what happens when a car catches fire because the electrical system is on fire and you can’t Open the door because it’s electric
Manual release or you die, just like that lady that drove hers into her pond.
There are manual releases on each door inside, but I’m surprised they don’t have them outside as well.
Reading more about it, I find that many only have manual releases on the front doors until recently and they have a connection point you’re meant to jump with power to unlock and open from the outside. I didn’t think anyone would be okay waiting for a jump to get their baby out, but then these people waited for firemen to break their window, so…
Hidden manual releases that still require you to push the door through the windows trim. FFS people have already died because of this shit. Why the hell hasn’t there been a mandatory recall on all Teslas over this?
It’s not fucking hidden, it’s right on the fucking door. Right there, in plain view. Fuck elon but equally fuck idiots who never read their manual or bother to learn fucking anything about a product then claim bullshit like that. Nothing about this is fucking hidden.
The rear doors also have one, that’s the only one you could argue is “hidden” as it’s in the little storage pocket area
A child isn’t going to find that. A rescuer who isn’t familiar with Teslas isn’t going to be able to find that.
I couldn’t even figure out how to open a fully functional door from outside the first time I got in a Tesla. I’m an adult who’s been driving my entire life.
That’s not innovation; it’s a safety hazard for the sake of the aesthetics of a handle that doesn’t stick out. I don’t view that as a reasonable trade-off.
At least it looks different than all the other door opening mechanisms. also rtfm before driving a car. Safety shouldn’t influence artistic choice btw.
I’m not reading the manual of the Uber I’m about to climb into. A firefighter isn’t going to read the manual of a car they’re trying to pry me out of.
I DO read the manual on the Kia I actually drive. To read about the recommendations for the tires. To read about replacing fuses. To find the load hauling capacity. Not how to open the fucking door.
safety shouldn’t influence artistic choice
Did you really just string those words together in all seriousness without a hint of irony? And that folks is exactly why we need the NHTSA.
Aesthetic choice should be more important than idiotic safety for personal vehicles. It should be every American’s right to drive vehicles that put them selves in higher danger, especially if it means proper defense from firefighters.
Not even the door locks are mechanical? So much built-in obsolescence…
It is, people are just stupid, can’t be bothered to read, or even wonder what that lever literally right on the door handle is for.
It’s definitely also in the X.
Yes, but it’s hidden behind the speaker Grill rather than just right on the door handle all the other models also have some type of covering or otherwise have hidden it it seems only the model 3 decided to put it in a very obvious spot
No, it’s the exact same as the model 3.
Idiocracy was a prophetic movie, with everything working, eh, like this and planes falling.
I haven’t has a car with mechanical locks in a long time. I’ve also not had a battery so dead the locks didn’t work.
There’s usually some sort of mechanical release for safety for stuff like this.
From inside sure, most cars have an override in the handle. It doesn’t change the lockout problem.
From the outside it is with a key.
On the mach E, my understanding is there’s a panel where you hook up a jump box that supplies power to those circuits to allow you to use your key fob to open the door. But there’s no bladed key to manually unlock the car. So technically there’s a failsafe but it’s not ideal. And I agree it ought not be allowed.
Yeah, that’s fucking stupid, and requires the electronics to not be damaged in whatever emergency situation you’ve found yourself in to require this external battery override solution.
how the fuck are you going to put power into the thing if you don’t have a charged battery
what the fuck is wrong with putting a door handle somewhere
There’s a little panel you can use the uncut key blade to pop out and a power and ground wire in them that’s accessible outside the vehicle. Of course that requires you to have a jump box or another car and some leads. I don’t know who needs to hear this but stay real close to civilization if you drive one of these. Don’t get stranded in no man’s land.
Yeah, not buying that kind of nonsense. I hate how defensively I have to think when buying a car. This and electronic ebrakes really bother me.
I have a Toyota where the electronic part of one door has completely failed. It still opens. You shouldn’t have to break out of your own car.
