ATLANTA — A Georgia man who got trapped in his Tesla as it caught fire is pushing for safety changes with the electric car maker.
The concern is the doors on Teslas and some other electric cars.
Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray found more than 180 safety complaints to federal regulators about this in their database.
Very little is left of Kevin Clouse’s Tesla Model 3.
“All this backside of me got burned,” Clouse told Gray, showing where he got burned.
He only learned after his 2023 crash and the fire that followed that Tesla’s electronic doors can lose power
“I tried to reach and push the button to open the door. I shoved on it. I hit on it. I couldn’t get out,” Clouse said.
It’s not just Tesla’s. Last year, Jenn Pereira called 911 when smoke was entering the cabin of her Rivian. Firefighters on the scene had to research how to get the doors open.
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“And they kept pounding on the car and trying to figure out a way to get in it, to get me out. And so, it was just super scary,” Pereira said.
The Rivian owner’s manual shows where to find a manual release. Telsas have those emergency releases, too. But there is no label identifying them, and they appear almost hidden in the doors.
In the rear seats, the emergency latch is inside a map pocket.
“You have to pull up a mat, and then you have to reach your finger in and pull up on it,” Clouse showed Gray.
A California lawsuit after the death of two people in a Tesla Cybertruck fire alleges “Tesla has been repeatedly placed on notice that its reliance on electronic door systems created a serious risk of occupant entrapment after crashes.”
Clouse only made it out of his Tesla by breaking a rear window, with a witness on scene stepping in to pull him out.
“You don’t have time to consult an owner’s manual,” said Michael Brooks, Executive Director of the Center for Auto Safety. He says federal regulators should step in.
“I think there needs to be a federal safety standard that standardizes the placement of manual releases for emergency exit,” Brooks said.
Tesla has not announced official changes. But the company’s head of design, Franz Von Holzhausen, said on a podcast in September that they are planning a door redesign.
“The idea of combining the electronic one and the manual one together into one button, I think, you know, makes a lot of sense,” Holzhausen said.
“I just think that it’s insane, to me, that these things are like that and unlabeled,” Clouse said.
And it’s not just interior doors, it’s also the door latches on the exterior that don’t open without power, making it hard to get in an emergency.
Federal regulators this fall have launched an investigation into Tesla’s doors. In several cases, they say parents had children get locked in the back.
A Rivian spokesperson told us: “Safety is at the center of everything we do at Rivian. All of our vehicles meet or exceed all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, including passenger egress from all doors in the event of a crash or emergency.”
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