Proposed regulations in China would mean the end of flush handles on car doors, with precious little time to roll out the changes. Read the full article: [https://www.wired.com/story/new-rules-could-force-tesla-to-redesign-its-door-handles-thats-harder-than-it-sounds/](https://www.wired.com/story/new-rules-could-force-tesla-to-redesign-its-door-handles-thats-harder-than-it-sounds/)
Xiaomi is facing the same issue. Calls on mechanical doorhandles
Good. Flush electronic door handles add numerous additional points of failure, are a clear and obvious safety risk, and don't even do the thing they purport to do. The amount of aerodynamic drag eliminated by flush door handles is so negligible that it couldn't possibly have even a one-mile effect on range.
The YU7 already has new doorhandles
SU7
The SU7 still has electronic door handles that sonnt move at all as far as I know. The YU7 has flush door handles you push in to open the door. They did a redesign aftercare issues with the SU.
Is anybody going to post a non-paywalled link, or am I going to kill the thread?
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Can't they just put on mechanical door handles for Chinese market?
Agree. Door handles should also be intuitive for first responders and guests in the car, so in an accident everyone can egress quickly when power is disabled.
Yeah, [a mile at best](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/09/flush-door-handles-are-the-car-industrys-latest-safety-problem/) for something so complex and prone to breakage.
Good thing almost all of them have experience making usable door handles!
I'm sure it's no problem for Mr. "Nobody in the world knows more about manufacturing than me"
Hard??? You have an idea how old handles are?! It's only hard if you work for Elon because then you can't be too smart
A while ago someone posted over in r/electric vehicles an interview with the head of design for Mercedes. They did a bunch of studies on different door handles and found that having flush vs traditional handles did reduce drag, but not very much. They said it was the equivalent of washing half of your car. Half.
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Best to just discontinue the model then
Went looking for who had the first flush handles, found something else "The one-hand opening design allows users to squeeze the handle and simultaneously push the door open with one arm, instead of using one to pull the handle and the other to push the door open." Its about a ford ranger, but my question isnt about the handle itself as it is the articles assertion that the normal way to open a door is apparently ; 1) use one hand, probably the hand on the side of the door to just pull a handle. 2) reach over yourself and use your other hand to push the door. I apparently have been doing it wrong my whole life. And the picture in this article is rediculous too. Who opens the door with an underhanded left hand grip? Its like the worst possible form to hold anything for 90% of people. I get they probably wanted a shot thats more handle than hand, but idk, to me it seems underhanded (hah) if to make the shot look good you are doing the operation weird when talking about said operation.
I would love mechanical door handles to come back. I’m firmly in the camp that believes they are safer than electric. Granted, if car is locked and person inside is unable to assist with unlocking door… still gotta break a window. However, physical stands much higher chance of allowing someone to escape in the event power is cut to the door mechanism.
LOL Hopefully this will make more nations realise how important this is.
Tesla's engineering is basically: Does this old proven thing work? If yes, replace it.
Should never have been allowed in the first place
Doors unlock when a crash is detected..
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It's really funny that this ridiculous door is only now being made illegal.
Can't wait to see the meltdown over the handles not being flush. Elon had such a fucking hard-on for that element and I cannot fathom what purpose it serves. Maybe if it were an F1 car and it helped them shave .002 seconds off their lap it would make sense, but fuck me it's dumb.
I eagerly await Musk's meltdown and tirade of accusatory tweets at his Chicom masters....or not.
One of China's biggest industrialist CEO billionaires, and Mitch McConnell's sister-in-law, drowned while trapped inside a Tesla.
If the car loses power, you can't operate an electronic door latch even if the door is unlocked. With a mechanical door latch, you can.
If the handle is electric, being unlocked is irrelevant, if it doesn't have power it will not work.
I should mount fake doorhandles on my Model Y doorhandles to measure the range loss LOL (the door prongs are my least favorite thing about the car I guess, other than being associated with Elon)
I get needing mechanical door handles. But requiring them to not be flush is odd. If the doors are locked how a non flush handle going to help an emergency responder open the door? The handle design shown in the thumbnail looks fine, if it is like Hyundai’s design it is flush but mechanical.
It looks cool i guess, but there was a reason nobody did it before and it’s not because they couldn’t
Maybe the design should be mechanical at a certain point. As in, electronic with a slight push and pull but manual whenever it's pulled a bit further and when an accident occurs the handle should automatically pop out and not remain flush. It will be interesting to see how Ford remakes the Mach E handle. It has a button and pull at the top edge of the door.
The stupid thing is that you can have flush handles, it just requires a recess within the door. Its a stupid industry trend that needs to go.
