Wtf is “willingness to work from design-first principles”? Do Wired realize that the form of the handle follows the function of designing for better aerodynamics?
I’m calling corpo lobbied bullshit. 2 years is enough time to put a normal door handle on your car.
Cars are designed up to 5 years in advance. Usually the last 2 years before production is dedicated to endurance testing.
Tesla doesn’t do any of that, nor crash testing
^ Didn’t read the article.
Redesigning the handle by 2027 is stupid easy. I have an masters in mechanical engineering, this could be done with mostly off the shelf parts. Tesla is being a bitch like normal.
harder than it sounds… yeah the technology isn’t there yet! we need research and scientific breakthrough to invent a door handle that you can actually handle. no one’s even thought of the concept before.
^ Didn’t read the article.
i very much did, actually. it’s just the bullshit recycled from the seatbelt mandate, except this is about something cars already had a century ago.
“That’s harder than it sounds.”
Is it, though? Is it really? We’ve been making manual car door latches for 100 years.
It’s only hard for Musk, and only because he just doesn’t want to do it.
Seriously. Every other car maker has figured out how to make normal door handles. You can even buy the parts directly from them if you find it too hard to design yourself.
^ Didn’t read the article.
Cry me a river.
Is this because the door handle is some complicated electronic mechanism rather than a latch? Gee who could have possibly predicted that would be a problem.
My neighbour has a Tesla and last year I had great fun watching her trying to defrost her car enough to get the door handle to even come out.
I have had to put quite a bit of force into a car door to get it to open on many an occasion. (Ice is a bitch) A normal door handle just works, stop trying to fix it!
I hate the little flip up style handle on my car, known for its winter capability, which regularly freezes enough that you’re afraid it’ll break if you pull any harder
I have broken off one of the door handles on my car.
I hate fucking “flush handles”. Good riddance to terrible garbage.
I find them cool. But if they become unusable in freezing weather or kill people because of an overcomplex emergency release from the inside?..
Great. Next please: no more touch-controls. I want back haptic buttons for the most important stuff.
EDIT: Instead of silly downvotes, an opinion on why touchscreens/-buttons are superior would be preferable. I’m curious.
Opel Corsa 1993 presents:
Flat aerodynamic door handles.
Unless you’re planning to drive your car around at about 150 miles per hour I don’t imagine that the aerodynamicism of door handles really comes into account. Especially since you’ve still got wing mirrors, wipers, and aerials on the car.
It comes into play much sooner than that when you’re designing for maximum range on an electric vehicle.
Source on that? Hobbiest aerodynamics nerd and big into F1 (and did a lot of liquid system design engineering in a previous job). Genuinely curious!
My gut feel is that a half kilo of unsprung weight (those ridiculous wheels), tighter fenders, or a bit of tail teardropping would go so much further than anything door-handle-wise. It’s certainly helping promote flow attachment, but you’ve got poor flow rates there because of the wing mirrors anyway
I’m talking out of my ass. I’m big into (mostly sim) racing myself, but I have no formal training or experience. You probably know way more about it than me!
If you’re a racing nerd then you know how strong the suckage can be. My car uses premium fuel and I get about 7L/100km on the highway. That adds up on long trips, so I try to save fuel when I can. I’ve tried drafting behind transport trucks. Even at only 90 kmph, I was able to get that number down to 5L/100km.
Electric vehicles have a lot of design features to cut down on aerodynamic and mechanical drag. Special hub caps, no grilles, low drag tires, etc. for the purpose of helping their main problem and selling point: the vehicle’s range on a single charge. I assumed the flush door handles were just another design feature for reducing aerodynamic drag, where every little bit counts.
Again, this is all out of my ass. I am well aware that aerodynamics are far far more complex than “smooth = better”, and that most cars are probably already designed so the door handles aren’t a problem. Maybe the door handles make no difference and having them flush is just optics for Tesla.
Ah cool! After i raced irl for like a decade I sim raced for a while. It was super fun! I’d like to get back into it someday. It’s a lot better on the wallet and body than IRL stuff (especially motorcycles).
I think it helps, but it probably is more of a selling point and aesthetic than an actual help on the (agreed) biggest selling point number.
It’s one of those decisions that someone up top probably made and has these kinds of stupid consequences of moving fast and breaking shit. I wouldn’t be upset if it had to go to a normal one
I saw a marketing blurb for the 2026 Nissan Leaf. They are also going with flush handles (hopefully a safer design) and claimed it for reduced drag to increase range. But, market, so could be just short of an outright lie.