Yet.
My wife’s EV has a tiny key that comes out of the dongle, and has a tiny hidden keyhole under the handle.
I had to Google to find it, but it’s sufficient if power is out. It’s a mechanical lock mechanism like cars have had for a century. As it should be.
it’s really smart to have non-mechanical mechanical parts for things like a door
I was talking to a Tesla owner about this and they argued that if the window is electric then there’s no difference making the door electric. They couldn’t understand that the door itself can be operated independently of the rest of the vehicle.
Making windows electric causes a safety tradeoff. You get ease of operation while losing the ability to open the window in the event of an accident (where power cannot be supplied). However you can still unlock and open the door manually as an alternative escape option. This also applies in non-accident scenarios (dead battery).
Making doors electric is nothing more than a safety risk. From the inside you might have access to a manual release latch, but some doors require you to unscrew things first. Any emergency situation where you need to exit as soon as possible and the power is lost almost guarantees that you’ll be unable to safely escape.
Nothing about it is hidden, obfuscated, or even in a weird spot. It’s literally right on the fucking door handle. There’s a lot of reasons to hate elon, and there’s a lot of reasons to hate tesla. Let’s stick to the legitimate ones instead of making shit up, it just weakens the arguments for the actual issues
You need to fully edit your comment and remove the part defending this nonsense.
Ok. So that’s the Model 3.
How about the Model Y?
Ok. Not all Model Ys have rear manual releases. I’ll assume the best and believe that only certain countries have this design.
How about the Model X?
So it’s behind the speaker grille. Uncertain if you need a screwdriver, but I’ll assume not. However it is hidden away from sight.
How about the Model S?
Oh, it’s under the carpet.
So yeah, turns out, I’m not making shit up, and there is indeed empirical evidence for it.
OP posted a photo of the front door release and you posted the rear door release which should be intentionally hidden. The front door release in all models are as OP posted.
The latest Model 3 also hides the rear door release. Often you’ll have guests sit in the rear and they’re used to pulling something to open the door. So they pull the manual release and damage the frameless window.
You know what that’s entirely fair, looks like the M3 is the only not braindead design one then. I wouldn’t touch anything other than an M3 then personally (if i was going to use a tesla at all)
Cybertruck also has manual releases but the rear doors hold it in the map pocket. Better but still not in a sensible place when someone is panicking.
What is a non-mechanical mechanical part?
It’s the opposite of a mechanical non-mechanical part geeze…
You mean, non-electrical… not non-mechanical.
With sarcasm, one might say that it is desirable to have obviously undesirable thing. Your interpretation is one way, but I think they really meant “stupid” instead of “smart”.
Glad the toddler could be saved.
Did the batter die from extreme heat or due to the driver failing to charge the vehicle promptly?
Wrong battery. You’re thinking the high-voltage EV battery, but in this case, it was the 12V lead-acid accessory battery that died. Normally, that would be charged from the high voltage battery, if the car was running.
In this case, it might just have been bad luck with a worn-out battery.
Damn… thanks for the explanation!
Why not just open the door with the key like every car ever
It’s so obvious, then again I think there’s some cars out there without even a metal key for the engine. So dumb.
My car (Citroën) has a contact less key, I don’t have to get it out of my pocket and the car automatically opens.
But it still includes a small physical key to open the car when the battery (of the car or key) is dead.
The metal key is attached to the contactless key or is it a seperate device?
It’s usually stored inside the key fob.
There should really be a law, requiring a certain list of mechanical things to exist on the car. So far, it’s only the emergency turn signals, and what, the mirrors? The door handles absolutely need to be on that list
At least one door should open via a mechanical key and mechanical handle from the outside, and I firmly believe the internal door handles should all function mechanically as well. There shouldn’t be “usually you use a button but in an emergency this thing that looks like a bit of trim is the actual mechanical handle” that shouldn’t be allowable by code.
