Category: Family

• Numerous Tesla owners say they have been trapped inside their EVs after they lost power.
• Teslas come with manual door releases, but they can be hard to find without the owner’s manual.
• Business Insider has compiled a guide on how to find them in a range of different Tesla models.

Numerous Tesla owners have said they’ve been stuck inside their EVs after the cars suddenly lost power.

Firefighters recently had to rescue a toddler from a locked Tesla after the car’s battery died.

Renee Sanchez told reporters at On Your Side, a segment in the local outlet Arizona’s Family, that her EV’s battery died after she put her 20-month-old granddaughter in the car and went to get in the front seat.

When the firefighters arrived on the scene, they used an ax to break the car’s window to rescue the child, the report said.

YouTuber Tom Exton claimed back in 2022 that his Tesla Model Y ordered him to pull over before it suddenly lost power and left him unable to exit.

Exton said he followed the instructions for the manual release to open the door, but that this "somehow broke the driver’s window."

Another Tesla driver, Rick Meggison, told Arizona-based TV station ABC 15 last summer that he got trapped inside his Model Y vehicle for around 20 minutes on a 100-degree day. He said he couldn’t open the doors or windows as the battery had died.

Meggison, who was 73 years old at the time, said he called his sister who was able to open the passenger door using the Tesla app — but that also cracked the car’s window, he said.

The manual door release can be tricky to find unless you’ve combed through your car’s owner’s manual.

To help Tesla owners avoid getting into the same situation, here is a short guide on how to locate and activate the manual door releases in the Model S, 3, X, and Y.

Model S 

To manually open the front doors when a Model S loses power, you need to pull up the release tab that’s found in front of the window switches on the door panel, the Tesla owner’s manual says.

To open the rear doors, pull back the carpet below the back seats to expose the emergency door release cable, the manual says, adding that you then need to pull the cable "toward the center" of the car.

YouTuber @TeslaInventory, who posts videos about his experience with Teslas on his channel, said that the front doors of a Tesla Model S would still work even if the car lost power, but the rear doors would not.

He also says the manual release will override the car’s child lock.

Model 3 

The Model 3 owner’s manual states that "only the front doors are equipped with a manual door release."

To open the front doors in the event that the car loses power, you need to pull up the manual release that’s located just in front of the window switch panel on the door.

Model X 

The front doors of the Model X can also be opened using a manual door release that you can find in front of the window buttons, the owner’s manual says.

If the power drops out, you can open the rear doors using a mechanical release found behind the speaker grille, which you need to remove from the vehicle’s door, the manual adds.

You then need to "pull the mechanical release cable down and towards the front of the vehicle" before lifting up the door to open it.

Model Y

You can also find the manual door release for the Model Y’s front seats in front of the window switch panel, the owner’s manual says.

The manual makes it clear that not all Model Y cars come with a manual release for the rear seats. For those that do, it is located in the rear doors’ pockets.

You need to remove the mat from the pocket and press a red tab to reveal the manual release cable, which you need to pull forward to open the door.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

The U.S. government sued Adobe on Monday for allegedly “trapping” customers in its default, most lucrative subscription plan. In a complaint, the Department of Justice (DOJ) writes that Adobe locks customers into a year-long agreement that’s not effectively disclosed as such, and “ambushing” users with hefty hidden fees when they try to cancel.

The DOJ specifically calls out the “Annual, Paid Monthly” or APM plan, which Adobe presents as the default option for several software products. The APM plan allows users to pay the lowest amount on the day they sign up. However, the complaint alleges Adobe hides an early termination fee (ETF) that can cost users hundreds of dollars depending on when they cancel.

“During enrollment, Adobe hides material terms of its APM plan in fine print and behind optional textboxes and hyperlinks, providing disclosures that are designed to go unnoticed and that most consumers never see,” reads the DOJ’s complaint. “Adobe then deters cancellations by employing an onerous and complicated cancellation process. As part of this convoluted process, Adobe ambushes subscribers with the previously obscured ETF when they attempt to cancel.”

To buy Creative Cloud, Adobe’s package of landmark software products, the APM (below it’s titled “Yearly, Billed monthly”) plan appears as $59.99/month. This allows customers to pay the lowest amount on sign-up day, compared to a “Monthly” plan of $89.99/month, or a “Yearly, Billed Upfront” plan of $659.88. The DOJ alleges that Adobe doesn’t do enough to disclose that this is a year-long contract with fees for early termination, and says the company puts up other roadblocks to canceling.

