The investigation into a quadruple fatal crash of a Tesla in Toronto last month is still ongoing, however this week a mailman told the Toronto Star he was forced to smash the window with a metal pole to rescue the sole survivor after the doors failed to open due to power failure.
“You couldn’t open the doors,” Canada Post worker Rick Harper recalled about the October 24 crash on Lake Shore Boulervard. “I would assume the young lady would have tried to open the door from the inside, because she was pretty desperate to get out. I don’t know if that was the battery or what. But she couldn’t get out,” Harper continued, adding that he wasn’t even aware there had been any other occupants as the Model Y’s cabin was completely filled with acrid black smoke.
Calgary Fire Department Captain Randy Schmitz, who serves as the chair of the Alberta Vehicle Extraction Association, says it’s not only Tesla models whose doors can fail if power is lost after an accident as he’s aware of the problem in some GM, Ford, and Mazdas too, all of them equipped with manual overrides that are difficult to find in a high-stress situation, like a fire. “Part of the problem is (salespeople) don’t inform the vehicle owners of this feature so it falls on the vehicle’s owner to seek out the information in their service manual that comes with every vehicle,” said Schmitz.
But let’s hear more about how Tesla’s mastermind is going to tackle the US government’s red tape.