Highly Foreseeable Normally, I wouldn’t feel compelled to pile on to what other’s have rightly called “a culture war on wheels.”
But this story from The Washington Post is reporting that I’ve expected to see for awhile. It lays out how design decisions baked into Tesla’s Cybertruck may actively hamper rescues from otherwise survivable crashes.
I say “expected” because I grew up around first responders and attended more than one demonstration of the jaws of life at my hometown fire department. Combined with my time working on usability as a designer, the risks of some of Tesla’s choices have always struck me as obvious and the consequences inevitable. Or, as the legal filings cited in the reporting put it, “highly foreseeable.”
I’ve joked before that flush car door handles are a solution in search of a problem. But manufacturers like Tesla push well past novelty and over-optimization when they remove obvious affordances and accessible mechanical backups in the shift towards fully electronic, software-dependent systems.
That shift isn’t inherently wrong but it carries consequences, and those consequences should be thoughtfully considered and designed for with accountability. Failing the basic Norman door test—let alone putting people in mortal danger during an emergency—is a red flag that more of that work still needs to be done.