VW has had this issue solved for decades. If you pull the handle on the inside while the door is locked, it unlocks, pull again, and it opens. All mechanical. Mechanical leverage is a very old concept that is easy to implement.
I know an uber driver in Seattle who does that, makes it SOOO much easier to get in and out. You can buy them online and the just stick on.
The fun part is most modern cars are now using laminate glass in the side windows so you can't break them anymore.
Ah, China cares about their people more than the US cares about our people, nice.
Elon is going to lose his shit when he realizes the people who worked on doorhandles design left 8 years ago, the interns and new grads that staff his company along with the rest and vest managers are going to cybertruck the new door handle design for the 3/y platform.
That must be why Rivian is preemptively redesigning their handles before the upcoming R2 launch. Fortunate for them.
While I’m 1000% not advocating for flush door handles and actually thoroughly support their removal. A mile per recharge x10,000,000 cars globally does add up significantly.
Anyone who lives in a country with freezing weather should want to avoid that design. It's bad enough yanking the doors open with a normal handle when it's really cold outside!
>"Mechncial release requires a mechanical assembly,” she says. “It’s not just, you write some code.” Hold my ketamine. Elon, probably.
> Anyone who lives in a country with freezing weather should want to avoid that design. It's pretty clear Tesla engineering doesn't really think much about freezing weather. > It's bad enough yanking the doors open with a normal handle when it's really cold outside! Ahh yes, I fondly remember ice storms. Wait, not fondly. Going WFH was the greatest gift ever, given rampant shitty weather.
> Ah, China cares about their people more than the uS cares about our people, nice. Some of the US cares about our people, and a few others only care about our people sometimes.
https://archive.is/Ye4Of
> A mile per recharge x10,000,000 cars globally does add up significantly. Of course it does, but compare it to Cd of a full sized pickup, or virtually any SUV. I'm confident the savings from removing side mirrors would be 10 or even 100 times more than the door handles. Of course, I can't imagine letting Tesla (or some other mfgs, to be fair) do that - given their track records for... everything. Side mirrors that always work, door handles that are clear and easy to actuate without needing to read a manual or have a class, and the ability to break a window on a vehicle are all serious safety needs.
‘and actually thoroughly support their removal’
You can preheat your cabin so that shouldn't be a problem.
> "The one-hand opening design allows users to squeeze the handle and simultaneously push the door open with one arm, instead of using one to pull the handle and the other to push the door open." I'm curious where you found this quote. >I apparently have been doing it wrong my whole life. Me too. > Who opens the door with an underhanded left hand grip? I don't know about with Tesla's, but "back in the day" (i.e. the 80s, hell maybe even the 90s and 00s), most door handles require an underhanded grip (like from [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/cdwzem/a_bit_of_respect_for_the_good_old_school_flush/). IMO, the correct hand to open a door with is the "outside" one. i.e. left as drive, and right as passenger, because it let's you start moving toward the opening as the outside hand is still pulling the door open.
> If the doors are locked how a non flush handle going to help an emergency responder open the door? Well, in an emergency a decent car unlocks the doors when a serious accident occurs, along with half a dozen other things, so yes, it will. Of course, in decent cars, a first responder can simply break the glass with the proper tool, too.
Why is EU also not mandating it like now? Flush door handles like in Tesla are dumb, flush handles that pop out automatically are even dumber. Handles that are semi flush with gap at the bottom are also less comfortable. Handles that are not flush, a are electronic are also dumb. No one asked for it. They are in no way better and not worth the extra 5 miles of range on EVs. But I guess enshitification FTW.
One of the stupidest things ever done with a car. Until now, you got into a car in 1920 or 2020, it was obvious how to enter and exit the vehicle even in an emergency. Then Tesla “reinvents” the door handle in the dumbest way possible. Worse, people bought into it and other companies copied. Why would you make getting in and out of a car complicated? Why would you add more things that can break to do something a simple as opening a door? It’s just the height of stupid and any company that copied Tesla on really anything deserves their lowered stock price and more. Want to know how far gone a Musk fan boy is? Hear them justify putting a manual door handle in the backseat, under a floorboard with an additional flip open cover.
GM was literally doing it 30 years ago just fine. I always through the Cutlass/Regal door handles in the pillar were slick.
You can also open the door through the app so you don’t even need to use the handle
As much as I want them to succeed being that they're a US based leading EV manufacturer, their damn arrogance is just astounding sometimes. Its like "Hey, car industry, I know there is 100+ years experience of building these things and lots of established ways of doing things, and those likely exist for a reason, but fuck you and your experience we want to innovate and be futuristic" You can only ignore "Hey, we do it this way for a reason" to so much of an extent before it starts to bite you in the ass.