I saw a clip on Just Rolled In where a lady in a Lexus thought she was trapped in her car when the electrics failed, as did the firefighters who broke her window, despite there being manual releases on both the inside and the outside of the car.
I spent enough time in aviation to know how much drilling it actually takes to teach people emergency procedures. If it’s different than what they usually do, it takes hours of practice. Even something as simple as finding and pulling a different door latch. If you’re stressed, even as stressed as “the doors won’t open the way I’m used to them otherwise everything is okay” your brain will just fail to pivot to the alternate procedures.
Cars got so simple to use in the 90’s. Sure they were simpler machines in the 60’s but fuel injection eliminated chokes and other carburetor issues, automatic transmissions became ubiquitous, children can handle vehicles of this complexity. And now we’re making them more complicated for no actual reason, with electric door latches with manual backups and such, and it’s causing problems.
The car’s owner, Renee Sanchez, was taking her granddaughter to the zoo, but after loading the child in the Model Y, she closed the door and wasn’t able to open it again. “My phone key wouldn’t open it,” Sanchez said in an interview with Arizona’s Family. “My car key wouldn’t open it.” She called emergency services, and firefighters were dispatched to help.
Just so nobody thinks someone left a kid in the car and then went into a store or something. Tesla should be paying for the broken window repair at the very least.
Also, this is similar to a use case that Telsa likes to promote. They allow you to leave the climate on while the car is locked.
This makes me never want to trust the dog and camp modes they advertise.
In this specific example, I believe the driver buckled the child, closed the door, then was unable to open any door before starting the vehicle. Is it possible to either start the vehicle or at least turn on the climate control from outside? If not, this was a horribly dangerous situation.
Yeah, this wasn’t even intentional. The car just shit out while she was getting the car situated. Very scary.
Not without the 12V. I’m pretty sure most of the internal electronics are dependent on that working. There’s an access port so you can “jump” the 12V with another car, which I think would then allow you to open the door though.
I think I just saw an article saying that dog mode is currently broken lol
My 1998 Honda Civic SE hatchback was all manual. Manual windows with the canks, manual door locks, manual steering (no power steering), no braking assist, no assist of ANY kind in fact, and a manual transmission. It was basically an engine, four wheels and a steering wheel.
If EV manufacturers could make cars that are closer to my old Civic, with the only difference being the engine being swapped for an electric motor, I would switch in a heartbeat. For now I’ll stick with my 2010 Mazda 3, which I barely use except for the occasional trip to my family or friends who are out of the city or to do my groceries once a week. Until cars start using manual controls for essentials like door handles and locks, audio systems and temperature control, I want none of it.
I’m already having trouble with touch screen tablets when I’m not driving, let alone when I need to focus on the damn road.
i think kia ev6 is as manual as electric cars get. you can adjust the climate control with knobs, and move the seat manually!
I’m with you but I’m still hesitant because I like my manual transmission
Toyota is working on that, lol: https://insideevs.com/features/693877/toyota-ev-manual-transmission-tested/
simulates the way a multi-gear transmission operated
m8
I like driving stick, but if I get an electric car, I think I’ll pass this toy.
There was a time I wanted a Tesla, but I don’t anymore. This is just another reason why.
Does Tesla care about making a “neat thing” or do they care about making “a car that can drive me places”. The doors clearly show they prioritize making a “neat thing”, but I want a reliable car.
Opening and closing doors was a solved problem. Somehow Tesla made it worse.
Does Tesla care about making a “neat thing” or do they care about making “a car that can drive me places”
Neither. Care about making money.
One thing about Musk, I think he does care more about making a thing. Money is involved; but mostly because it’s necessary to make the thing.
It’s just that the things he wants to make are increasingly stupid and childish.
I think at this point Tesla is more about stockholders than it is Musk.
Boy you would think that, but it is clearly not the case. At least not primarily.
Although it’s definitely more of a factor than his other companies.
