It’s not necessary to have electric door handles for that. Aircraft have been using purely mechanical handles where one side is pushed to make the other stand out enough to pull for decades. Several flush door handle designs requiring no electronics have appeared on cars as well.
As another commenter pointed out it does have a noticeable impact on mpg, however you can still do flush mounted handles that are fully manual. Basically every other car manufacturer does manual locks except for Tesla and a couple small (less than 10,000 units annually) companies. The thing is electric locks are cheaper, and when you don’t care about safety, you go for the cheapest option.
Can someone explain what was wrong with normal door handles that they would do this?
Is it like some Steve Jobs-esque obsession with a car not being a car or something?
They think the extra .01 “mpg” gained from smooth doors is worth the risk. I think most people would agree that it’s not.
It’s not necessary to have electric door handles for that. Aircraft have been using purely mechanical handles where one side is pushed to make the other stand out enough to pull for decades. Several flush door handle designs requiring no electronics have appeared on cars as well.
Nah, then make them pop out on pressing, you don’t need an electric actuator
It’s actually dumber. I’m pretty sure this just got removed because mechanical door handles don’t look or sound as cool as electronic door handles.
One must remember that Elon Musk is perpetually trapped at 11 years old.
As another commenter pointed out it does have a noticeable impact on mpg, however you can still do flush mounted handles that are fully manual. Basically every other car manufacturer does manual locks except for Tesla and a couple small (less than 10,000 units annually) companies. The thing is electric locks are cheaper, and when you don’t care about safety, you go for the cheapest option.
The ghost of Steve Jobs: “blow them shii smoove off”