Four people, aged between 26 and 32, tragically lost their lives in Toronto when their Tesla crashed into a pillar and burst into flames. Unfortunately, a malfunction prevented the car doors from opening.A woman in her twenties, the fifth passenger, narrowly escaped after a bystander broke a window to free her.
Setting aside anything specific to the mechanism in that vehicle, I suppose that keeping one of those window-breaker tools in the dash might have been a good idea, for a car of any sort.
That being said, I don’t keep one in my car.
Now is the time to change that.
And make sure it comes with a seat belt cutter.
I have a very, very tiny folding knife (less than an inch blade) on my keychain, and unless I’m flying somewhere, I always have that, and I suppose that that could cut a seatbelt, though I doubt that it’d be likely for the seatbelt to jam. No glass punch, though.
It’s best to use specialized tools for this. A knife this small is basically useless.
I’ve heard that done Tesla models have laminate glass on the doors, like they make the windshield, making most glass breakers ineffective.
investigates
Hmm. Apparently, yeah, some Tesla vehicles do and some do not.
reads further
It sounds like autos in general are shifting away from tempered glass side windows to laminated glass, so those window breakers may not be effective on a number of newer cars. Hmm. Well, that’s interesting.
https://info.glass.com/laminated-vs-tempered-car-side-windows/