Headlights. Indicators. Trunk releases. Seatbelts. Airbags. Just about any part of a car you can think of is governed by a long and complicated government regulation. It’s all about safety, ensuring that the car-buying public can trust that their vehicles won’t unduly injure or maim them in regular operation, or in the event of accident.
However, one part of the modern automobile has largely escaped regulation—namely, the humble door handle. Automakers have been free to innovate with new and wacky designs, with Tesla in particular making waves with its electronic door handles. However, after a series of deadly incidents where doors wouldn’t open, regulators are now examining if these door handles are suitable for road-going automobiles. As always, regulations are written in blood, but it raises the question—was not the danger of these complicated electronic door handles easy to foresee?
Trapped
A number of automakers have developed fancy retractable door handles in recent years. They are most notably seen on electric vehicles, where they are stated to have a small but measurable aerodynamic benefit. They are often paired with buttons or other similar electronic controls to open the doors from the inside. Compared to mechanical door handles, however, these door handles come with a trade-off in complexity. They require electricity, motors, and a functioning control system to work. When all is well, this isn’t a problem. However, when things go wrong, a retractable electronic door handle often proves inaccessible and useless.
It’s not hard to find case reports of fatal incidents involving vehicles with electronic door handles—both inside and out. Multiple cases have involved occupants burning alive inside Tesla vehicles, in which electronic door handles failed after a crash. Passengers inside the vehicles have failed to escape due to not finding emergency release door pulls hidden in the door panels, while bystanders have similarly been unable to use the retracted outside door handles to free those trapped inside.
In response, some Tesla owners have gone so far as to release brightly-colored emergency escape ripcords to replace the difficult-to-spot emergency release pulls that are nearly impossible to find without prior knowledge. In the case of some older models, though, there’s less hope of escape. For example, in the Tesla Model 3 built from 2017 to 2023, only front doors have an emergency mechanical release. Rear passengers are out of luck, and must find another route of escape if their electronic door handles fail to operate. No Tesla vehicles feature an easily-accessible mechanical release that can be used from outside the vehicle.
It’s worth noting that in the US market, federal regulations have mandated glow-in-the-dark trunk releases be fitted to all sedans from the 2002 model year onwards. You could theoretically escape from the trunk of certain Teslas more easily than a Cybertruck or Model 3 with a failed electrical system.
Tesla isn’t the only company out there building cars with retractable door handles. It does, however, remain the most prominent user of this technology, and its vehicles have been involved in numerous incidents that have made headlines. Other automakers, such as Audi and Fiat, have experimented with electronic door handles, both for ingress and egress, with varying degrees of mechanical backup available. In some cases, automakers have used smart two-stage latches. A small pull activates the electronic door release, while a stronger pull will engage a mechanical linkage that unlatches the door. It’s smart engineering—the door interface responds to the exact action a passenger would execute if trying to escape the vehicle in a panic. There are obviously less concerns around electronic door releases that have easily-accessed mechanical backups; it’s just that Tesla is particularly notable for not always providing them.
Over the years, national automotive bodies have thrown up their arms about all sorts of emerging automotive technologies. In the United States specifically, NHTSA has famously slow-walked the approval of things like camera-based rear-view mirror systems and replaceable-bulb headlamps, fearing the worst could occur if these technologies were freely allowed on the market.
Meanwhile, despite the obvious risks, electronic door handles have faced no major regulatory challenges. There were no obvious written rules standing in the way of Tesla making the choice to eliminate regular old door handles. Nor were there strict regulations on emergency door releases for passengers inside the vehicle. Tesla spent years building several models with no mechanical door release for the rear passengers. If your door button failed, you’d have to attempt escape by climbing out through the front doors, assuming you could figure out how to open them. Even today, the models with mechanical door releases still often hide them behind interior trim pieces or carpets, where few passengers would ever think to look in an emergency.
Obvious Mistakes
Things are beginning to change, however. Chinese regulators have led the charge, with reports stating that electronic retractable door handles could be banned as soon as 2027. While some semi-retractable styles will potentially avoid an outright ban, it’s believed new regulations will require a mechanically redundant release system as standard.
As for the US, the sleeping giant of NHTSA has finally awoken in the wake of Bloomberg‘s reporting on the matter. As reported by CNBC, Tesla has been given a deadline of December 10 to deliver records to the federal regulator, regarding design, failures, and customer issues around its electronic door release systems. The Office of Defects Investigations within NHTSA has already recorded 16 reports of failed exterior door releases in the a single model year of the Tesla Model Y. It’s likely a drop in the ocean compared to the full population of Tesla vehicles currently on roads. Meanwhile, the US automaker also faces multiple lawsuits over the matter from those who have lost family members in fatal crashes and fires involving the company’s vehicles.
In due time, it’s likely that automotive regulators in most markets will come out against electronic door handles from a safety perspective alone. No matter how well designed the electrical system in a modern vehicle, it’s hard to beat a lever flipping a latch for simplicity and robustness. The benefits of these electronic door handles are spurious in the first place—a fraction of a percent reduction in drag, and perhaps a little more luxury appeal. If the trade-off is trapping passengers in the event of a fire, it’s hard to say they’re worthwhile.
The electronic door handle, then, is perhaps the ultimate triumph of form over function. They’re often slower and harder to use than a regular door handle, and particularly susceptible to becoming useless when iced over on a frosty morning. For a taste of the future, lives were put at risk. Anyone could see that, so it’s both strange and sad that automakers and regulators alike seemed not to notice until it was far too late. Any new regulations will, once again, be written in blood.
The only drawback is that some pasengers struggle to understand how to open the door, specially old folks. I do not understand how a normal customer can’t use few minutes to learn critical safety stuff about his new car, even the frosting argument is explained in the manual.
