Woman left trapped in 'scary' Tesla after battery dies
Topics: Cars, Tesla, Technology, Electric Cars
Ella Scott
Featured Image Credit: On Your Size/AZ Family/3TV/CBS 5
Topics: Cars, Tesla, Technology, Electric Cars
A woman who claims to have gotten stuck in her electric Tesla vehicle has called out the Elon Musk co-founded company for failing to educate their drivers.
On Wednesday, June 19, an Arizona resident spoke to On Your Side and recounted how she came to be trapped inside her car.
The woman, named Diane, began by explaining how she’d owned a Tesla Model Y for around three years and had previously issued no complaints.
She even assured the outlet: “It’s a fun car to drive.”
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But last month, disaster struck when she tried to go for a routine drive and found herself unable to open the electric vehicle’s doors.
“It was fully charged,” the Valley driver claimed. “I unplugged the car, went to get in my car, shut the door, everything just shut down. I couldn’t open the windows, I couldn’t unlock the doors I was just trapped.”
After realising she couldn’t exit the powered-down car, Diane tried to check out her Tesla owner’s manual to figure out how to get herself out.
However, her efforts proved futile as she wasn’t able to open the glovebox to get the manual out.
The woman proceeded to call a friend for aid but when he turned up he couldn’t figure out how to get her out of the vehicle either.
Diane proceeded to log into the official Tesla app where she requested emergency roadside assistance.
It’s claimed that eventually, representatives at the company sent her a text message to let her know there was a ‘secret latch’ on the inside of the car door which would allow her to exit the vehicle.
“It [was] scary and very unnerving to say the least,” she complained after the ordeal.
In the weeks following the incident, Diane has allegedly spoken to many Tesla owners who were also unaware they could open their car doors when the vehicle had no power.
She told On Your Side that she’d like the company to educate its drivers further about this important safety feature and wants the company to take further action.
“But to me, it seems that the default for when you lose power should be windows and doors open,” she added. “Not lock. It should be the reverse logic. That I don’t understand.”
Interestingly, Diane isn’t the only Tesla driver to have been trapped in her car recently.
Last month, Brianna Janel was sitting in a Chic-Fil-A parking lot when she became trapped inside her vehicle.
She claimed in a TikTok video that she was attempting to update her car’s system and thought it would take around 24 minutes to complete.
However, she was allegedly forced to sit inside the vehicle for 40 minutes in 103-degree weather.
Unlike Diane though, Janel was familiar with the manual door release but decided to wait it out in the California heat in case she damaged her car.
UNILAD has reached out to representatives of Tesla for comment.