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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

#61

Post by mrguyorama »

rightbyte wrote: post #35
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 couldn't believe I was actually understanding it correctly and that this could be legal I think laws are usually reactive. Why would there be a ban on such a silly thing.

Why is this desirable? Why is it a good thing that laws only happen after people already die from an avoidable and predictable problem?

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

#62

Post by mikestew »

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.

Top-trim Ioniq 5 has flush door handles for aerodynamic efficiency. Which is more than cancelled out by the stupid 20-inch wheels. Flush door handles are the pop-up headlights of this decade: questionable aerodynamic benefit, reliability issues, and let's be honest, only done to look cool.

(Granted, they're damned nice wheels. When people compliment the car in a parking lot, they usually talk about the wheels.)

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

#63

Post by brandonagr2 »

tartuffe78 wrote: post #53
vkou wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about banning a particular design, it's about mandating that emergency egress is possible. If you're ever trapped in a burning car and can't open the fucking doors you might find that requirement to be a little bit less silly than you think it to be.

No other car company has screwed it up this badly before. Tesla may force it to happen if enough deaths occur.

If a car has a physical child lock switch engaged, it's not possible to open the door from the inside even in an emergency.

Clearly rear emergency egress is not a requirement, a child opening the door while going down the highway is a much larger risk.

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

#64

Post by Esophagus4 »

mikestew wrote: post #58
jp191919 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use the app to open the door if the handle is frozen. Still not a great design, might as well have a button instead.

The peak of tech jackassery: "We can fix it in software."

See: Boeing 737-MAX + MCAS

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

#65

Post by potato3732842 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #61
rightbyte wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I couldn't believe I was actually understanding it correctly and that this could be legal I think laws are usually reactive. Why would there be a ban on such a silly thing.

Why is this desirable? Why is it a good thing that laws only happen after people already die from an avoidable and predictable problem?

It's not. It's a figment of stupid engineer circle jerk culture where they'll do all sorts of insane actuator and automation implementations to avoid having to design a simple part to withstand the force of a human operating it.

There are many ways to do a fold flush manual handle/lever and hook that up to a traditional door mechanism.

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

#66

Post by mrguyorama »

cfeduke wrote: post #48

I bought a Model 3 in 2018, a Y in 2020, and another 3 in 2024. The end user design has only continued to get worse on various aspects of the car. Regarding non-safety issues, living in the northeast and mid-Atlantic, the door handles freeze shut during the winter and become impossible to open from outside of the car. But why continue to buy these poor end-user design experiences, you think? My car maintenance costs…

>My car maintenance costs since 2018 has been a gallon of windshield wiper fluid and new tires

Just to be clear, you keep buying stupid and poorly designed cars to save a couple hundred dollars on oil changes? Which are the ONLY maintenance item you need to do on any brand new ICE from purchase to about 100k miles?

You repeatedly purchase brand new, luxury priced, "new car premium" priced cars to save a few hundred dollars?

Uhhh.... What?

My ICE car's entire maintenance budget since I purchased it 5 years ago has been about $300 worth of oil changes, once per year, and Europeans claim that's way too often.

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

#67

Post by potato3732842 »

kennywinker wrote: post #11

This is a failure of regulation. Companies come and go. The idea is that we have simple, efficient, long lasting gov orgs that can make sure each new company doesn’t repeat moronic mistakes like this in the name of design.

This isn't a failure of regulation. It's a failure of engineering culture. It's an industry fad or circle jerk, same as any other.

Blaming "but the law didn't say I couldn't do this" fails to properly ascribe blame and serves to excuse the peddlers of bad culture.

The Telsa handle and copycats are figment of stupid engineering circle jerk culture allowed to run unrestrained. These people are disposed to do all sorts of insane actuator and automation implementations to avoid having to design a simple part to withstand the force of a human operating it.

There are many ways to do a fold flush manual handle/lever and hook that up to a traditional door mechanism and/or make it automatic (the latter is a feature of every high end minivan side door in the past 20yr).

The problem isn't that there was no regulator saying no The problem is that they wanted to do the stupid at all. If there was a law forbidding this particular implementation of stupid they'd find a different one. You can't legislate them all. You have to solve the culture.

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

#68

Post by marcosdumay »

chrismeller wrote: post #13
marcosdumay wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about hardware redundancy, but yes for at least "easily verifiable limiters". What is "hardware" anyway? Does a microcontroller-based integrator or debouncer count? Depending on how you define that, it can become a serious roadblocker. But anyway, I guess that point is moot for a door handle, you can fix it with stuff that is unambiguously hardware.

> What is "hardware" anyway? Does a microcontroller-based integrator or debouncer count? Hmm, good question. In this context, I guess "continues to work after the EMP"?

So, antennas and grid power are forbidden, microprocessors and batteries are permitted?

Do you expect a mechanical wave to come with the EMP or it originates in space?

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

#69

Post by Esophagus4 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #17

I see a lot of questioning as to why this isn't required by regulation around this topic. I have no idea, but my intuition would be that it simply never occurred to regulators to require that door handles work? That door handles be accessible? Could it be that simple?

It reminds me of the rise of SUVs leading to more rollover crashes in the 90s.

Before that, NHTSA didn’t run rollover crash tests - they added rollover crash tests in 2000 in response to SUVs.

Regulatory and safety agencies are usually reactive, and can’t anticipate every market change.

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

#70

Post by gamblor956 »

dgarrett wrote: post #32
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…

> 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. Just so you know, this is improved the latest (2023+) Model 3. There is now an easily removable pan…

On every other car, you can open the rear door by just using the door handle. No need to remove a panel so you can pull a yellow cable to release a latch so you can open the door.
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