I understand wanting a Tesla maybe 5-6 years ago when they were a little ahead of the competition and the only ones with a big touch screen etc. and people didn’t understand that “self driving” is just a marketing term. And of course Musk hadn’t fully revealed his political agenda.
Not nowadays? Almost all EV are better than Tesla and at the very least buying one doesn’t line the pocket books of a Nazi.
Tesla isn’t a car… It’s an EXPERIENCE!!!
(/s just in case it isn’t obvious enough)
Same, but cars in general now. I used to look forward to driving, but now I’m sick of it. Biking and ebikes have made going places fun again :)
In summary, Tesla the company cares about not going bankrupt. Edge they have been walking on since inception. Musk on the other hand cares about money and being on TV non-stop because he’s a narcissist asshole. Problem is, those two have colliding interest because Musk is majority holder now and Tesla has to make what he says in his drug induced and poorly educated rambles. He wasn’t a majority holder for a while thanks to 42.0B$ fuck yea deal with then soon to be announced X but at the time Twitter. Now stock holders voted to give him 40B$ bonus to keep him in “leading role”.
So in short it’s a shitstorm. Stupid car that had a great idea but was ruined by narcissistic manchild. Car which you can only repair in authorized service centers by the way which is something no one talks about. Car that eats away your tires and some people report having to replace tires every six months. And on top of that, you have no spare tire to begin with. That means you run over a nail, tow truck for you it is.
Oh and I haven’t said anything about share holders because they are plain old idiots. Tesla is not paying dividends and never planned to do so. So people buy stocks to have them? I don’t know some sort of mystery. And even then, they buy stocks, then Musk hypes them up a bit, sells quintillion shares and bails out, which is why he’s not allowed to talk about Tesla without babysitter. So share holders buy stocks, lose money and cheer for Musk.
A lot of people are giving Tesla shit here, but surely there should be regulations in place to ensure something like this isn’t allowed to be released for public use?
You’d think so, but who do you think pays huge sums of money every year to be allowed to sell death traps to the public?
Sure you’d think you wouldn’t need regulations that state that there should be a manual way to open your car door. Have we gotten that stupid? Why in god’s name would you not have that option? What happens if the battery dies and you can’t start the car? You can’t open the door to pop the hood to even jump it. With all the brilliant people that work at a company like Tesla and no one thought there should be a way to open the door from the outside if there’s no power?
Have we gotten that stupid?
Something something “these regulations are written in blood” anecdote something something.
They do have a manual way of opening the car door if memory serves. It’s just in a hard to find place where a toddler wouldn’t think to look. Either way it’s a bad design. Nothing wrong with manual door handles imo.
The toddler was strapped into the seat at the time, so chances are that they would not be able to find and open the door that way anyhow.
They have one on the inside but not the outside. That’s why the mom couldn’t get into the vehicle or the firefighters and they had to take an axe to the window. How are you supposed to pop the hood to jump start your car if the battery is dead and you can’t get in the car because the battery is dead? It’s just a stupid design to not have a manual override.
True, a toddler wouldn’t think to look directly on the door handle. Not really the type of place you’d expect to find a door release you know /s
There is a lot of reasons to hate elon, and there is a lot of reasons to hate tesla. But it really pisses me off when people just make these circle jerk hate threads based on something they didn’t even spend half a second Googling. It just makes all the legitimate issues easier for people to blow off
You keep replying with this shit to every comment. How do you expect a toddler in a child seat to use that lever? Mind you I do not close car doors with my kids inside due to my own paranoia of losing the keys or something, but it’s a horrible design flaw that you can’t open the car from outside when the 12v battery is dead.
If the toddler is locked into their seat they likely aren’t opening any door regardless. This Is Us ignoring the fact that most rear doors have a child lock button that is usually activated at least most parents I’ve seen with toddlers generally activate that button.
There are so many legitimate things to complain about here I’m just annoyed by people basically saying wow how does it not have a manual release, or why is it hidden. When it’s not.
