All cars with electronic cranks have mechanical “fuses” to get out of the car when the 12V supply fails. However, American Rick Meggison didn’t know that when he slammed the door of his Tesla Model Y and all the electronics were dead.
In Arizona, 73-year-old Rick Meggison got into his Tesla Model Y, closed the door, and nothing worked. She couldn’t open the windows, the doors, the displays didn’t work, and Meggison was trapped.
Or rather, he thought he was trapped. The cause of the car’s malfunctioning systems was a dead battery. However, it was not the discharged traction battery that drives the car, it was a classic 12V battery that drives all electronic systems just like in a conventional car. “The whole car was just dead,” says Meggison.
The Tesla Model Y, like many other modern cars, has electronic handles, meaning that the standard handle – in this case, the button on the handle – does not open the door directly mechanically, but activates a servomotor that unlocks the door. Of course, this requires energy in a 12V battery.
However, all cars with handles designed in this way also have a lever that unlocks the door mechanically, just for emergencies like this one. They are usually located somewhere on the door or near it, but for design reasons they are not visible at first glance.
In the case of the Tesla Model Y, it is a small lever in front of the buttons to control the windows. It is not marked, but the user manual clearly describes its function. So Meggison had an escape route within reach for the entire twenty minutes he spent in the car feeling helpless. However, the door was eventually opened in another way – Meggison called his sister, who somehow managed to open the door through a smartphone app.
“You’re basically controlling a computer, and we all know what happens to computers,” comments his car Meggison. However, this is not the case only with Tesla, cars of other brands, and not only electric ones, can today be considered computers on wheels due to the enormous amount of electronics on their boards.
News website ABC7 reports that Meggison’s case is not the only one. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) records a number of cases where the Tesla driver did not know how to get out of the car or into it in the event of a 12V power failure. This is always possible by mechanical means.
So the problem is not actually with the cars themselves, but with their users, who simply do not know their cars and do not know what to do in the event of a non-standard situation. Now, however, there is at least one less ignorant user, because after replacing the 12V battery in his Tesla, Meggison’s technicians explained how to get out of the car in an emergency.
Finally, how is it possible for the 12V battery to discharge when the electric car has enough “juice” in the traction battery? Theoretically, this should not be possible, because electric cars keep the 12V battery at an optimal state of charge with energy from the traction battery. However, the battery ages much faster than the rest of the car, and it’s possible that the one in Meggison’s car was simply too far past its useful life to fail.
Meggison said the car sent a message to his cell phone saying the battery needed to be replaced, but only after it was completely dead. According to him, the message should come before there is a threat of any problem. In the same way, according to him, the car manufacturer should more clearly indicate how to get out of the car when the 12V power supply fails.
Should car companies do a better job of showing how to get out of such a car in an emergency?
Yes, the unmarked lever is not enough
13,6%
It would be enough to mark the lever
20,5%
No, people should know their cars better
65,9%
Thank you for your vote.
A total of 44 readers voted.
2023-08-06 07:51:00
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