In case you thought cars would become safer as technology developed… rest assured, Tesla is finding newer and ever-dumber ways to make their cars dangerous to occupants (and others).
TL;DR: If you’re in a Tesla and it loses power (like in a fire), the only way to open the doors is often an unlabeled wire behind either two panels or a speaker grill. Tesla owners are DIYing janky rip cords to make that wire easier to pull to escape.
From what I have gathered glass breakers don’t work on
tempered glasslaminated glass (which is what newer cars are now using). I read somewhere that fire fighters essentially have to use a sawzall in order to get through a window like that. Pretty much everything I can think of that’s almost as compact as a glass break requires power or batteries of some kind which would be yet another thing to remember to charge and maintain.Not that it would be OK as a commercial product, but I have wondered how small a shape charge could get and still make a good enough opening for egress.
You read right. Sawzall is not suitable for glass without a special blade, though. It’s easier to use a similar tool called a GlassMaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx1FrAQ9SVw
Before cordless sawzall’s became a thing, every fire depadtment/rescue squad would make up a handle that you could attach a used sawzall blade to for cutting safety glass windshields. And they still carry them to this day as a backup. They are amazingly effective. You just need a hole to get started.
These days, every rescue/fire truck carries a cordless sawzall as the go to for such jobs. No special blade required.
Ahh, I was just about to go on a rabbit hole looking for this info. Thanks!
Amazing how this looks like a Tim & Eric skit.
You are thinking about Safety glass and not tempered glass. safety glass has plastic film laminated between some layers of glass.
Tempered glass doesn’t have that and when stressed at a small point, crumbles quite satisfyingly easy.
You are correct, I had terms swapped around in my head. Tempered glass is what glass break devices were designed for. Newer cars are swapping their tempered glass windows for laminated glass windows which traditional glass break devices do not work on.
Yeah, there a few cars out there that do have safety glass rather than just tempered glass installed as side windows. But they are fairly uncommon due to the high cost and at least one engineer’s thought that safety glass might not be the safest thing in that application. Because it does make it more difficult to quickly gain access to an injured person if needed.
I think BMW has a couple models with safety glass for side windows. But it’s been a hot minute since I have needed to concern myself with such minutia.
AFAIK all you need for tempered glass is a bit of ceramic material (spark plugs are an easy way to get this), at least for the side windows. Windshields are a different type of glass. Mohs scale.
That’s fascinating that a sawzall could even do something to tempered glass if one of these spring loaded breakers and a hefty tip doesn’t do anything. I guess it’s got to do with the angle of attack/vibrations. Very interesting.