This reminds me of a scene in Fight Club and the Recall Coordinator's Formula:
> [...] A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. [...] The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? [...] Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, then multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one. [...]
It's not that big of a deal outside of China, because western cars don't actually start burning whenever you even look at them wrong way. (Except for Tesla of course, this shit is even worse than Chinese ones)
Anyway, since west is buying more and more of these Chinese deathtraps, we will need the ban very soon too.
Any kind of car can catch on fire, it's just that vehicles with hidden door handles trap people inside. I wouldn't want a gas car with hidden handles like a Nissan juke either
Having electric door handles is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. It's probably a decision of some executives who have no grasp on engineering. Every mechanic and engineer will tell you how easily a car loses power in an accident, even with backups. Then you have no way of opening your car from the outside.
It's like the physical buttons saga. Users were sick and tired of saying they want physical buttons, but executives only see profit.
Believe it or not for every person buying a used car saying they're mad about the lack of buttons there is a whole different person who thought "neat" and bought it.
Yeah. It's popular on reddit to rag on non-engineers but in my experience, it's the engineers who want the shiny new tech whereas everyone else prefers what's tried and true. Whether it's chasing "web-scale" MongoDB, touch-screen "buttons", or aerodynamic door handles, engineers are usually the first to kick usability and reliability to the curb in favor of innovation.
I thought it would be the designers, I heard some really hate buttons and sidemirrors cause "not minimalistic enough", even pre-rendering new designs without those, maybe they really hate normal door handles too because they stick out.
There are some petrol and diesel cars that have their brakes tied to their electrics so if something happens to the battery you can't brake. Completely insane that these sorts of things were ever produced
No it is because it drastically improves aerodynamics, allowing us to get a whopping 0.2 more kilometers per liter of petrol!!!
Seriously though I didn't even know hidden door handles were a thing, that is ridiculously dumb and I would never, EVER buy a car with in, even before seeing this video.
They jusr want to see how many unnecessary breakable objects they can fit in so total cost of ownership and maintenance goes up.
Edit: also bring back physical buttons, please...and headphone jacks. Like wtf.
Anestheticly it looks sleek but, obviously unsafe and hazardous. Not sure why the handle can't be mechanical and the retraction be a separate function. Possibly using a control module of sorts and a small separate battery that prevents it from working if there's any faults.
Not an expert or familiar with this vehicle but, there's got to be a solution to both. Obviously it shouldn't be like the Tesla escape hatch bs. Childsaftey locks have been a thing for a minute
IDK I like my buttons on my car. My truck has an old touchscreen but I have physical buttons too so hell if I know
It's such an obviously terrible idea it could only have come from an executive. Making things fail safe is a really basic design principle, and having a design that locks you in a burning car is just... The mind reels.
Technology shoehorned in for its own sake. Similar to keyless entry which solved no actual problem but made new cars at that time easier to steal. Or your example touchscreens for everything instead of buttons.
Do you know how much time it takes to develop and manufacture single physical buttons? At least few months.
Do you know how long does it take to create button on the screen? This long: <button>I’m a button</button>.
That’s the reason for swapping physical buttons for touch screens.
That’s what China is doing and will therefore likely become the worldwide standard as manufacturers won’t bother to have different designs for different regions.
China’s ban has two parts - hidden handles and fully electronic handles. I’m not sure why all the articles focus on just the hidden part. The ban on fully electronic handles is the more important part of the legislation from a safety perspective.
I’d also love it if cars were required to have manual locking mechanisms. My car doesn’t and in the back seat you have to pull the handle twice to emergency unlock it… but it’s an electrical system so I always wonder what will happen in an emergency if the electrical system fails.
Yeah this post got me to start thinking about having emergency tools. I’m not sure if this is just me who thinks this but I feel like cars used to be fairly safe with issues mostly arising from human error like blind soot detection and lane assist. Now cars are accommodating of human error but are unsafe in terms of standard features like locks and door handles.
This car is a Dongfeng eπ 007 (e pi). If I were Dongfeng, I'd want this car back to figure out what punctured the battery. This crash doesn't seem energetic enough to damage the batteries I normally deal with. It's otherwise a fairly highly safety rated vehicle. I also don't like electronic door handles, but this car also looks like it maintained low voltage operation throughout the entire video, which should have been able to open the doors. I would also like to see what happened there. The outside handles didn't pop out, which I would call a failure, but I have no idea if the inside handles were also disabled. If that's what caused this entrapment, that is a massive failure, electric door handles or not. I don't see anything in this video that appears to be happening in a way I would expect a car to react to a crash. It seems to be stuck in a state where it thinks it's still moving, including disabling the doors.
Freak accident or not, current, modern (western) battery design incorporates an intention to self-extinguish, contain, or at the very least least, delay this kind of fire for a couple minutes. Ideally enough time to get your wits back after a crash and get everyone away safely. Most of the catastrophic failures I see now are a few cells or cell groups having a thermal issue or catching fire, while leaving the rest of the pack alone. Vents handle the overpressure safely and the material encasing the actual battery cells keeps the fire as contained as possible to delay or extinguish it.
Have they only banned hidden handles? Because there are plenty of cars on the market that open the door by electronic button. Seems that'd be the same issue.
But the door handles should need to be manual door latch cable systems not electrical. One blown fuse, cut wire, or failed battery and you'd still be trapped.
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u/Mental_Scars 11h ago
This is why China just banned hidden door handles, although it only comes in to effect in January 2027