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Plenty of Tesla owners regret their decision to buy one of those cars thanks to their association with Elon Musk, but there are also some well-documented downsides that have nothing to do with the divisive billionaire. That includes questionable engineering decisions that can pose a significant safety risk and have inspired some people to install emergency ripcords out of an abundance of caution.
It’s been more than 15 years since Tesla burst onto the scene while using the Roadster to position itself as The Next Big Thing in the world of electric vehicles, and it did manage to live up to that promise en route to becoming not only the most valuable car company in the world but one of the biggest corporations on the planet based on market cap.
You can’t talk about Tesla without talking about Elon Musk, the CEO who owes a great deal of his one-time reputation as the real-life version of Tony Stark (as well as his massive fortune) to his decision to be an early investor in what eventually became a business behemoth.
Tesla is still the eighth-most valuable publicly-traded company in existence and has rallied a bit after seeing its stock price plummet from a record high of $488.54 a share last December (it’s hovering around $347 as of this writing). However, it’s also lost a lot of its luster thanks to Musk’s decision to insert himself into American politics ahead of the most recent presidential election.
If you spot a Tesla in the wild today, there’s a solid chance you’ll spot a bumper sticker emblazoned with anti-Musk sentiments due to owners who’ve helped support a thriving cottage industry built on the foundation of the various controversies he’s been embroiled in over the past year.
The cars themselves have also faced plenty of issues thanks to self-driving technology that still leaves a lot to be desired, alleged deception linked to mile range claims and odometer readings, and the batteries that have been responsible for massive fires and tragic deaths.
That included an incident that unfolded in Toronto last year that claimed the lives of four people who were in a Model Y that crashed and were reportedly unable to open the doors from the inside after it caught on fire (one person was saved after a bystander smashed a window with a metal pole).
Tesla doors are battery-powered, and there have been more than a few people who say they’ve also ended up stuck inside one in a non-life-threatening situation due to a loss of power.
There is a manual release that’s fairly easy to access if you’re sitting in one of the front seats (it’s situated near the buttons used to control the windows), but if you’re in the back, you need to pry open a compartment that contains a cable you have to yank to trigger the mechanism.
According to FuelArc, the fairly convoluted nature of that second method has led to some Tesla owners taking matters into their own hands by installing emergency ripcords that passengers can yank in the event of an emergency, and one person who put together a D.I.Y. guide showcased the multiple steps you need to take in order to access the cord in the first place while potentially wasting valuable seconds if you needed to go that route while stuck in a burning vehicle.
Better safe than sorry.
Content shared from brobible.com.