So I have to study a manual every time I hop into a taxi?
It would probably be more like airplanes where the taxi driver would inform you of how to put on a seatbelt, get out of the car, use the seat as a floatation device, etc.
Wow, racist as well as stupid.
You really need some bling for your airbag cover Andrew!
Even the spindly manual handles on a Tesla model 3 that are flush are absolutely ergonomically stupid, impossible to use easily when it’s wet. 100% form over function.
“Wow, racist as well as stupid.”
Yeah, super racist bro. However will I go on?
Yes, that’s mandatory. “Farsi in 10 lessons” if you’re in New York.
The only drawback?! That drawback is that some people are roasted alive.
Critical safety systems and overrides should be redundant, mechanical. They should also be simple enough a child, or panicked person, should be able to understand it.
Part of the problem and why it’s so severe is that it’s an EV, which can burn up like a road flare in seconds when the battery catches flame. No time to look for a curb stone to bash the window in – the door has to open right now.
American petrol cars never have this issue as they explode and kill the passengers instantly on the smallest crash.
At least this is what Hollywood action movies have shown for years, so must be true.
Pinto perhaps.
Ironically, other similar cars of the era had the exact same rear-collision problem with the fuel tank rupturing and spilling fuel. The major issue with the Pinto was the fact that the frame bent enough to jam the doors, trapping the passengers inside the burning vehicle.
Burning alive is a pretty substantial drawback too
Just not true.
In an bad accident, bystanders want to be able to put a lot of force on the door handles.
The entire car is likely bent.
Yes, you don’t want to move an injured person, but fire.
I’ll grant that newer car door handle aren’t as good as older ones.
Those had a riveted steel band underlying.
Benz used the old style for an extra decade as they WERE better.
They used to care.
Retractable ones are just a dumb idea.
Popping the door latch solenoid automagically after a wreck is not a substitute, at all.
You need the latch held open until you can pop the jammed door open, with your shoulder from inside, pulling on the handle from outside or with a pry bar.
Shaved handles do not degrade gracefully.
These are just commercial versions of shaved handles, but not for show cars.
I’m amazed these stupid handles ever got DOT approval.
Must have been buying drinks in DC and that shithole where the EU HQ is. (Name escapes me?…GD sprouts…Brussels!).
Also note:
If you come upon an accident under no circumstances allow a walking about ‘victim’ to sit in your car.
The emergency crew will cut the roof off your car to extract the walking about person onto a backboard.
And F-you, nobody is paying except you.
You were not in an accident.
The point of the article was that there is no regulation for door handles. You shouldn’t be amazed that they got DOT approval, since it wasn’t required.
And no, the emergency crew will not cut the roof off your car.
That’s TFA claim.
I call BS.
Door handles were regulated before this.
Every part of cars is.
Seats, door arm rests, dashboards, everything.
Even stupid things are regulated to death.
Electric actuated latches passed safety inspection by government ‘experts’.
Somehow..?
Proof:
The mechanical backup release inside.
They were/are iterating.
Go ahead and let possibly injured people sit in your car.
You deserve it.
Ok. If it’s BS then please provide a link to the regulation you claim exists.
Similarly, please provide a link to a newspaper report or other published source with a story about how an emergency services crew cut the roof off a bystander’s vehicle to rescue a patient who was mobile.
Emergency crews cut the roof off cars commonly in the U.K. – they do it pretty much routinely if there’s any suspicion of back/neck trauma.
Jaws of life is normally used, or failing that chainsaw or grinder.
Yes, but not if the patient is mobile and is sitting in someone else’s car uninvolved in the accident.
Emergency crews used to perform roof removals all the time at the slightest concern of spinal injuries – standard practise was roof off, patient out on a long-board.
There’s stories of people getting out of the car they crashed in and sitting in another vehicle, only to have that cut up around them.
That’s changed now and paramedics will assess casualties and have them self-extricate where possible. If someone got themselves out of one car, they’re very unlikely to be cut out of another one.
I’ve been a firefighter 6 years and when I started, roof-off was common. I can’t remember the last time I took the roof off a vehicle at a job. We still train for it, it just doesn’t happen that often.
There was a case, here in the UK. A walking wounded sat in a chaps new car. So new he had just driven it from the showroom pickup. Sat the person from the accident in his car. The responding team then did indeed cut the roof of as they considered it a safer option, at that point, to extract them from the vehicle. The owner of that vehicle has stopped to help the accidents casually. There is very much different procedures in different counties but this was the response to that particular event. The new car owner was ok with this as it was a preservation of life situation .
Yeah, the passengers struggle as the flames rise, and unfortunately the driver, who was apparently a “normal customer” with time to waste on learning minutiae like that (and time to waste on deploying the door handle every time they get into the car, and money to waste on a car with that kind of pointlessly expensive design philosophy it in the first place), is dead at that point, and therefore not very helpful.
It’s stupid to have to read a manual to open a door. It’s also stupid to have a complicated, unreliable, powered system with motors and who-knows-what-else where a simple, reliable one will do. If you MUST have aerodynamic door handles, use recessed ones with a flimsy little manually operated spring flap over the opening. But even that is obnoxious.
So it’s okay to burn old people alive?
I don’t see a place in the article about the age of the people to burn. I think it’s not ok to burn any people, old or young if they are alive. You must kill them first, it’s more humane.
It is also ok to drown them if the vehicle enters water and the electrical system is fried.
You can’t open the doors under water so it doesn’t matter. People seem to forget that driving is an inherently dangerous activity, not a god given right. It requires responsibility on the behalf of whoever is inside the vehicle.
You can if the car is almost full of water, so there’s no pressure differential. Mythbusters episode something something.
