (rather than notional “bad guys trying to open the door on your journey” or something). It’s only ever inconvenienced me, never helped.
I’m having trouble finding more formal explanations for what you’re describing, though. I see a lot of talk about how the latching behavior links the door’s steel into the rest of the body, but very little about the structural aspects of the locks that link the handles to the latch’s release mechanism.
I’m the farthest thing from a car engineer, but I wonder if you’d know of anyplace I could read more about this structural aspect of locking design? Every time I accidentally lock out a passenger, I get frustrated: I’d find grace and patience easier to muster if I understood how someday it might save both our lives :)
Timshel
They have, from the owner manual (page 106 https://ownersmanuals2.com/d/101316/volkswagen-id3-2025-owne...)
Automatic unlocking (Auto Unlock) All vehicle doors and the boot lid are automatically unlocked if one of the following conditions applies:
— In an accident, when airbags have triggered.
— Or: the electronic parking brake is engaged and the ignition is switched off.
—Or: the door release lever has been operated. This applies at speeds up to around 15 km/h(around 9 mph).
gpderetta
This makes sense! But see your the sibling comment.
siva7
Only after the user story has been written in blood.
Ccecil
IIRC...on my older VW there is a way to set this to disable but it requires using OBDeleven/VCDS (or similar) via the CANBUS.
Typically, there are a few different options of things you can enable/disable that have no other menu options. OBDeleven has "one touch apps" that makes this easy...but there is also other ways to do things using the adaptations or long coding.
If you do any work on your own car having something like OBDeleven is pretty much required. You can't even change the rear brake pads without it.
SirFatty
It's been a long time since I've had a vehicle (car or truck) that didn't auto-lock the doors.
freetonik
I didn't say it's a new feature. I said the inability to disable it is.
rightbyte
> But they will also not open from the inside in case the electronics related to the central locking is damaged in the crash.
Are you sure? Wont the internal handle unlock the door by mechanical means?
freetonik
I am not sure. The driver's door handle unlocks all 4 doors, so at least that path is electronic. But I hope yes, each door's handle can also unlock the corresponding door's lock mechanically.
jackvalentine
I’m not an expert at this but I’m pretty annoyed that I now have to think about something as simple as door handles on a car?
I thought this was a solved problem.
_rm
As a tech person I've been in enough meetings where some tech nerd was aggressively driving forward a dementedly overcomplicated and perspective lacking solution to know that the last thing these types want is a solved problem.
To them, a wheel is detestable -because it's simple and easy to use, and they've got some idea of a superior complex polyhedron that's of course better and everyone else is dumb for not using it.
It would be good if we could trace whatever technical dog shit killed these poor little kids back to whoever was involved, and... "offer them a non-technical solution to the causal factors".
politelemon
I'm now imagining a developer telling a room of product managers that the car needs to run react on kubernetes and everyone just nodding along because they've heard those words before.
_rm
I guess your imagination isn't as dark as mine.
I imagine the nerd confidently standing up in meeting room, his eyes wide with a psychotic look of conviction, stating with vehement certainly: "they wouldn't be dead if we'd written it in Rust!".
But yeah, the 50 something checked out MBAs - just waiting for the end to the farce that was their "career" - would be nodding along.
ahartmetz
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a bunch of Docker containers running in some current cars.
anonymars
Guaranteed every Tesla owner (Model 3/Y at least, I haven't seen the others) has had to explain to new passengers how to properly open the door and to use the button to exit and NOT the obvious handle.
Meanwhile how many times in one's life as a non-Tesla-owner have you had to explain to someone how to open a car door?
They do say they're a tech company and not a car company, eh?
rchaud
The age old advice of "just buy Toyota or Honda" still applies.
floydnoel
Unfortunately not, I used that advice for three brand-new purchased Honda’s: a Fit, a Cr-V, and an Odyssey Touring Elite Minivan. The CRV was the last Honda I will ever buy. Honda stuffed too many computers into the car and it would kill the battery after one day. This is when I was traveling for work, making the vehicle useless. Honda dealer said “that’s how they all are now, because of the electronics the battery dies every few days” and they even claimed that they go around charging up all the vehicles on the lot with a portable battery charger every day because of it! Absolutely a lemon brand now. These companies just have a huge disrespect for software and quality in technology.
tolerance
There’s a Neil Postman talk from the late 90s where he voiced his disdain for and resistance against automatic windows while purchasing a new car. He was on to something.
