Comment

Comment on New Rules Could Force Tesla to Redesign Its Door Handles. That’s Harder Than It Sounds

I hear they are a solution to the problem of increasing mileage/efficiency. I am no fan of Tesla, but we have to admit, there is some merit to that argument, however debatable the efficiency benefits are.

That’s not to say safety isn’t a serious issue. The biggest problem is the reliance on electronics. Now if someone can reinvent the design with a highly reliable mechanical system, with multiple redundancy.

source

Sort:hotnew top

Humanius@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
To my knowledge, there are designs which allow you to pop out the latch without the need for electronics.

However, if I’m reading the article correctly those wouldn’t be allowed either because in their default state they don’t have “enough room for a hand to grip behind them”.
That wording alone explicitely bans flush doorhandles, and not just electronic doorhandles

source
- echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  The ones that work on springs are inherently dangerous because in the event of a crash it’s very possible that some very important bits of plastic will get misaligned and the handle will get jammed behind the frame. The steel construction of the latch is much less likely to be damaged in a crash
  
  source
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Yeah I’m sorry, I’ll take normal door handles over a 0.01% increase in efficiency

source
Zak@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’ve seen three designs for purely mechanical flush door handles in production use:

A handle with a central hinge where one side is pushed inward to make the other side stick out to be pulled. This design has been used on aircraft for many decades, and has also made its way to a few cars.

A pull-up door handle with an additional flap in front of the access area. This was used on the Subaru XT/Alcyone/Vortex.

A handle that pushes in to open, usually found on a portion of the door that’s more horizontal to the ground. Used on the C3 Corvette, among others.

The push-then-pull central hinge is probably not a great choice for the application because its operation will be less obvious to a rescuer trying to get the door open quickly. It’s still better than something that requires electronics.
source
- NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The Model 3 / Model Y are push to pull, it’s just not a centred hinge, it’s more to the left side.
  
  There’s no reason they couldn’t do that but also make it mechanical if they’d wanted to.
  
  source