Have you ever closed your finger in a door. Usually as a child you close the door too quick and end up getting your finger caught. Well one girl in Ukraine is recovering after getting her hand caught in a Tesla Model X’s ice breaker mechanism.
Especially in the colder climates and during winter months it’s not uncommon for the door handles on your car to freeze up due to ice. Tesla has thought about this and wanted to give their customer’s cars a way of resolving this automatically.
If the car recognizes that the door latched is seized it pushes a molded block from the interior of the door panel to the outside where the handle is. This effectively unfreezes the locking mechanism allowing the user entry. Unfortunately for Tesla there was a small opening just large enough for a finger to get caught inside. This leads us to the story about the Ukrainian girl.
The girl was entering the vehicle and managed to get her finger caught in the mechanism as it was breaking the ice on the door. The motor continued to push the ice breaker out which pinned her finger and broke it. Firefighters were contacted because there was no other way they could think of removing her un-severed finger from the door. It took the Firefighters 2 hours to remove the girl’s finger.
The father of the girl originally bought the vehicle from a seller in the Czech Republic. There are no Tesla dealers in Ukraine which is why he had to buy it from a broker. The owner stated that Tesla should tell their customers of the ice breaker issue. He believes there should be a warning that informs users that their fingers could get caught.
A lawsuit was filed against Tesla due to the unsafe feature. Representatives say that the Tesla ice breaking system worked correctly and that the injury was caused by human error. Also Tesla stated that the suit should be dismissed because the Father did not purchase the Model X from a Tesla dealer and he has never had any contractual relationship with Tesla. In other words Tesla says they shouldn’t be responsible because they have never done any business with the owner.
Tesla has stated in an email that the accident was due the girl’s lack of judgement and the parents negligence to watch their child.
Who do you think is at fault for the accident? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: ABC7