And the electrical system keeps working just fine underwater, at least for longer than you will have air.
Perhaps someday when you are more life experienced, you will understand.
Until then, a little compassion for those a little less mentally agile than yourself would be appreciated.
From, an old folk
Yeah, people keep forgetting you design for the disabled, not an 18 year old in perfect health.
Assume colour-blind, blind, deaf, only one arm, illiterate, arthritis etc etc.
Probably because most people don’t care :) . Just expect it to ‘work’ and move down the road and get in and out easily when stopped… I, at least, do look in the manual (and on-line) to find how to turn as much stuff off as possible like seat beat alarms and such. To many interlocks…. Pet Peeve on current vehicle — If I am rolling down the highway and want to take my coat off, I unbuckle, and … cruise control goes off! What? Ridiculous. Cruise shouldn’t care. Set and forget. Oh, and if the stupid eye-sight is unavailable, you can’t use cruise control…. Weird.
Secondly, a car should NOT be harder to use, but easier. grab the handle internal/external and open. Simple. Or should be. I also don’t like the dependency on electrical stuff to get in/out of a car. Battery shorts, dies…. should be able to easily exit or get into the car to pop the hood or whatever.
Yeah, I get especially frustrated when my cruise control gets disabled due to gunk on the front sensors. I appreciate a warning that they’re not running, but to fully disable cruise control, such that I can’t even turn it back on? Very very frustrating.
One that really irks me is that Subaru disables all the automatic safety features including automatic braking for any engine warning. This means that something as simple as not fully tightening the gas cap, which results in an emissions control warning, eliminates a key safety feature. FFS.
So anybody stepping in such a car with have to go through a safety lesson like in a plane, really ?
What part of safety you don´t understand ?
Safety is about doing things right in case of emergency. Only ones primal brain is working in such a situation, and the lever of a car door handle is something that is deeply embedded. Not some fancy per-model specific pull-that-cord or dismount-this-to-access-that instruction on – at best- a sticker out of view.
We´re talking about intuitive, logic, IMMEDIATE steps. Not a pdf manual that you can take time to read on your sofa while eating a pizza.
What a stupid statement. You never ride someone else’s car or rent a car? Controls in general should be simple and standard.
Easily one of the worst designs. Requiring two hands or all fingers and your thumb is an absolute design flaw.
Hell, I think Dodge missed a good design by forcing you to turn your wrist.
Not so, in fact the overrides in Tesla’s basically need tools to access and people have died because of them.
Last time I checked almost all US vehicles have a child safety lock for the rear doors. It is electrically or mechanically activated. It disables the rear doors from opening from the inside. People have been trapped in the rear for years and it wasn’t a big deal. We allow the driver of the vehicle to lock in the rear passengers – no escape. This is a much larger problem than Tesla’s emergency release mechanism.
In this case the risk of a child opening the door when the vehicle is moving is far more likely than the risk of becoming trapped. Most of these doors at least can still be easily opened from the outside. Now theres a chance it could be locked but if a passenger is able to pull a door handle, they can also unlock the door on most mechanicaly openable cars.
Understood…but I also appreciate that everyone is different. Stresses, learning abilities, emergencies, panic, age, injuires.. you name it… there are so many things that can affect humans. I love technology, innovations and experiments etc. ; but for something as fundamental and trivial as this.. I agree with the initiative to make things simpler and in the end safer.
Sounds like a reason to carry a seat belt/window breaking tool.
Doesn’t Melon claim to have bullet proof glass?
Fun fact, window break tools utilize the pressure water puts on the exterior and focuses an impact on a single point. The force on a single point combined with the external pressure is significant enough that it will cause even a small-arms resistant (“bullet proof”) glass to break.
That seems like it wouldn’t help during a fire
At least you won’t be cold for the rest of your life
It helps move air, that’s what you wanted right?
Unless you’re in a car with anti theft window film or, supposedly, unbreakable glass like a Cyberdreck
A firm I worked for used anti-theft window film. Worthless. If it even slowed down the thieves, it wasn’t apparent in the break-in video.
the latest cars have laminated windows which won’t shatter. Not just Tesla.
Although I found that image of the person in the trunk slightly disturbing, I could not help wondering if there still is enough room left for some lengthy piece of rope, a roll of tape, a large plastic sheet, a medium size chainsaw and a shovel? And does anyone know if this car model has an easy way of preventing the trunk from being opened from the inside? Just curious.
Don’t forget the back seat bench fold down.
That’s your worst case.
A bag of quicklime is great for adding traction to the back of your car.
The frunk is better for storing quicklime, as you can shovel it directly in front of the wheel track. Always use the frunk for plausible deniability.
Good. <“Do It” Meme>
It’s easy to foresee, but difficult to admit.
When Mr. Musk says “I want flush door handles, I want, I want!”, the engineers who say there’s a hazard of people getting trapped inside and burning alive will get fired, just like he fired the engineers who said that the Autopilot was an accident waiting to happen.
Then when Tesla does it, the Chinese copy it, and who cares if it’s safe or not. You don’t embarrass your superiors with stupid questions. You “voted” them to be your leaders, now follow.
The good part is that they’re at least reacting to the problem, but hindsight is always 20/20.
Like the sensible government engineers in China, who came up with the idea of processing coal into methanol and blending it to fuels to save on cost, then realized, “wait, where’s all this deadly smog coming from?”.
It’s not like the parts that go on street cars aren’t already insanely regulated.
To the point where the rules are a big ‘barrier to entry’ for new car companies.
Can’t recall the name, but small car company making street legal 3/4 race cars used (IIRC) Chrysler interior parts as the cost of getting things like door ‘arm rests’ approved exceeded their total bankroll.
How these door handles got approved in the first place deserves serious examination.
What are we paying those clowns for if they approved this?
