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.
I mean the entire goal of Tesla’s design was to minimize drag coefficient. It’s important in EVs because with ICE you just burn more fuel which takes 5 minutes to refuel, with EVs you have tedious charging stops more often - particularly with older EVs like the Tesla Model S that popularized this.
Say what you will about Tesla, but their Cd is pretty darn impressive especially if you consider that every car in the table that beats the Model S, save for the EV1, is newer than the Model S. That and the powertrain are the two things they absolutely nailed in their otherwise pretty mediocre EVs.
Minimizing the drag coefficient is not worth someone potentially being trapped in a lithium fire after an accident.
You can also do it such that they work mechanically and don’t even need to come out. Tesla was just lazy. Good idea, poor execution.
The model 3 handle is just as flush, cheaper to make, far more reliable.
They’re Tesla owners, so no big loss.
That’s their bullshit story. They just love to market gadgets. The Model 3 handles pivot out and are just as flush, without the need of an electric motor and pointless complexity. Those stupid handles also fail and freeze closed. It’s bad design. A tiny door handle does nothing to Cd compared to side mirrors, and cars in the 70s had smaller mechanical handles.
Read the table again, the S is beat by 4 models, one of which is 30 years old.
The Model 3 is several years newer and likely by that time someone brought it up that the original was idiotic.
Never said it wasn’t a bad design, just that there was reason to innovate when it comes to door handles. Tesla did it, they just didn’t do it well.
Tesla’s side mirrors already look pretty aero. You also can’t remove them completely or make them flush, because they’re actually needed for safety. Some manufacturers have gone to cameras, but that’s just another part that can fail + they’re significantly more expensive than regular old mirrors.
Now go read my comment again, I said:
Yes, the Model S gets beat by 4 cars (probably more, this is just an examples table), but 3 of them are an entire generation newer EVs and one is an experimental vehicle that was 110% about efficiency. Tesla positioned the S as an executive/luxury car, they could NEVER afford to have a design like that. The entire reason Tesla was the first successful EV was that they made one of the first ones that looked like a normal car, while still being slick so it would have good range on the highway.
To be clear I don’t think Teslas are great or that motorizing the handle was a great idea. I was just saying that flush handles make sense on an EV where Cd is pretty important.