Mistletoe
Elon like to think he innovates when he just changes stuff for no reason that carmakers figured out a century ago. Anyone that has used the turn signals or wipers in a Tesla understands how stupid it is.
seltzered_
Related articles on electronic door handles and issues with emergency opening: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-tesla-dangerous-door... ( Dana Hull for Bloomberg , via https://bsky.app/profile/danahull.bsky.social/post/3lz67zsyu... )
tedggh
Despite how horrific this is it doesn’t tell us what really happened. Doors can get stuck in any car after an accident. Teslas are very controversial today for obvious reasons so every time there’s some tragic news the brand has to be mentioned. Like recently they found a dismembered body of a woman and of course it was found inside a Tesla. In any case the lack of handles should not be a problem as there’s a latch inside which is easy to access and operate. It’s up to each car user to get familiar with the car to drive it safely.
gwbas1c
The article doesn't mention which vehicle.
The Model S and X have truly retractable door handles. The Model 3 and Y have flush door handles that you need to push in to get the latch to pull out. As far as I know, the 3/Y handles should work with the power disconnected; although many people who haven't ridden in one don't know that you need to push, then pull, the handle. (And probably won't figure it out when panicking.)
I don't know if there's a way to bypass the S/X handles. My Ioniq 9 has retractable handles, and if you push on one corner of the driver's door handle you can work it out. I don't know about the other doors, and I don't think someone could figure it out if panicking.
Driver8
The Model 3 and Y handles do not work with the power disconnected. The article says that it was a Model Y that they were unable to open. My Model 3 had a power issue and the doors would not open.
More instances: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/autos/electric-cars/tesla-under-in...
raffael_de
"crashed into a tree"
People have been trapped in burning cars due to impact and deformation since cars exist. Such tragedies are not specific to Teslas.
jccc
Why is this issue not caught by regulators? There must be something I don’t know about how that kind of regulatory approval happens.
orwin
Regulation in Europe mandate that doors have to unlock when airbags are triggered. If the model involved was legal in the EU, it was either a mechanical issue or an electronic one, and maybe not exclusively Tesla's fault, but it was caused by their poor engineering/assembly practices.
If it's in the US and they have no regulations on this, I don't want to be cavalier but they should reflect on their anti-regulation culture, and Tesla does not deserve to be scapegoated (not a fan of the brand, but I try to be consistent).
Zak
When I have driven cars with electronic door poppers, I found them to be a downgrade from traditional mechanical door handles. It's even possible to make the latter sit flush, and cars have been doing it since at least the 1960s.
I'm all for trying new things in the hope that there might be a better way, but make sure it's actually better before putting it into a volume product where it has safety implications.
dvh
Joerg Sprave from Slingshot channel designed and is selling new type of glass breaking hammer that has foldable car glass saw.
prmph
The windows could not be broken?
A small nit: It's "burnt", not "burnend"
zenethian
Article deleted?
ndsipa_pomu
Why does the title have "Burnend"? As far as I can tell, there's a Burnend distillery that produces Scotch Whisky, but I fail to see the connection with Teslas.
metalman
in aircraft design there is something called the "failure mode", and every last possible thing is considered and reviewed from all possible scenarios and accident reviews. so things like wing bolts are obvious, but the door handles are also approved, and how the carpet is held down, as if it comes loose, and rumpples up under the rudder pedals, you die, and on and on and on. recently been a spate of helicopter accidents where loose objects (personal kit), have jammed controls, and the problem becomes, do you ban (shift blame) loose objects, or go all in and test and design for unjammable controlls.....which will require a slightly larger cabin with greater clearances, and controlls that are fully covered and therefor a bit heavier and harder to service.....which comes with it's own risks
I drive a VW ID.3, and while it has traditional door handles, there is a feature that drives me crazy: it auto-locks the doors when you start driving. There is no way to turn this off. In case of a crash, the doors won't open from the outside. But they will also not open from the inside in case the electronics related to the central locking is damaged in the crash. I don't understand how this is considered a safety feature.
In every single other car I'd driven there was a way to permanently disable such feature. Not in ID.3.