If you didn’t read through the thread, I’ll summarize here: the Tesla owner was driving their Model S P85D on the highway, when the car begins to beep and warn that he needs to pull over immediately due to some power issue. Immediately after warning, all controls lock up, and the car comes to a halt, in the middle of a six-lane highway, leaving him no time to try and steer the car onto the shoulder, out of traffic.

The car will not budge from this point; it won’t go into neutral, the parking brake won’t release. It’s no longer a vehicle, it’s an immobile bit of sculpture blinking its hazard lights in the middle of the highway. //

Also, based on this tweet, it looks like the tow driver didn’t get the car rolling, either, and just pulled it up, with the rear wheels still locked, onto the bed: //

This particular incident involved a Tesla, but this is really an industry-wide problem with EVs. Every EV has some way to get the car into neutral, but based on the research I’ve done so far, all of the major EVs sold require the car to be at least partially functional to access the controls to get it into a tow or free-rolling mode, as these are usually accessed through the cars’ center-stack touch screen. //

All EVs should have a mechanical, unpowered, easily accessible emergency way to get the drivetrain disconnected from the wheels so the car can be moved if dead. I don’t necessarily think this is easy to engineer—if it was, I suspect at least a few EVs would have such a setup—but I do think it’s important. //

While we’re at it, we should mandate that all doors and trunks and whatever can be opened from the outside even if the main and 12V batteries die. Tesla Model 3s don’t have emergency releases for the rear doors, for example.