According to the Tesla owner’s manual, “Vehicle functions, including some safety systems and opening or closing the doors or windows, may be limited or disabled when installation is in progress and you could damage the vehicle.” Janel chose to heed Tesla’s warning and did not attempt to open her doors or windows during the installation process for fear of damaging her vehicle, but this seems like a very dangerous oversight on Tesla’s part that she was able to be stuck inside at all.

The door mechanisms on the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y are electrically operated, and under normal circumstances are opened from the inside using a simple button to unlatch the door. Should the vehicle have no power, these models do have auxiliary manual cable release levers also found on the door panel, but Tesla warns against using the manual mechanism, citing that it should only be used when the car has no power. Janel said she was aware of this option but didn’t want to risk damaging her car, and she felt confident that she could stick out the heat.

The Tesla owners manual states that the car will not initiate a software update if Keep Climate mode, Dog Mode, Sentry Mode or Camp Mode are engaged, but it fails to require vehicle occupants to exit the vehicle before the debilitating installation process begins. Tesla also recommends owners install software updates as soon as possible, which could cause some owners to feel obligated to initiate an update in a compromised environment.

Janel said her car estimated the install would only take 24 minutes, but it actually took 40 minutes, which was long enough for her car’s interior to reach 115 degrees. In a follow-up video, her caption states that she was afraid to mess up her car by getting out during the installation.

So maybe she was not doing the smartest thing by choosing not to damage her car even when it was getting dangerously hot, but considering how expensive Teslas are and how easy it is to violate their EULA, I can’t really fault her as much as I fault Tesla.

  • @emergencyfood
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    82 months ago

    Elon Musk’s opinions on things like quality control and regulation might be why Tesla cars are so uniquely shit.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      I think the issue is more related to his takeover of Twitter and the massive purge of leftist ideologues from one of the world’s largest social media company. I’m almost certain this has nothing to do with cars.

      This is a massive loss of power and influence for these sorts of people. Now they are showing how much they are seething by playing all these games, like talking shit about Tesla lol.

      FYI, I don’t even like Tesla. I think it’s a cyberpunk dystopia on wheels. I would never buy one nor recommend it to anybody. This is not about cars.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 months ago

        Musk was hated by a lot of people long before his takeover of Twitter, and by many before he even started going all political. The EnoughMuskSpam subreddit has existed for 8 years.

        The man shills solutions that don’t work (Hyperloop) to oppose public transit projects so the US would stay car dependent, lets his company operate with near zero quality control (literally, interior panels often just… fall off on Teslas a couple of days or weeks after delivery?) and so on. This was all long before 2020, which is the year he turned into a right-wing nutter because… checks notes … the lockdowns were affecting Tesla’s revenue and he wanted to be able to force his employees to continue working in unsafe conditions.

      • @emergencyfood
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        22 months ago

        This article is about Tesla. Twitter isn’t involved in any way. Also, people - specifically people on Twitter - seem to vastly overestimate that platform’s impact.