From a regulation stand point, those handle are ok. There’s a safety measure that allow to operate them in case of crash. From a moral point, they are dumb, you’ll never be able to find the emergency rope if you’ve been hurt and shocked, trying to escape while fumes are accumulating indoor. So, the problem isn’t the regulation, you don’t need more regulation. You need people able to think and reject something based on pure logic even if it complies with the regulation. In short, give more power to an independent experts who will spot the issue and less to law abiding regulator that’ll just check the box “Emergency latch present”.
Don’t need more regulation.
Fix the current rule.
Maybe find a second useless rule to delete while you’re at it.
A little refactor.
If you ban solenoid actuated car latches (but not locks), you can forget about the whole mechanical backup cable pull thing.
You lose remote open, otherwise someone will game it and make the ‘prime latch’ suck hard.
I don’t believe that will happen.
Because power grubbers.
Always more rules, normies love rules.
Also:
Put KISS back into automotive engineering.
First company that does it, gets rich beyond avarice.
Might have to time the battery market.
The ‘small block chevy’ of battery packs will only be obvious in hindsight.
I mostly think shaved door handles and such on new cars should be legal!
But hard to sell because people aren’t that stupid.
Data says: ‘Nope, people are that stupid.’
I’m also trying to convince idiots to put heavy jewelery on their car airbags.
Airbag bling is the best way to display you are a high status individual!
Your data would be valid if door handles were the only deciding factor in buying a car. The problem is, your options are rather limited if you start to eliminate cars by every stupid little thing they have, because they all have some stupid trend or regulatory feature.
Find me a basic car that has manual transmission, normal halogen headlights, no stupid infotainment system, no glowing multi-mode LCD screens but just a normal speedo with a needle, all physical buttons and levers for controls, a regular radio not integrated to the dash, no fat sweeping A-pillars that block your view, no random bleep bloop warnings and speed limiters that yell at you for going 1 kph over the GPS indicated speed limit that is always wrong, no apps or updates or internet connectivity required, no lane assist that tries to steer you into oncoming trucks because you’re driving too close to the shoulder or yank your steering wheel suddenly when another lane splits to the right… It should be a reasonably sized sedan, not a tiny hatchback or a SUV/Crossover. No tiny turbocharged 3 cylinder lawnmower engines either. A regular straight four with 100+ HP will do – the simpler the better.
Why not automatic? Well, you might, as long as it’s not a hybrid with a lithium battery that will rot on you past 10 years. It’s just more likely to break and more expensive to repair when it does. No DSG or “robot manuals” though – those are just annoying – and definitely not rubber band CVT.
Oh, and it needs to be made in the year 2025. The car described above was last made in the early 2000’s, so the only such examples you can find on the market now are just about ready to bale.
Your data would be valid if door handles were the only deciding factor in buying a car. The problem is, your options are rather limited if you start to eliminate cars by every stupid little thing they have, because they all have some stupid trend or regulatory feature.
Finally a good use for the Bedazzler !
Yes, it’s incorrect to believe that a mechanism that’s purported to be a safety device actually provides safety. Looking at very old tech, where we provide pony rides for little kids, we find people asking us, “Don’t you have a safety strap to hold my child in the saddle?” We find the best reply is, “Are you advocating tying a person to a horse?”
For those door latches, we need the design engineers and the regulators to serve as crash dummies. No, I’m not able to provide a method to accomplish that kind of testing.
The problem is, if there’s no explicit regulation on the point, even if independent engineers point out that it’s stupid, the management can say “So what?” – what are you gonna do about it? Whine?
That’s the American way: if it’s technically legal, you sell it, and let the lawyers sort it out later.
You’re probably thinking of Mosler for the exotic cars using Chrysler interior bits (and for his first cars, Chrysler engines too).
I’m not convinced interior trim etc. is THAT regulated, beyond the rules that say it can’t be flammable or sharp or basic design rules like that – it’s “tested” in as much as it’s part of the overall approval of the car as a vehicle that meets the rules, and the crash safety testing folks likely have comments too when giving ratings.
Small companies using “parts bin” parts is as much about the up-front tooling cost – an injection mould or stamping die for a $10 part can be 50k easily and only pays for itself if you’re making a million of that part. If you can re-use an arm rest or door handle or switch you save a huge amount in tooling.
This isn’t because of regulatory agencies but capture. Big companies don’t want competition. It really is that simple. Meaningful regulations can go out of control due to poor understanding of course, like California’s controls on custom intakes preventing efficient modifications, but again it was CARB that backed all of that and they are owned by the industry.
Most of today’s “innovations” is stupidity over utility. Things that work are often substituted with something that is nice and shiny, overcomplicated piece of crap. My first thought when I saw those handles was what they will do in the case of a crash and all electrical failure (because you know, cars have fuses cutting the power in case of a crash). And they look ugly too.
It’s called product differentiation. When the best option is already invented, and everybody’s doing it, you have to do something worse to differentiate yourself on the market. Difference for the sake of difference – the rest is down to marketing.
“Product differentiation” on basic ergonomic features like the mechanics of OPENING A DOOR are, dare I say it, really really stupid.
When the consumers are confused over a multitude of similar but subtly different options with multiple pros and cons, they focus on inconsequential details like the door handles, or how fast the electric windows wind up. Just something that the salesperson can point at and say “Isn’t that neat?”. That is what seals the deal.
For this they could have done something that has been done before, flush panels that you reach through for the manual bypass. All automatic features that can threaten safety need an immediate and intuitive override, handles are good for that, just make it look like the handle is gone without it actually affecting operation.
