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Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

cnn.com

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Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#21

Post by ptmcc »

3D30497420 wrote: post #15
pengaru wrote: post #7

Electric retractable door handles is such a stupid gimmick. I once pulled over to help a stranded Model S driver with a flat tire in the Mojave desert. Every door handle had a zip tie hanging off it because they _all_ had failed present mechanisms. Junk

Apparently non-retractable door handles have only a very minor impact on drag/efficiency: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/09/flush-door-handles-are-... So, yes, I think you're right that they are largely just a gimmick.

If manufacturers in general were serious about improving efficiency they'd stop putting huge heavy wheels on everything, instead of chasing fractions of a percent with overcomplicated and failure-prone door handles.

Side bonus, smaller wheels with taller sidewall tires are more comfortable, less prone to damage, and the tires are cheaper and easier to replace, too!

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#22

Post by _fat_santa »

Just to share a personal anecdote. The other day me and my wife were getting into an Uber that was a Model 3 and she said to me "I don't know how this door works, can you open it for me".

Sure they are not that hard to figure out but something like door handles shouldn't be something to "figure out" at all, it should be immediately obvious how to open the vehicle.

Beyond that I just dislike electronic door handles in general, yes I get the argument that an electronic handle puts less wear on the car as it can accurately actuate the door release and do it better than a human but every time I have to use a button to exit the car, I always get flashing sirens in my head going "this is a massive point of failure"

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#23

Post by mtlynch »

I considered buying a Model 3 but the door handles were the dealbreaker for me.

The standard door handles don't work if the vehicle has a loss of power (such as after a collision).

In the front, there's a manual release in the front seat that's accessible if you know where to look, but would be easy to miss in an emergency.

In the rear, it's almost impossible to access the manual release in an emergency. You have to pull out a floor mat and then pop open a panel that requires a metal tool to extract, and then reach blindly into a hole to pull the release. And this process damages the car, so you can't really practice in a non-emergency.[0]

I couldn't believe I was actually understanding it correctly and that this could be legal in the US, so I called Tesla's hotline and asked how to exit the vehicle in an emergency. The Tesla rep said it's easy to activate the manual release if you know where to look, so I asked how passengers unfamiliar with the car are supposed to use it to escape in an emergency. The rep said, "Oh, it's just a quick 5-minute explanation when they get in."

Apparently, because Tesla decided to put this stupid design on their door rather than one that works without elecricity, it's now the car owner's responsibility to sit every passenger through a 5-minute safety briefing as if they hopped into a 747.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PbRBbIGnv4

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#24

Post by ortusdux »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #18
Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote is from the linked article/CNN, it is a summary, you can read the original reporting from Bloomberg if you wish to learn more about what they found.

> 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. The above is from CNN, but in the original bloomberg article, I don’t see any specifics. If I was a writer, and the number of incidents was high, I would want to specify it to maximize engagement. So I prone to assume when they don’t s…

Did the handles play a role in Angela Chao's death?

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#25

Post by Someone1234 »

3D30497420 wrote: post #15
pengaru wrote: post #7

Electric retractable door handles is such a stupid gimmick. I once pulled over to help a stranded Model S driver with a flat tire in the Mojave desert. Every door handle had a zip tie hanging off it because they _all_ had failed present mechanisms. Junk

Apparently non-retractable door handles have only a very minor impact on drag/efficiency: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/09/flush-door-handles-are-... So, yes, I think you're right that they are largely just a gimmick.

Agreed. Plus the choices were never electrically actuated Vs. standard, plenty of vehicles before Tesla had flush fully mechanical doorhandles that reduced the drag coefficient.

Tesla did it to be different, futuristic, and to show off. Then plenty of other electric vehicle manufacturers copied. Even ignoring the safety issues, these things had reliability problems since almost inception and could be frozen shut in the winter.

Between the door handles, removing the turn signal stalk, removing the wiper stalk, non-round non-drive-by-wire wheel, and now putting the shifter in the ceiling, Tesla has made a lot of unforced errors to try to stand out.

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#26

Post by fullshark »

Ever since reading this story I decided I wasn't buying a Tesla: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68622898

Just so stupid, how many unnecessary deaths in Teslas have there been because of the overengineered crap door handles? Really tragic and pointless.

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#27

Post by IncreasePosts »

mtlynch wrote: post #23

I considered buying a Model 3 but the door handles were the dealbreaker for me. The standard door handles don't work if the vehicle has a loss of power (such as after a collision). In the front, there's a manual release in the front seat that's accessible if you know where to look, but would be easy to miss in an emergency. In the rear, it's almost impossible to access the manual release in an emergency. You have to…

I have a model Y and it is the first car in my life where I need to give passengers a tutorial on how to enter/exit the car. Also, my mom in the front passenger seat just assumed the emergency door release was the normal one(because she has never pushed a small button to open a door in a car before), and she pulled it and a big "WARNING! YOU MIGHT BREAK YOUR WINDOWS DOING THAT" message popped up on the screen.

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#28

Post by triceratops »

Someone1234 wrote: post #25
3D30497420 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently non-retractable door handles have only a very minor impact on drag/efficiency: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/09/flush-door-handles-are-... So, yes, I think you're right that they are largely just a gimmick.

Agreed. Plus the choices were never electrically actuated Vs. standard, plenty of vehicles before Tesla had flush fully mechanical doorhandles that reduced the drag coefficient. Tesla did it to be different, futuristic, and to show off. Then plenty of other electric vehicle manufacturers copied. Even ignoring the safety issues, these things had reliability problems since almost inception and could be frozen shut in t…

> now putting the shifter in the ceiling

They what?! And people are still buying these things? This is the most valuable automaker in the world?

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#29

Post by mixmastamyk »

_fat_santa wrote: post #22

Just to share a personal anecdote. The other day me and my wife were getting into an Uber that was a Model 3 and she said to me "I don't know how this door works, can you open it for me". Sure they are not that hard to figure out but something like door handles shouldn't be something to "figure out" at all, it should be immediately obvious how to open the vehicle. Beyond that I just dislike electronic door handles in…

Same happened to us... we poked at the door "handle" for a few seconds.

Re: Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report

#30

Post by wyre »

_fat_santa wrote: post #22

Just to share a personal anecdote. The other day me and my wife were getting into an Uber that was a Model 3 and she said to me "I don't know how this door works, can you open it for me". Sure they are not that hard to figure out but something like door handles shouldn't be something to "figure out" at all, it should be immediately obvious how to open the vehicle. Beyond that I just dislike electronic door handles in…

I find public transit will often use electric doors, but they will also have ways to open the door or window manually in the case of an emergency which seems like the best middleground.

That said, when has a door handle ever been a major point of failure in a personal automobile? Electric door handles on cars for less wear is a bad argument, imo. My internal skeptic says Tesla saves as much money as they can on door latches, so they need it to be electronic to remain gentle enough it won't break.

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