The normal way to open the door is with a button that cracks the window slightly, because the door does not contain an upper window frame for aesthetic reasons. However, there is a mechanical release.

What you will be thinking of is that on some models (I can’t remember which exactly) the mechanical release for the rear doors is not in an obvious place, so if you need to get out in a hurry, u gon die.

This is obviously moronic design and risks lives for no practical benefit, but most people don’t base their purchasing decisions based on what might go wrong in a tiny number of crashes. You could compare it to a decision to buy a luxury car rather than a normal one: that’s tens of thousands of currency units that you could set aside to retire a year early, or in case you or some close to you hits bad luck. The practical choice is to buy the normal car (or the non-Tesla), but the likelihood that it will be important is very small, so it’s not really crazy to make the non-practical choice.