There’s also a real factor of having a big personality in a leadership position. They can get really fixated on some detail that they’ve decided is important. Even if market research/engineering says its a bad idea. I’ve worked for a few of the types, much smaller companies but same idea. They sign your paycheque though, so you find a way to make it work. That being said, I’ve only been asked to do pointless ostentatious stuff, nothing that could actually endanger lives. I’m not sure I could go along with that.
First tenant of engineering ethics.
‘Public safety and welfare: The primary duty of an engineer is to hold the safety, health, and welfare of the public paramount. Unless they pay you a F-ton.’
I think you mean “tenet”, but you probably don’t know it’s a different word.
I think it shows that Tesla is a technology company, that ended up making things that resemble cars…
No, no it isn’t. “Differentiation” can be anything, sure, but those don’t go anywhere.
Differentiation that matters and actually works is visible, provides an obvious benefit, and *does not” have serious side effects.
In the ideal world, but in the real world where consumers are ill-equipped to actually tell whether a difference makes a difference, any difference is good. Any difference can be made to sound good if you spin it right.
There’s also the little bit of human psychology where people keep arguing that it’s better simply because they bought it.
The first gen Tesla Ss were the worst for dumb handles.
IIRC they average 1 handle failure per car*year.
$2000+ part, when it was available.
Tesla conflated in a bunch of stuff with electric vehicles.
Full auto driving (‘real soon now’, lane following was already common).
Unrepairable die cast chassis.
Dumb door designs of all kinds, not just the handles.
Weird material choices.
I expect it will end with Teslas being insanely expensive to insure.
‘Totals’ very common.
Nobody sane will touch a salvage title Tesla.
Nobody will insure a salvage title Tesla.
At some point junkyard Tesla drivetrains should get cheap.
Then ’57 Fiat 500 w Plaid Tesla drive.
Computerized wheelie control and differential steering hacked into traction control.
Record length wheelies around clover leaf highway interchanges.
There is an industry already (mostly in california, sadly) of pallets of tesla batteries and drivetrains. The vehicle is a writeoff so it gets parted out.
Electric assist steering assemblies, electric AC compressors, drive units for $2000, the list goes on.
It is a good time to build a kit car if you want to drive down with a trailer and a dream. :)
Regular junkyard behavior.
The point is the price.
$2000 is a lot for a junkyard IC engine for an older car…unless Honda B or similar of course.
Electric engine alone isn’t comparable…
Especially if your car is going to need two of them…Like a Fiat 500.
Seriously that’s a rad idea. Taking a car and sort of putting Segway two wheel balance logic in there for ridic wheelie time. I’m actually surprised no one has done it yet and if they have- I need to see it!
Honestly, any vintage vehicle. Picking your favourite one and putting new gear in it is a huge pastime for gearheads everywhere. That neighbour with the link Cadillac they can’t fix? Sell them on the idea of having that old car running and saving on fuel, it’ll cost less than overhauling the engine and transmission, and those costs are why it’s been a side project.
Thye already are expensive to insure, some of the Teslas are in the same insurance category as Ferraris, Porsche etc and it’s almost definitely due to cost of repairs.
There are several leasing companies in the UK which don’t offer Tesla or price them so high that they’re an extremely unattractive option and that, according to friends in the business, is because of poor build quality, poor reliability, awful spares availability, expensive spares and the need to have Tesla recertify the vehicle after accident damage
That and being stink fast.
‘Loose nut between wheel and seat’.
Dumb people w first money move way up in power/weight ratio, thinking they’ve bought skills.
Don’t have any respect for ‘stupid fast’.
Used to thoughtlessly stomping throttle.
Teslas not different.
IMHO if the NHRA says your car needs a safety cage, it needs a safety cage, on the street.
Owners of stink fast cars say the NHRA has banned their cars, which it hasn’t.
They just need to gut the interior to install an ’11 second cage’.
Or a 9 second cage and a parachute, as the case may be.
This^ , definitely. Way too many people can’t navigate a normal road under power in something fast, they just don’t know it yet. Some don’t even figure it out after ending up in someone’s living room.
This really needs to be fair more often about many things, “is that too much to handle”? is what they should be saying, and looking for ways to get used to the output without running people over.
“What happens when I floor it”?, “I’m used pony cars, I drive it like that, right”?. These all mean they need to go to a track day, or maybe ride a relatively modern motorcycle to get an idea of the level of acceleration and control.
The “two stage handle” design is so obvious. Somebody had to deliberately remove the handles in the name of aesthetics.
I was prepared for a wild ride when I saw the Model 3/Y door handle as the article’s image of a “retractable door handle” (it’s not). But the amount of misinformation in the comments is staggering.
The Model S/X have door handles that detect you and present themselves (e.g. electronically deploy and retract). The Model 3/Y handles are just levers that lay flush to the car.
The Chinese regulators are going after the former, not the later. However there is concern that the later might also be impacted.
Everyone is focused on Tesla because that’s the main western car they can cite as having those door handles, but they are more wide spread in China on dozens of cars. The Model S/X make up approximately 6% of Tesla’s fleet.
Model 3 door handles are just switches that activate a solenoid to actually open the door.
They are slightly less stupid then S/X handles, but still very dumb.
In this case it’s not the outside mechanism on the 3/Y, but what it’s connected to… A solenoid. Give me a mechanically actuated latch please, they work great. If you want to have the door also open itself, fine, but this is a safety issue.
It has already killed people
“a small but measurable aerodynamic benefit”
I find it strange that the manufacturers of these death traps would turn to electronic door handles with several obvious and potentially deadly failure modes by which occupants are left trapped inside the vehicle (fire, water, electrical failure, accident, dead battery, icing, etc.)
My 1988 Subaru XT-6 had flush mechanical door handles that worked extremely well, even when completely iced over! If these companies want to put flush door handles on their cars, fine. Just do it in a way that makes sense.
