Tesla Model Y Owner Says His Car Trapped Him Inside on Hot Arizona Summer Day When Battery Died
An Arizona man said his Tesla Model Y became a hot box when the power died.
“It’s definitely a safety concern; it was one of the hotter days,” Rick Meggison, 73, of Peoria told KNXV-TV.
The incident took place on a 100-degree day in June and left him unable to get out of his car for about 20 minutes while it was in his garage, he said.
“I couldn’t open the doors. I couldn’t lower the windows. The computer was dead, so I couldn’t open the glove box. I couldn’t open anything,” Meggison said.
“Being caught in there for a couple hours could be dangerous,” he said.
His sister eventually was able to open the passenger door through the Tesla app, but the window cracked in the process.
“I think that Tesla needs to address this,” Meggison said.
Car safety expert Norma Hubele called the vehicle “essentially a computer on wheels that’s run on a battery.”
“If that battery is not reliable or if for some reason the consumer isn’t aware of how to override a problem with the battery, then you can have real safety problems,” Hubele, founder of TheAutoProfessor.com, told KNXV.
Firefighter and paramedic Paul Shoemaker said there is a manual way to exit but added, “There’s not enough knowledge about it.”
A manual release latch for the driver’s door is located underneath the handle, but accessing the manual release for the passenger door requires the removal of a mat from the rear door pocket.
PSA: Model Y passenger side emergency door release.
I bet you didn’t know it’s there! pic.twitter.com/RS0mYm0H7v
— Mr Tesla 𝕏 (@MrTeslaX) August 7, 2023
“Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors,” the Tesla manual warns.
“It’s not labeled. You don’t know it’s there unless you know it’s there,” Meggison said.
In December, Insider wrote of a similar incident involving a British Tesla owner.
Tom Exton said the Model Y lost power, and although he used the mechanical latch to escape, he broke a window in the process.
In April, a woman in Coburg, Oregon, had a similar situation in her Tesla Type 3 on a 38-degree day, according to KEZI-TV.
Capt. Rick McPherson of the Coburg Rural Fire District said the woman dealt with the near-freezing weather by lighting a candle on the dashboard.
McPherson said the woman did not know about the manual latch release, but rescuers talked to her about it and she was able to exit the Tesla.
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