Customers who cancel their APM plans will be charged 50% of the “remaining contract obligation.” according to Adobe’s terms and conditions. So if you cancelled your Creative Cloud subscription after one month of service, you’d lose access to Creative Cloud that month and have to pay roughly $330 to cancel.

The complaint cites testimonies from consumers who were confused by Adobe’s plan when they signed up. They were allegedly unaware that this plan had to continue for a year, despite the name, and that a cancellation fee existed. The DOJ alleges that Adobe was aware of this confusion, receiving multiple complaints from the Better Business Bureau and customers over the years. However, Adobe has continued offering the plan without much further clarification.

“We are transparent with the terms and conditions of our subscription agreements and have a simple cancellation process,” said Dana Rao, Adobe’s general counsel and chief trust officer, in a press release sent to Gizmodo. “We will refute the FTC’s claims in court.”

The lawsuit targets not only Adobe but also two executives allegedly responsible for these lock-in practices: Senior Vice President of Digital Go To Market & Sales, Maninder Sawhney, and President of Digital Media Business, David Wadhwani. This is part of an increased effort by the U.S. government to crack down on hidden fees. Last month, the DOJ sued to break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation, one of the most public offenders in the war on hidden fees.

Following an iffy docking at the International Space Station last week, Boeing managed to deliver a pair of NASA astronauts to the orbital lab. The stressful Starliner saga continues as the crew capsule developed more leaks in its service module. NASA is currently evaluating its ability to return the duo back to Earth.

In an update shared on Monday, NASA revealed that the Starliner teams are assessing the impact that five helium leaks would have on the remainder of the mission. “While Starliner is docked, all the manifolds are closed per normal mission operations preventing helium loss from the tanks,” the space agency wrote.

If you’ve been keeping track, there were three leaks on the Starliner spacecraft the last time we checked. Starliner teams had identified two new leaks on the spacecraft after it launched on June 5, in addition to a helium leak that was detected prior to liftoff. The team took some time to assess the issue before launching the capsule, but eventually Boeing and NASA decided to proceed with flying the crew on the leaky Starliner spacecraft without resolving the problem.

The spacecraft consists of a reusable crew capsule and an expendable service module. Helium is used in the spacecraft’s thruster systems to allow the thrusters to fire without being combustible or toxic. “We can handle this particular leak if that leak rate were to grow even up to 100 times,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said during a news conference before the Starliner launch.

Well, it’s getting there. Despite the leaks suggesting a larger issue with Starliner’s propulsion system, NASA remains confident in its commercial partner and is downplaying the spacecraft’s anomalies. “Engineers evaluated the helium supply based on current leak rates and determined that Starliner has plenty of margin to support the return trip from station,” NASA wrote in its update. “Only seven hours of free-flight time is needed to perform a normal end of mission, and Starliner currently has enough helium left in its tanks to support 70 hours of free flight activity following undocking.”

A “normal end of mission” is key here seeing as how Starliner had a hard time docking to the ISS. Starliner missed its first docking opportunity at 12:15 p.m. ET due to technical issues, prompting NASA to target another docking window an hour later. Five of the spacecraft thrusters failed during its approach, and four were subsequently recovered. The capsule finally docked with the ISS at 1:34 p.m. ET on June 6.

While it’s parked outside the ISS, engineers also are evaluating an RCS oxidizer isolation valve in the service module that’s not properly closed, according to NASA’s recent update. An RCS, or Reaction Control System, uses thrusters for attitude control and steering, while the oxidizer isolation valve regulates the flow of oxidizer, which is essential for burning fuel in the thrusters. Mission managers are continuing to work through the return plan, which includes assessments of flight rationale, fault tolerance, and potential operational mitigations for the remainder of the flight,” the space agency wrote.

Starliner is scheduled to undock from the orbital space station no earlier than June 18. The Crewed Flight Test is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and is meant to transport crew and cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under a $4.3 billion contract with the space agency. NASA’s other commercial partner, SpaceX, has so far launched eight crews to the space station.

The spacecraft’s first crewed flight was meant to usher in regular trips to the ISS, but NASA may require Starliner to undergo some fixes before it approves the capsule for normal operations.

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