Hyundai uses flush door handles on the Ioniq 5. They electrically present themselves when the car is unlocked, but are easy to operate manually too.
Imagine that, it’s possible to have something look cool and work at the same time. You just have to find a good engineering and design team and have them iterate to what you want. You don’t even have to blow up the car!!
It’s all compromise of efficiency vs safety when you’re sitting on half a ton of lithium…
In any case, no one is getting the doors open if they’re locked, and doors that lock when the car starts moving seems very common these days.
What do you mean? It’s standard on most vehicles to have a manual unlock right next to the door handle. If it’s locked automatically you just unlock it and try again. Given people are used to the automatic locks they will unlock it first anyway. The exception is child locks on the rear doors.
I liked this, they used variants on other models that weren’t as slick, but almost. It’s clear that current generation are intended for the elderly, large, rounded, no sharp edges, low effort required to release. I wouldn’t be surprised to see solenoids added for assistance and completing closure eventually. Most users likely won’t even know its happening.
Electric power required to open doors or apply the emergency brake = idiotic. Grok says electric windows typically work for 30 seconds to a few minutes on a submerged vehicle.
Sure, on an old car where it’s just switches and relays. On a modern car, they will stop working as soon as water gets into any of the computers required to operate them.
It will be impossible to open the windows or doors on a submerged car until it’s completely filled with water though. It doesn’t matter if they are manual or electric, the water puts too much force on them until the pressure equalizes.
Uh, no. You just roll down the window (oh wait you can’t do that lol), or break it. There are simple tools for this. After the car pressure is released you can open the door just fine.
Why do we need electric door handles? You can do aerodynamic door handles mechanically. Balancing aerodynamics with usability without electricity may be a bit of a challenge, but I think car companies can do it if they put their minds and money to the task.
“usability without electricity may be a bit of a challenge”
Shouldn’t be… Been using mechanical handles … well almost since the car was invented…. And they can be quite stylish too. At the speeds ‘most’ cars are intended for, aerodynamics is a non-issue for ‘door handles’. Like bell-bottom pants, the flush handles is just a ‘fad’… but a dangerous one.
And rude, What’s with people removing the handles from the rear doors in classic sedans and +2s?
It’s because mechatronic engineers can’t think like mechanical engineers: they abstract the design task and break down the system into sub-components and design them separately, usually by separate teams as well so the work can be delegated or even outsourced and done in parallel – like software which can be written in modules by following a common API. One team works in India, the other in Pakistan, and the third team just wraps them together and calls it done.
The idea that the door handle mechanism would actually need to be coordinated with the door lock mechanism as one system starts to become a problem: it would slow down the third team that is concurrently and independently designing the door unit, because you’d need three-way communication with the teams that produce the lock and the handle.
So, it’s “simpler” to connect them by wire rather than a push rod or a cable.
Or just use an off the shelf latch and release mechanism that costs far less and tell your repurposed robotics department to make it automatic. This cuts design and cost by more than a 3rd and the door team can use thes specs of the off the shelf part for their task.
“Not invented here” is a problem in manufacturing all the time and it’s a stupid waste of resources.
But that would mean the art department has to design the door around the handle, and not the other way around. So limiting.
I had to fix a friend’s remote trunk lock. He couldn’t get into the trunk with the dash button. I tried bobbing on the lid while he pushed the button that eventually worked only after probing the hole behind the back seat finding a hole too small to get into or reach in. Flashlight reveals that glowing handle too far to reach to.
After getting it open by push-lift luck we see the drive battery is in the way for anything much bigger than a fishing pole. Lubing and blowing out wouldn’t free the plastic parts latch so it needed changed out. Under $50 I think. Good thing there were no groceries in there.
“NHTSA has famously slow-walked the approval of things like camera-based rear-view mirror systems and replaceable-bulb headlamps, fearing the worst could occur if these technologies were freely allowed on the market.”
Camera-based rear view systems DO have a significant problem. They require re-focusing in a way that optical mirrors don’t because of light physics. Letting automakers get rid of physics-based, reliable safety systems for digital toys they can show off on dealership lots, with the excuse of getting an extra 5 miles of range on an EV (something they could do just as well by not using 25 inch wheels on everything), wouldn’t be great.
Of course, that seems trifling in the context of retractable door handles. Forget the safety issues, they’re outright stupid, A convoluted mess to dazzle simpletons. Ban them, blacklist anyone who signed off on them from positions of leadership. Useless idea by useless people.
Fixed focus is all that’s needed to avoid backing into trees and cars and people.
Fixed focus is all I have at my age. I would like to not have to switch to my reading glasses to look in my rearview “mirror”.
“NHTSA has famously slow-walked the approval of things like camera-based rear-view mirror systems and replaceable-bulb headlamps”
That is simply not true. Replaceable-bulb headlamps is in fact the way things used to be and the way things should be.
It also ignores the real reason for that slow walk… Lobbying. Businesses don’t want to have to put more stuff in the car, they don’t care if it’s safe, just if they get sued.
You’re thinking too recently in history….. they were referring to sealed beam headlights
Rear view cameras are nice, but they don’t cover the sides. Backed up my sister’s Subaru, the looked beside it. I’d missed my 3/4 ton pickup by about an 1/8 of an inch. Also, 2011 and other silverados have interlock where you can’t open door if in drive. Not likely to work after a wreck, and the cable broke on that one. They gave me a replacement that was too short, and it registered as someone pulling the handle before it was out of drive, and there was no way to open the door. Body shop went in from behind the seat and cut the door strike with a sawzall. You don’t just need physical handles, you need no interface between them and the latch.