The real problem here is the lack of any external manual release. Obviously it would still need to somehow be locked with a key that is not electronic, but there should still be some type of manual release even if it’s on the bottom trim of the door for the sake of your Aesthetics or whatever. The complete and utter lack of any external manual release is the problem here but nobody is talking about that and is instead just making shit up about how there is no manual release for the inside, or it’s hidden, or difficult to use, I’m just tired of people making shit up.
That’s fine for opening the front doors in the model 3, but have you seen how to open the rear doors in the cyber truck? That’s what I was referring too.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/cybertruck/en_us/GUID-903C82F8-8F52-450C-82A8-B9B4B34CD54E.html
Every eventuality can’t be covered by regulation. Sometimes you realise something can go disastrously wrong after someone is hurt. I wouldn’t be surprised if this never happened to other mechanical cars to never need regulation. Sometimes you need to wait for a stupid product to exist for someone to make a rule saying “stupid products shouldn’t exist”.
Fun fact, a Tesla spokesperson describing the car’s features was talking about how they wanted something on the car that didn’t make it to final release and said “But sadly we couldn’t get that law changed”, which does… kind of imply that they lobbied the regulatory bodies into allowing this piece of shit to exist.
You’d think.
If only we had the technology to open doors without power. One day, perhaps.
Or charge/jump the 12V battery without having to remove the body panels.
But how do you integrate a subscription fee into analog doors? You can‘t enshitify that!!
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So you’re saying they designed it stupidly for no reason? Gosh.
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Here too. You dared to post correct info that appeared to go against the groupthink. And even though you’re agreeing what they did was stupid (which it is), it isn’t enough; you’re now part of the “other” tribe.
They charge 99$ a month for FSD.
I like how you were downvoted so heavily for posting correct information because there was a hint you weren’t shitting on Tesla hard enough.
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Oh that’s easy, just make it a one time release switch. You gotta replace the
doorbattery after using it.Door opener fluid. It’s a canister of fluid that you have to pump into the door to open it in an emergency. Then you get a replacement canister from the dealer for $150. I recently found out that that’s what passes for a “spare tire” anymore.
They do they both for cost and for weight savings to try and hit CAFE standard while only selling oversized CUVs.
Make small cars.
We want them, they’re fun and better for everyone.
An explosive hatch! Or ejection seat! Love it
The fact a car was approved that doesn’t have a manual way to open doors from inside and outside and start it is ludicrous. That’s basic-ass level shit. NHTSA is asleep at the wheel.
Other comment says there is a way from inside, just not outside (which doesn’t help with a young kid/toddler/baby is the inside passenger of course).
Either way, glad this is “only” a huge embarrassment, and not a dead kid.
Until then we’ve included a complimentary hammer with each Tesla.
There is a manual door release that works without power, but only from the inside. She had just loaded the child in their car seat, shut the door then went to the driver door to get in and couldn’t open it.
The doors are on the 12V side of the system, you can use jumper cables to connect an external battery from another vehicle (including ICE vehicles) to power the door under normal circumstances. But with a kid trapped in the car in AZ, I wouldn’t wait for that either.
It a pretty rare combinations of circumstances, but there’s something to be said for manual keys still used on other vehicles with keyless entry.
How would you connect the battery with jumper cables if you’re locked out?
Or the foresight to have a small backup battery unit used exclusively for emergencies like say when the battery goes out or when someone reverses their car into a lake. The fact these are such death traps shows just how bad the US is when it comes to giving a flying fuck about people over money.
And all the while Elon is touted as some kind of super Lex Lutherian genius.
