Erin Geter¡¯s toddler son became trapped inside her Tesla in May when the electric doors lost power. A few weeks later, she was at a Honda dealership buying a new family car.
¡°I was very traumatized,¡± said the 39-year-old from Huntersville, North Carolina. These days, she prefers to transport her kids in the CR-V, which has standard door handles.
Geter¡¯s case is a particularly extreme example of the lengths Tesla owners are now going to deal with a problem most had never imagined: being unable to open malfunctioning doors. Some are buying glass breakers in case they need to escape through the windows. Rideshare drivers are proactively showing passengers where to find Tesla¡¯s built-in manual door releases, which vary substantially by model. Sellers on Amazon and Etsy are listing emergency pull cords and other third-party accessories to make the releases easier to use, and Reddit boards and YouTube videos have cropped up to provide step-by-step installation instructions. Nearly 35,000 people have signed a Consumer Reports online petition calling on automakers to fix their electronic doors.
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