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.
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.
In 14 years, Tesla could not change the Model S door handles? Cd should matter on any car, but Tesla low Cds are mainly dictated by not needing cooling radiators and airflow to reduce ICE heat.
The handles were designed to look cool for techno fetish buyers. Period. The Cybertruck also has no door handles, as if they cared about Cd.
Man, Americans just love to be educated by ad agencies.