Honestly if I wrote a fictional book with some of the shit he’s done and how the world looks at him publishers would throw it back in my face as being the most unbelievable POS they’ve read in the past 20 years.
have a small backup battery
As far as I understand, that 12V battery was that backup…
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Not anymore, they’ve updated the platform to be 48v (which they shared the docs with the rest of the industry) and are using lithium batteries in both systems instead of lead acid. They’re supposedly supposed to last the lifetime of the vehicle instead of having to be replaced every 4-5 years.
https://insideevs.com/news/656775/tesla-switch-48v-voltage-system/
Only the cyber truck. Model S and 3 refreshes are still on the legacy platform, with a lithium ion 12V.
In this story, it’s the model y.
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The point I was trying to make is that the model y switched to 12v lithium batteries in late 2021 that are supposed to last the lifetime of the vehicle (from the 2nd article). The 12v lead acid batteries you are used to seeing in every other car made since the 1960s usually only last 4-5 years.
I would bet that the model y from this story is either a 2019 or 2020 model
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Nope it’s a separate battery used like in a normal car to power the low voltage stuff so you don’t have to use high grade power lines to run the windows and doors
During the pandemic my car sat in the garage until the battery died. After 7 hours of charging it, turned on the car and found the hybrid battery was almost full.
I get why the high and low voltage systems are separate, but damn that was one of those “Really!?” moments…
It’s much much much cheaper to use the same 12V systems that other cars use.
Kia/hyundai solved this by having a disconnect on their (li-ion) 12V battery. When the voltage gets low it completely isolates the battery. There is a button inside the car that reconnects it right before starting the car.
I should have said a small battery backup done properly knowing full well the abysmal QA of that company.
Oh, well, then, …
I still dont like something that is electric powered making it so you cant get through a door. If there is a short, the battery dies (which it will someday) or generally bad parts could potentially lead to a preventable death. Cars were made so keys (or key like) can open the door no matter what. And especially in the heat everyone is going through in the US.
Ya I hear you. I don’t even like driving modern cars because they are all electrical and the pedals feel like video game controls. But nothing in the Tesla is built well. I fully believe it possible to build a full proof battery backup and not just hook up a random 12v that probably suffers from the same abysmal QA as the rest of the car.
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Lol its not hidden at all.
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If you owned one you’d know i guess. The M3 has un hidden regular door pulls on the inside both front and rear doors. Idk about the Y.
I know it’s cool to hate Tesla, but wrong is wrong, despite the downvotes.
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It doesn’t look hidden to me, I expect I’d probably use that by accident myself.
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Front seat? Sure. Back seat? Nah. You have to remove paneling, pull a tab up, then pull a cord forward. That is a three step, non-obvious and non-intuitive way to open a door.
Or, climb into the front seat and open the front door.
Or, all doors should have an obvious mechanical backup that doesn’t require that.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment; it has dissolved its press office.
Sounds like journalists can just make shit up and publish it. “Telsa declined to comment.” so I guess it’s true until corrected.
It’s how journalists apply pressure to companies to respond. “We have statements x, y, and z from the public about you. Do you care to respond? We need to go to press with it in two hours.” Companies can ignore it if they want, but the statements will go uncontested.
Let me fill in for them then: “We CoUlDn’T PoSsIbLy pReDiCt ThAt tHiS wAs GoInG tO hApPeN!”
That’s the usual typical Corporate bad faith answer to whenever a serious consequence that everyone could see coming but they kept ignoring finally happens.
MadLad that Elmo is
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Does it also send a poop emoji now?
where’s the manual door release?
Inside the car (sadly). No manual release on the outside.
im as stupid as a baby, i still actually meant the inside but OFC the baby can’t figure that out.
Read the article
On the door
Where’s the door?
If you can’t find the door on a car, you’re too far gone to help.
But there is babby in crar. How girl get pragnent?
