China has become the first nation to require a change to make it easier to rescue people from car crashes: Car doors must be able to open from either side mechanically, like by lifting a handle.
The rules, which go into effect in 2027, follow international scrutiny of a futuristic design first popularized by Tesla, but adopted by many other automakers, in which door handles are electrically powered and hidden. They lie flush with the vehicle’s exterior until they detect an approaching driver and pop out. They were embraced by automakers for both aerodynamic and aesthetic reasons, but introduced a new kind of vulnerability: They can malfunction after a crash or a battery failure.
As Bloomberg News detailed in an investigative report in September, Tesla’s electrically-powered doors could become impossible to open from the outside in an emergency, forcing responders to break windows to extract survivors.
I have a question about this I haven’t been able to answer.
Is the problem the “flushness” or the lack of mechanical linkage to the door latch?
I’ve been in several Teslas, every model but the Cybertruck, and you push on the fat part and the skinny part comes up, which you pull to open. But as I understand it, that just activates an electrical servo or something that unlatches and partially opens the door, and that’s the problem because without power pulling the handle does nothing.
I had a Jaguar F-Type R (I think Range Rovers have the same handles) and it had flush handles that you could set to pop open when you approached, or you could hit a little button on the forward end to pop open the rear end or, like the Tesla, you could push on the forward end to manually raise the rear end and when you pulled on the handle you were mechanically unlatching and opening the door, unlike the Tesla. You could disconnect the battery and still open the door, which as I understand it, you cannot do with a Tesla. Would this be ok?
If it seems far fetched that every news organization keeps talking about flushness when that’s not the problem, I’m willing to entertain it because that’s what happens every time my area of expertise ends up in international news. Whenever my profession, or a related one, is in the news they almost always get it at least a little wrong, and sometimes ridiculously wrong. And they say the same wrong things across all news sources all over the world. I, and others in my group of professions, can see why this happens. They get some basic information but lack context so they interpret it wrong and what comes out is complete nonsense, or at least a little misleading.
Fun fact regarding the Jag handle, their really old coachwork vehicles had a small version of the same design. I’m afraid I don’t have a vehicle year to offer but it was probably 1920 or earlier, and about 2 inches in total length, and was definitely a security feature because the latch handles could only be popped out by hitting a small button on the inside of the door. The driver sat exposed in a front seat similar to the Ford model T.