Every time I ride in my friend's Tesla, he has to remind me not to touch the door because the only obvious handle is not the "correct" way to open it or something. Total UX fail.

Between that and the all touchscreen monstrosity that won't let you open the glove box or change the AC settings without taking your eyes off the road renders the car not very user friendly, IMHO. I wanted one real bad before I actually got to ride in one, and now it feels like I dodged a bullet there.

If it’s so obvious and right there, I don’t get why it isn’t just a door handle.

Well, my guess is that most Tesla decisions can be explained primarily by cost, followed closely by 'oooh cool'. It may well be easier to have an electric release for the door which is actuated by momentary buttons inside & out. And if it turns out that the cheaper option also makes customers think 'oooh, neato, fancy' then that's a bonus.

Sure but when you're panicking obvious things don't seem so obvious anymore.

Yeah I think there is some research showing how aircraft passengers can easily get confused about how to unfasten seat belts in an emergency situation. (Or at least that this is taken into account in the design of the seatbelts).

Your brain can switch into a very different mode in “stress” situations, especially if it’s a scenario you’ve not had repeated training for.

Even in normal circumstances having two possible ways to open the door seems… unintuitive.

Right, I agree, which is why I think there's only so much you can do. At a certain point someone is going to panic and lose all their ability to reason or see otherwise obvious things. It's an edge case.

Though I have to say, being unable to open the doors with the button doesn't seem panic-worthy. I'd be irritated at first, then intrigued, then I'd just pull the manual release and put in a service appointment to fix the car. Being unable to get out instantly is very rarely an emergency.

Why doesn't the regular handle physically release the door? A car door shouldn't need an "emergency" function, it should be the default as this incident shows.

My son found the emergency release before I did.

Naming another significant design failure is an interesting way to defend the design and harsh on users...

Yeah, it is so obvious that it takes a couple of times to _not_ use the emergency release in the front seats. Even to the point that a warning pops up on the screen telling you to not use the emergency release in order to not damage the door seal (when using the normal door button, a Tesla's windows lower slightly to equalize the air pressure).

That said, I do have serious concerns with the emergency release in the rear seats. It is not at all obvious, even with recent updates[0], and in an accident or case where a rear seat passenger is not physically capable of climbing into the front, I don't know how someone would be able to exit the car.

[0] https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tesla-model-y-got-a-more-...

"when using the normal door button, a Tesla's windows lower slightly to equalize the air pressure"

Not correct - the real reason is because the Tesla windows are frameless and it is not possible to open or close the door without the window colliding with the gasket as it swings into place. The soft open button tells the window to retract by a sight amount allowing the window enough clearance to prevent it from colliding with the gasket. If the door is emergency opened it takes a bit of the gasket with it. Normal cars have a frame around the window so the gasket is always with the window which can only move up and down, but the Tesla has the possibility of the window rotating sideways in addition to up and down.

Thank you for the correction

FWIW, this is completely incorrect. This is just a Tesla choice, not a necessity. There are many cars with frameless doors and mechanical handles that manage to roll the window down before contacting the weatherstripping, and up again after the door again. The easiest examples are all Mustangs made in the last 15-20 years or so, as well as recent Camaros (the sixth generation for sure, but quite possibly the fifth generation as well).

The fact that Tesla cannot roll the windows down on a mechanical release is slightly embarrassing, to be honest. It's not exactly a new technique.

It's a bit harsh to say that I'm completely incorrect, since all the facts are there. I didn't intend to imply that Tesla needed to make it work this way, nor did I imply that the decision is justified, just that this is how the existing mechanism deals with the problem. Good point on the Mustangs, it really shows the lack of design foresight on Tesla's part.

This video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu-tJc-BgaI does not make the emergency release look very obvious at all.

And neither your mother nor the driver in the article stopped to ask themselves "which door release do I use?" Both failed to intuitively determine how the door worked, but in different ways.

Something is a good design when the proper use for the occasion is obvious.

> There’s only so much you can

well there is a simple solution of not requiring 2 different ways to open the door..