Earlier this week, Ars spent some time driving the new Nissan Leaf. We have to wait until Friday to tell you how that car drives, but among the changes from the previous generation are door handles that retract flush with the bodywork, for the front doors at least. Car designers love them for not ruining the lines of the door with the necessities of real life, but is the benefit from drag reduction worth the safety risk?
That question is in even sharper relief this morning. Bloomberg’s Dana Hull has a deeply reported article that looks at the problem of Tesla’s door handles, which fail when the cars lose power.
The electric vehicle manufacturer chose not to use conventional door locks in its cars, preferring to use IP-based electronic controls. While the front seat occupants have always had a physical latch that can open the door, it took some years for the automaker to add emergency releases for the rear doors, and even now that it has, many rear-seat Tesla passengers will be unaware of where to find or how to operate the emergency release.
A power failure also affects first responders’ ability to rescue occupants, and Hull’s article details a number of tragic fatal crashes where the occupants of a crashed Tesla were unable to escape the smoke and flames of their burning cars.
The flush Hyundai and Kia handles are motorized and retractable, but they can also be opened entirely mechanically without power. They are little more awkward to use when unpowered but it's entirely doable if you know how. You just push the front side in which pops out the rear grab handle part. This also how Chevy has done their Equinox EV handles which is powered on the higher trims but unpowered for the base model I believe.
I do have to say the Tesla version of the above lever type is not intuitive to me. I did not like them all that much when I was renting one, and also when I was a passenger. Maybe it's cuz they pop out in the opposite direction I expect them to and unlike almost all other car door handles.
The VW ID4 handles hardly protrude and still have the traditional well to slide your fingers under to open the door. That would be another alternative option to improve aero somewhat without going entirely flush.
Flush handles have also been an on again off again feature that cycles through the industry. I do think door handles should be operable when unpowered. So fully retractable or touch activated ones should be allowed unless there is somewhat for them to fail safe, but also not cause security issues that can be exploited.
C&D had a brief article on flush handles back in 2023 and some of the options seem safe enough to me.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a44040564/modern-car-door-designs-amalyzed/
The Tesla front doors do have a mechanical release in the front on the armrest but it's completely separate from the normal door open button so no one is used to using it.
We do need to get away from the skinny sidewalls. I want to flaunt some big ol' whitewall donuts.