This is ridiculous. If Tesla door handles make it so someone can be trapped inside, that’s just a defective design and has nothing to do with them being flush with the door. The problem is the purely electronic design. And it’s a symptom of Tesla not having enough experience. GM cars typically are built so that if the door is locked, the first pull of the interior handle unlocks it. The second pull opens the door. Problem solved. As for the exterior, it’s not a big deal. Locked doors can’t be opened from outside anyway? The issue then becomes the door lock. Let’s go back to GM. GM has a key lock on only one opening these days. On my Equinox,it’s on the hatch. If the power fails and you need to get in, you can still open the hatch. Onn some cars, if the power fails you can’t open anything. That’s a problem. That’s a defect and the solution is to provide an emergency key that opens one of the doors or the hatch. It has literally zero to do with flush door handles. But if you REALLY want to fix the very insignificant problem with electronic flush door handles retracting while unlocked and when if the power subsiqiently fails, the unlocked door handle will not open, simply require them to make it mechanically operated. In other words, on a typical flush door handle that has retracted, if the door is unlocked, pressing on the handle makes it extend. Just make it so that if you press it hard it will activate the latch and it will pop out. If you press it lightly, it activate the switch, and a motor releases the latch so it pops out. If you actually think that it’s necessary to be able to open an unlocked door, with the power off, if that unlocked door latch has retracted prior to power being lost. It’s not a big deal either way
People here in the US are latching onto it like a hungry pitbull onto a t-bone steak because of political reasons. It’s more of the ev-hater crowd looking for something wrong with them. “Omg the flush door handles are unsafe”. It’s probably the same in china. Except that someone got a payoff as well.
GM is the same company that took well designed Saturns and trashed the design so they could build them in a Pontiac factory. My 2001 Saturn ran well over 200K. I never worried about the ignition switch jamming so you couldn’t turn the engine off. It happened to my daughter’s 2007 Saturn and they told her the immediate solution was to pop the hood and pull a fuse. I never worried about a dead battery disabling access to the trunk where they hid the battery, AND disabling the whole security system so you also can’t take the key out of the ignition. This happened to my son. And sadly, they both bought Saturns based on my experience with mine.
My Saturn was the first, and last, GM vehicle I will ever purchase. If the rest of the car companies follow this “electrify everything” trend, my 2020 Subaru Forester will be the last car I ever buy.
Haven’t owned one, but did drive an original for a while. Very reliable, the plastic doors are a good idea even if they did shatter at -50, never it was cheap to replace. GM’s management has no idea how to run a company never their management culture comes from the Harvard school of business adversarial BS. Every department is a fief rather than a functional unit. Every newcomer people don’t like will have their projects sabotaged even if it costs lives.
Tesla did do this, and people have died. It’s insane that this discussion is only happening now, rather than at the launch of these vehicles.
It did happen at the launch of the vehicles, but it was muted by the reality distortion field around Elon Musk, who was still the boy wonder billionaire saving the world with electric cars in the eyes of the people, and not a chainsaw wielding maniac.
What you want from automotive designers and engineers and from lawmakers and homologizators, when cars are designed with taillights off when the daily frontlights are on, even in rain or fog. Mercedeses, Hyundais, Lexuses, Audis, Toyotas etc. In the age of electricity there should be all lights on when the motor is on.
Nope. Lights should be out during the daytime (other than brake and turn signals). Or at least ‘you’ can decide whether you want ’em on or off. Your call, not big brothers.
No that’s dumb. There is basically no downside to basic running lights being on whenever the car is on and the huge upside of making idiots driving with no lights in rain/fog being made visible.
Battery makers love the extra unnecessary pull on batteries and charging system.
They’d probably love it more if you crashed into someone you couldn’t see or vice-versa and blew up the battery pack immediately instead of hoping that 100w of extra load for some LEDs on a system regularly discharging and recharging at rates of multiple-kW would have any significant effect of the packs lifespan.
Again, each to their own. There should be a choice. Not dumb at all :) . Some of us prefer freedom of choice to 1984 oversight…
No, extremely dumb. Bordering on “is this bait” type dumb.
Forcing daytime running lights isn’t 1984 like at all. It’s an easy, virtually zero downside safety measure. This isn’t installing AI cameras on every street corner.
This is stupid and your capability as a safe driver is suspect. Toggling lights on when a car starts isn’t persecution, it’s a safety precaution to make sure you can see and you are visible.
You clearly haven’t read 1984 or Brave New World, try it, they’re short. You can probably check out an ebook from your library if you don’t want to pick up a physical copy.
Don’t worry, there are lots of other ways you can be stupid that don’t potentially endanger those around you.
I was saying that there too much régulation already, let the darwin théory make it’s way for people willing too, and if not enough, let’s them go for a submarine ride!
But i’ve to admit that not the solution. in some case, this type of technology backed by uneducated people become the only available, due to the educated/uneducated ratio in society. It’s stupid, do not make life easier, cost a bunch more, and sometimes dangerous, not only for the owners but for people around too. There is tons of example, the worst i could find being already in the previous comment, the auto-pilot. It’s fun that most of EV pack all this stupid things in one car. It’s say a lot about people owning them.
All they have to do is put a small capacitor bank in each door directly connected to the handle. If power goes out there will be enough power left to open the door a few times. Not like the windows are bulletproof, I’m just confused to why they just don’t climb out the window 🤔
If they can’t climb out or get pulled out the window because of a fire, the door handle wouldn’t matter, because they wouldn’t be able to open the door to go that way either..
Try and smash your way through a car window and see for yourself how easy it is! It is not easy.
When it shorts in the water this backup plan fails. Really the only option in a car like this is failing open, e.g. when the car looses power the doors should unlock if there’s no other way to get out. This is common, and exists in buildings currently.