The fucking DOORS require a charged battery? Fuck that. That decision will age great in the next ten years. Not to mention emergency situations where the electrical system is compromised.
there’s a mechanical override inside the car, but from outside doors can only be opened via nfc or remotely irrc (not a real safety issue tho as the doors can still be opened by breaking the windows like in basically all other cars)
https://insideevs.com/news/460707/testing-tesla-laminated-glass-vs-regular-glass/
They have laminated glass on the doors. Yes, it can break, but it takes saws to actually open. Having to get through a window to open a door because a battery died is very much a safety issue. Especially with how prone they are to having their batteries catch on fire. Relying in the electrical system or a super secret back up plan on the interior of the care in an emergency is stupid.
Clearly it’s a safety issue. You should not have to break it to use it.
There’s a release latch on the doors beside the “open door” buttons. I guess no I’ve else is pointing that out?
Is that latch on the inside or the outside?
obviously inside as putting it outside would make thieves job significantly easier.
you can still break a window to pull it if there’s an emergency like with basically all other carsNo, with basically all other cars you can just unlock and open the doors with a physical key and a physical handle. That’s the next step in an emergency when the electronic locks fail, not fucking breaking through the fucking windows.
Pretty sure thats on the inside of the car and is actually covered as well. Release latch means shit in this situation, especially since car door design was more or less perfected over a hundred years ago at this point. Change for the sake of change is a damndable concept for tech.
It’s worse than that: it requires the old school lead acid 12v battery to be charged, so even if the car’s battery is full, it doesn’t matter if that old car battery has failed
That’s not unique to Tesla EVs, but it being required to open the doors may be (the 12v lead acid runs the general vehicle electronics rather than down converting the 400v or 800v main battery… I don’t understand that decision, but I’m no electronics expert so there may be really good reasons for it…)
I can understand why. I’m guessing it’s for a couple reasons, maybe fluctuations in the voltage depending on driving conditions ( if you’re stomping on the throttle allowing everything to flow through the motors it may provide inconsistent voltage to the sensitive computers and electronics, I would imagine there is a step-down converter somewhere that charges that 12v battery, essentially that battery is used as a buffer. But the link between the big batt. and little batt. isn’t active unless the vehicle is on. And “On” requires the 12v system to turn on computers and close a relay.
Doors relying on ANY electronics is a bad idea. Even most cars with keyless entry have a hidden key somewhere to physically get in the vehicle if the battery dies. If the main battery in a tesla is toast you have bigger problems than a locked door. But anyone who has been driving for more than a few years has likely dealt with an OG battery decides to stop taking a charge. And you probably won’t get much of a warning in an EV that doesn’t have an engine that starts turning over slower and slower.
Let me start by stating that requiring the battery to open/close doors is a bad design choice overall. There should always be a way to open the door using a physical key.
Ok, having said that, the 12V is a better choice. It’s easier to replace a 12V battery in case it fails and forcing the main battery to power everything runs the risk of draining that. Li-Ion batteries don’t react well to being completely drained.
Besides, all EVs have a way to attach an external battery to the 12V system in case of total power failure, which will then allow you to do whatever you need. In case of Tesla Model Y there are two cables hidden in the tow eye cover that power the hood release. With the hood open you can charge the 12V battery directly.
Thank you for providing the good reasons for it, it makes much more sense now
James May made a video about how easy is to recharge Tesla’s battery
I really don’t understand why they still use those heavy lead acid ones. Couldn’t you at least get a lighter lithium battery if it has to be a separate circuit?
To be fair I think it is there as a backup for low temperature climates, the Lithium batteries wont charge at temps that low, but they still could have setup the lithium batteries as an emergency backup for all the 12v stuff.
When the car isn’t driving I believe the main battery isn’t connected for safety reasons. It’s a high voltage battery, and having it connected all the time even when the car is being serviced is an unnecessary safety risk.
Yeah they could and probably should use a different battery technology than lead acid. Preferably something with a wide temperature range. Lithium Titanate Oxide anyone?
I know that hybrids like the Prius (at least the older ones) use the inverter to charge the 12v battery with the EV battery to make the ICE beltless (no AC compressor, alternator, etc driven by the ICE) which is supposed to increase fuel efficiency.