As with most safety rules, nothing happens until enough people die, then a regulation is created. Then people complain the regulation exists because they forgot how it got there.
https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/six-cars-with-hidden-door-handles-141828/ Just some car sales page. Nothin fancy. Love that the thread you linked to's top comment is people complaining about that that handle breaks all the time on people
> Love that the thread you linked to's top comment is people complaining about that that handle breaks all the time on people Those handles weren't always all that robust. I think a lot of them were just plastic, either without reinforcement or with weak reinforcing. UV degrades the hell out of unprotected plastic.
Hard because they have to redesign and retool their whole manufacturing pipeline because their dumbass "engineers" chose a sub-optimal "solution" to begin with
fuck tesla fuck musk fuck nazimobiles
My i4 has flush handles that are mechanical and have a way to grab them. Just takes 2 brain cells to put together.
I saw a video a while back that said when designed properly, door handles create no extra drag because they ride in the slipstream created by the side mirrors.
Maybe they should build themselves a waambulance.
that still doesn’t have the aerodynamic advantages.
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WWHD
Unless you have a coating of ice on the car that's stronger than the door poppers.
Similar rules are required for all public buildings and in locations where lack of expected egress methods would make exiting dangerous. I do a lot of access control and you absolutely have to have a way out that is intuitive. An electric lock can no longer have an exit button beside the door for example. It has to be built into the handle, be fail safe, and not require any thought of the user. Remaining mechanical is the best way to do this. In a car, this is twice as important. For starters, far more deaths and most people will be in an accident of some sort in their lives. (Few will be in a burning building). Secondly, a serious accident will often negate any electronic system in a car and serious accidents are often when you need to get out the fastest. It is mind boggling that this is not already a requirement. Of all the dangers out there, the drive is a factor higher than anything we do on a daily basis.
And the weight & cost from the motors for self-presenting handles, self-opening/closing doors, and electronically opening latches is way more than a simple mechanical handle. It's bad safety design and expense just so influencers and owners can feel special that their car doors "open for them". The sad part is Tesla didn't even get it right. They could have had redundant latches and a key hole, like other companies are doing. But Tesla being Tesla cheaped out and got it all wrong.
I’m amazed the EU hasn’t come forward with this but I hope they’ll support and enforce this as well
If that were the case even a regular door handle would be an issue
And it frequently is. Ice scraper and start chipping. With a flush handle you have to chip enough to for it's motor to be able to push the handle out, then you have to pull on it hard enough to break the ice. Now pulling on handles after a nasty storm is enough to break regular handles if you're not careful. A motorized handle is going to take a lot less force before you break it.
You were beaten to the punch, but thanks all the same.
You misspelled 60 years.
Chinese car development cycle is 20 months on average so they'll be ready for this.
Preheating doesn't do much to melt ice around the handles, at least not quickly.
TBH was just unaware of previous ones, I just remember the stuff from around 1990ish. What'd they have back in the day with recessed door handles?
I don't even think it looks cool. To me it looks silly since it's usually a different colour from the car itself.
I mean, i think most details on Teslas look weird, but i kinda like the handles
According to the article it's purpose is to improve range by 1 mile ... maybe.
Fair enough. Everyone's tastes are different.
I have a vague memory of seeing them on a C3 Corvette.
Standards in Europe generally require various redundancies like mechanical safety levers or other such features. I worked on door handle design for cars and all the flush designs for Europe had some sort of mechanical redundancy, at least at the company I worked for. There are some legal requirements in that respect but I don’t recall which ones since I left the company a while ago and haven’t dealt with them in a while.
There's probably some DIN for door handles ;D
There most certainly are a whole bunch of standards and legal regulations :))) very much in line with EU bureaucracy
Edolf: "all keyhole, redundant latch and good door handle is error"
I'll be honest, had to google image search that, I hadn't seen a C3 up close for a while. That's pretty slick, they're so integrated I never really noticed them which I guess was the point. Also why I didn't remember them.
Yeah, I looked them up after I posted that. It wasn't exactly what I remembered, but the principle was there.
The window has to roll down to properly open the door. Designed in CA made in CA.
Ah yeah, Tesla is not the only company that implemented that design. Add a bunch of unnecessary points of failure, charge the customer more for all the "features", profit.
Yep. No reason Tesla couldn't just do that.
Is this going to affect all of Tesla's lineup? Which models is this?
Wow a nice regulation really care for the people from China. How the table turning...
And other brands still have electronic releases. Pull a bit, electronic. Pull harder, manual. Best of both worlds. Though tbh, I've never understood the point of the electronic ones except for the model X rear doors.
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