😮 🤔 how about explosive bolts on the door hinges? Could just blow the whole door assembly off the car a few feet allowing easy access to the victims!! 😂
I would love to see doors pop-out on small crash like in the beginning of airbags 😂 !
“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” – Michael Caine, The Italian Job
I’ll see your explosive bolts and raise you a set of Martin-Baker ejection seats for all passengers!
Here is another solution that allows the car to have flush handles while still maintaining the mechanical safety. The idea is like this:
The handle is 100% mechanical, but mounted in a recess in the car body, so that the outermost point is just where the body surface would be, if it weren’t recessed.
A spring-loaded panel fills the space around the handle, so that the car body is flat again. If the panel is pushed in by hand, the handle can be operated.
As long as the car works properly, the panel can also be pulled back automatically by a solenoid or something, to offer the “luxury” feel.
The panel can be made of reasonably thin plastic, so that it can be broken by manual force in case the spring mechanism jams
Oh boy, be careful, giving good tech solution could drive you on a slippy road ….
There have been spring-loaded solutions kind of like this and many other variations. Flush handles are a popular idea as long as there is still something to grab in reality. I love used a simple one in which the flush panel was just a spring loaded door, but it was safe, simple and works great.
I am reminded of the common problem people used to recite when seat belts were made mandatory in the UK. “Someone I know had a friend/relative who was in a car crash. The car caught fire and the seatbelt buckle jammed. He died in the fire”. Leaving the problem of how we know the details when the victim died, a thorough analysis of all road traffic collisions reports in the UK did not manage to find a single occurrence of this incident — and only one event would still not be significant in any case, given the number of fatal accidents each day.
These fake anecdotes are from manufacturer lobbyists. They’ve always done this, though with regulatory capture they don’t have to do as much overt lying, they just don’t bother with any standard that costs too much unless the are specific laws passed to force them forward.
This is the only way in which Tesla has been useful, kick-starting the production of electric vehicles since they had completely stalled out in the 90s.
Except they didn’t. The Nissan Leaf beat Tesla to the consumer market while Tesla was still making the Roadster. Nissan was the first since the 90’s to make a mass-market electric car, and out-produced Tesla for many years.
Correction: Mitsubishi i-MiEV got there a year earlier. Then the Chevrolet Volt, then two years later the Tesla Model S.
Technically Tesla wasn’t even making their own car with the Roadster, but were fitting electric drive trains in Lotus car bodies. They weren’t even the first to put lithium batteries in series production cars – that was the Nissan Altra (1998-2002).
The moral of the story is that Tesla took what was available off-the-shelf on the market and spun it like they had invented it. They were merely following market trends with lithium batteries that were gradually getting cheaper to the point that enough capacity could be put into cars to make them useful, but they played it off in the marketing as if they were the trendsetters.
I use seatbelt’s lock for permanant sling on trailer. Never see one locked , the rust make them unlockable
Im glad this is finally getting some pushback somewhere.
I just want things that work, and mechanical door handles just do. Nothing bothers me more than Rube Goldburg Machines making their way into everyday items. In the case of a door i just want to be able to open it, not have to go to some convoluted process to expose the door handle and open it. Also, while it doesnt expose the same safety risks i feel its worth mentioning the stupid automatic rear hatches and more annoying than thier worth.
It is funny that electronic versions are always slower to open than just doing it yourself
Really it should be unlocked and partly open in the time it takes for you to reach it (unless you disable the feature) and if it doesn’t you should be able to open it with the same motion in both cases.
An actual car manufacturer would know this and design accordingly. Maybe they wouldn’t get it perfectly, but they would almost never get it this badly.
I came here to make exactly the same comment! Automatic tailgates are infuriating! And yet people think it’s more “convenient” to stand there in the rain while the damn thing does its routine of beep… jerk… beep beep… slowly start to move its ponderous way down… beep beep… jerk…. nope it has detected a fabric (or even paper) bag fragment, then panicked and started opening again. Compare that to “grab tailgate. Slam. Done.”
I can only assume that, as a commenter above said, it’s so the salesman in the dealership can point to the gizmo and say “see, isn’t that neat? You should buy this car.”
It is also evidence for my suspicion that the engineers who design most products never actually use them.
I will never buy something like that but I am worried what will happen when the supply of 1990-2005 hatchbacks dries up.
So, where’s the similar concern over electric windows that can’t be rolled down if your car is submerged in water…?
They should build cars with doorhandles like the Peugeot 405.
It’s aligned with car door, with a space for the fingers to grab it.
Very elegant, excellent in wind tunnel tests (it was designed by Pirinfarina) and works just perfectly.
I’ve spent several hours trapped in a car because the battery died, they need to make the locks a cut power to unlock to prevent this. A lot of these deficiencies would be caught at the certification stage if manufacturers were not allowed to self certify.
I would argue it is not impossible to make the door handle pop out mechanically. Whether that is the primary way or an emergency backup.
Also they could at great cost and complexity (which carmakers clearly want to do) add a redundant battery backup system inside the door and temperature and accelerometer sensor for sensing an emergency.
Slightly related Ford sells the interior door handle on some F150s only with the entire door panel. Not separately. Wild.
It’s in the name-“door handle” not a tiny lever or switch. A handle you can get your hand around and have good leverage for your thumb to push to open the door. They worked great, no reason to change.
Seems to me that the regulation should simply state that safety-critical vehicle features should be required to operate without electrical power, in the same manner as they operate with power. Allows for design freedom while keeping people from drowning or burning in disabled vehicles.
Being roasted alive, these days…
The 2005 Cadillac STS had an outside door handle that had no mechanical connection to the door latch. All Electric. However the inside handle did mechanically release the door. I had to replace one when I could not open the door from outside when the sensor failed.
The more crispy the Nucular Nutzis the better.