China is banning hidden door handles on all cars sold in the country, becoming the first country in the world to target the feature – which was popularized by Tesla but has for years drawn concern over safety risks.
The feature has previously come under heavy scrutiny, both in China and elsewhere.
Last September, Tesla said it was looking into redesigning the way to open its car doors in an emergency, after several accidents where passengers were reportedly killed or severely injured in burning vehicles because rescuers could not open them.
Other Tesla owners have reported having to break their own car windows after buckling their children in and then being unable to get in the car again, according to an investigation by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
An investigation by Bloomberg found 140 incidents of people being trapped in their Teslas due to problems with the door handles, including several that resulted in horrific injuries.
How can it has been approved first? in case of crash and battery disconnect for whatever reason, you are trapped in the car, cannot get in cannot get out‽‽‽
Also I’d like to know after let’s say 10 years, how many kWh did you save thanks to that?
So, the flush handles actually save a lot.
The thing is, there’s purely mechanical ways of solving the problem. Including a hinge set somewhere towards the middle- so you push one side in, and the other angled out so you can open it.
Not the most convenient, but it’s less inconvenient than an over engineered piece of shit that breaks every winter.
Hyundai Ioniq 5 works like this. Flush handles that can extend mechanically or can be extended by pushing the front of the handle into the car, to make the rear protrude. Then pull the rear to open the door.
They do not “save a lot” It’s purely a marketing gimmick.
The normal pocket handles do create a not insignificant amount of drag.
The pop out mechanism is stupid, don’t get me wrong, but it does have an appreciable effect on range.
The normal handles might shift the coefficient of drag by 0.01 by the most generous estimate I could find, and the Lucid Air has a coefficient of 0.197… It’s insignificant. A flap-type door handle that is recessed is probably exactly the same as the ‘cool’ flat handle look, and if not an air baffle for the lower half would absolutely make it the same as the weird ones
No, it really doesn’t. Having your tires low by 1 psi would be a bigger difference.
Last time I got on a coworker’s Tesler, thats how they worked. Push the large part in with your thumb and the handle pops out. Curl your fingers around it and pull.
The thing I thought of later was “that made sene to me, who grew up in the 70’s/80’s/90’s with handles that had a button you push in with your thumb. No kid knows that anymore.”
That’s not what is being banned- though the newer style could still be electric and problematic, the style they’re really going after seems motorized pop out handles that look like this:
Yeah, that design is dumb… but also they must have changed the design. I don’t have and don’t ever care to have one, so I’m not sure on that.
The more expensive models have the motorised handles.
Same, really. Even just getting in one is a bad idea.
Iirc there’s a panel you can remove to pull the latch cable manually, which is how they try to explain this being ok
Yeah, all you need is a small toolkit, five minutes, and a cool head - perfect for an emergency
And whennyou actually need rescuing, e.g. with a compund fracture or are pinned behind some twisted metal. Sounds like an elon idea, indeed.
If you incinerate all of the victims, they can’t leave bad reviews!
Also you need to know about this and find it first. Try doing that in the middle of the night, on a car that has been deformed by a crash, and is on fire.
A small toolkit that didn’t get yeeted around the car when you had your accident.
All you need is to read the manual.
I get the hate for Musk, but this is all being driven by US ambulance chasers in a class action. Remember when only cars sold in America has “sudden acceleration”?
A door handle should not require reading a manual, especially not if it works one way day to day but an entirely different way in an emergency when people are least likely to think of perusing the manual (which is also electronic in the Teslas, I believe).
Right, I read and memorize all 768 pages of the manual of every single car I rent.
You can get out using a manual pull.
But Americans don’t read manuals.
Americans also like bad interiors in their expensive vehicles, it seems. That door card looks horrible.