I’ve been into sim racing for nearly a decade. There’s never been a better time to get into it IMO.
Sim racing games and equipment have gotten significantly better and cheaper over the last 5 years. Hydraulic pedals and direct drive wheelbases did exist, but they were in the $2k-$4k price range. Now you can get high quality gear with that technology for under $500.
iRacing and Assetto Corsa are still the kings, but we are spoiled for choice when it comes to excellent sims.
If you are any kind of gearhead you’ll love it. There are even thriving sub-hobbies for things like bass shakers and motion platforms, which add back some of the seat feeling that you miss out on versus IRL.
Did you do motorcycle racing IRL? I’ve seen crazy motorcycle sim builds with motion, lean, etc., but I don’t think serious simulators exist yet. I’d love to see it.
As for Tesla, I don’t think we can know unless a Tesla engineer/aerodynamicist chimes in. There are other more serious examples of executive meddling in engineering, like the use of visual cameras instead of radar/lidar. Working for them must be a hair-pulling experience for their engineers.
that style is also a problem in the winter, though less so
they are prone to breaking as they age when the door is frozen shut and you gotta pull hard
With two doors, half the problem is already solved!
Tesla disregarded all knowledge about automotive door safety to make a more expensive and much more dangerous door handle.
This is what libertarians do for literally everything.
Libertarians are just people too dumb to understand code requirements in every industry and profession.
The only thing libertarians understand is that they can make more money if they charge a full price for a half-ass job.
Hyperloop!
That one pisses me off so much. We could have had a high speed rail with actual throughput instead of claims of something better before nothing
And of course their constant insistence on inventing vehicles that already exist but labelling them as a different vehicle, with the capabilities of the already existing vehicle, and somehow insisting that it is a revolutionary idea.
Hey guys look at my cool idea for a train that doesn’t need rails.
Did you just take a complete left turn into politics land?
This article is about automotive regulations. It was never not politics.
They didn’t reply to the article, they replied to a comment about Tesla making dumb choices.
Audi is following in all their new models…
🤮
After renting a couple cars with electronic door poppers, I find them plainly worse than mechanical door latches. They’re a solution in search of a problem, and some implementations are hazardous.
They were hazardous when they were on Corvettes too. They should have banned them back then.
The rental cars in question were, in fact Corvettes. Corvettes are still using them.
Oof
I think having an electric popper on top of an mechanical door latch (actual door handles are standard mechanic, but there’s solenoid that can actuate them independently) is okay if you can find an actual usecase.
I mean sure still stupid but at least it isn’t dangerous.
Same way electric locks have worked for the past 30 years on cars.
An old civic might be able to unlock from a key fob, but that’s only an electronically controlled solenoid controlling a lock which is mechanical in nature, and who’s main user-accessible interaction point is mechanically linked to the lock.
I think having an electric popper on top of an mechanical door latch is okay
The problem with having both is that the electronic one is always the primary one, and the one people will use daily. In particular Tesla hides the mechanical ones really well. So in an emergency situation, people panic and have no idea where it is or how to use it.
Same way electric locks have worked
Electric locks actually serve a purpose though. And they’re not a danger to passengers inside. What purpose do electric door handles serve? Other than being more prone to failure, more expensive, and dangerous?
What purpose do electric door locks serve? Other than being more prone to failure, more expensive, and dangerous?
An oligarch’s fancy?
I’m sure in product meetings it’s been brought up that it’s a dumb thing and they could save money and make the cars safer by not having them, then the oligarch speaks up.
The problem with having both is that the electronic one is always the primary one, and the one people will use daily.
Yeah that’s the design flaw. Thats literally what im saying they shouldn’t do. You can make a mechanical-first door with an internal solenoid thats capable of popping the door.
The main and only handles on all the doors should be mechanical only, with door popper buttons for all four doors on the driver-side arm rest (where window controls go)
What purpose do electric door handles serve? Other than being more prone to failure, more expensive, and dangerous?
Electric door poppers ARE NOT the same thing as electric door handles, pick a thing to complain about.
POPPERS (IE:solenoids) allow the driver to open doors for passengers, while also ensuring the main way in and out is NOT dependent on electronics (when properly implemented).
Unnecessary luxury? Sure, but so are cars in a lot of the world. Solenoids are cheap, and the idea is not inherently a danger when done right.
Your issue isn’t electronically controlled door poppers. Its cars being made by silicon valley, y-combinator sucking, tech-bro douchebags who thought replacing the mechanical handle with a button was a good idea.
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I hear they are a solution to the problem of increasing mileage/efficiency. I am no fan of Tesla, but we have to admit, there is some merit to that argument, however debatable the efficiency benefits are.
That’s not to say safety isn’t a serious issue. The biggest problem is the reliance on electronics. Now if someone can reinvent the design with a highly reliable mechanical system, with multiple redundancy.
Yeah I’m sorry, I’ll take normal door handles over a 0.01% increase in efficiency
Insert that meme of the dude with: You get 0.001 more mileage, I get customers with crap door handles.
I’ve seen three designs for purely mechanical flush door handles in production use:
- A handle with a central hinge where one side is pushed inward to make the other side stick out to be pulled. This design has been used on aircraft for many decades, and has also made its way to a few cars.
- A pull-up door handle with an additional flap in front of the access area. This was used on the Subaru XT/Alcyone/Vortex.
- A handle that pushes in to open, usually found on a portion of the door that’s more horizontal to the ground. Used on the C3 Corvette, among others.
The push-then-pull central hinge is probably not a great choice for the application because its operation will be less obvious to a rescuer trying to get the door open quickly. It’s still better than something that requires electronics.
To my knowledge, there are designs which allow you to pop out the latch without the need for electronics.
However, if I’m reading the article correctly those wouldn’t be allowed either because in their default state they don’t have “enough room for a hand to grip behind them”. That wording alone explicitely bans flush doorhandles, and not just electronic doorhandles
The ones that work on springs are inherently dangerous because in the event of a crash it’s very possible that some very important bits of plastic will get misaligned and the handle will get jammed behind the frame. The steel construction of the latch is much less likely to be damaged in a crash
Will it? I’m skeptical of the translation since it’s obviously loose and casual, and more optimistic with the quote from Tesla saying they’re redesigning it …
- article says mechanical release handles inside and out. Tesla model y could already be here depending on the details
- articles says a hand must fit behind the handle, ruling out flush handles, but depending on the details, the model y may a Ready be there, as is the Opel Corsa in this thread
- no mention of the electronic latch. I don’t get it, wouldn’t this be the actual most dangerous part?
The issues could cascade beyond the design. The auto manufacturing industry operates on strict production schedules. Though it builds in time to validate and test whatever new features come in each new model, the sudden intro of a design change late in the process could throw off the delicate timetable.
FFS, it’s a bloody door handle, not full self driving tech. Author is full of BS.
Government’s also tend to introduce grace periods. They announced that they are going to introduce a law and that that law will go into effect on x date. The manufacturing now has plenty of time to sell the current run of vehicles and then alter the design well ahead of the law coming into effect.
You don’t just introduce a law and then implement it the following day. Well Trump does but no body else does.
You do not know or believe how much shit has to be pipelined to get a simple change on a car design going on the market. If you have knowledge about computers, you quickly notice that the hardware and software running in a car are OLD. I’ve seen cars sold as new with processors so old, they are “no longer recommended for new designs”. This is because every single thing has to be tested and approved to death in a car. Sometimes several times over.
This is because every single thing has to be tested and approved to death in a car.
This is tesla though, how much testing do they actually do before passing it to customers for free QA?
The part that the law demands has probably been tested. But I think the US is less stringent with that than our EU.
A lot of upvotes here, and I think they’re ignoring how much is involved in production pipelines and the overhead of sourcing suppliers. That said, Musk has a habit of throwing in last minute changes and the company manages to handle those but much like self driving they ship late
Yeah let’s see, if the handle would have to be a different shape, they may need a different cutout for the door, different handle moulds, different mechanical parts, updated electronics… does anyone have a fucking clue how difficult it is to program one of those robotic arms? How expensive new moulds are? Any other potential knock-on effects this may have on the internal design?
People with the mentality of ‘it’s just a small plug at the bottom of the pool, how bad could it possibly be if we removed it’
Load of uninformed B.S. from the supply chain expert. There’s not a door out there that isn’t full of empty space.
Bus door
Points! :-)
Who cares? You only have yourself to blame for buying a Tesla.
Dude, you act like you’ve never been burned by someone in your life. Instead of shaming people for purchasing something and getting burned, we should all be getting together and shaming the companies that are enshitified.
A) Yes, at this point we can blame the idiots buying Teslas too.
B) This sounds like it would only impact new sales
C) Nothing about Teslas are “enshittificarion”. It doesn’t mean “getting shittier”, or “are shitty”.
