How to Manually Enter Cars With Stupid Electric Door Handles

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linkheroz@reddit

Thing is, they don't even need to be electric. Supercars were doing flush door handles for years before EVs.

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BioDriver@reddit

China banning these on all future cars was a welcomed bit of news

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Hyundai/Kia get a lot wrong, but they nailed the door handles on their EVs (at least the EV6 and Ioniq 5, no experience with the 3 row SUVs) and other manufacturers need to take a page from their book.

The door handles are flush, so you get the aerodynamic benefit. They're motorized and pop out when you unlock the car, but they're still completely mechanical, both inside and out. If all power is lost, I can use the emergency key in the fob to unlock them and get in. It really is the best of both worlds.

If I had one complaint, it's that the handles remain sticking out when the car is unlocked, so if you park your car and forget to lock the doors, they stick out and scream "Hey, I'm unlocked! Come steal shit from me!" to any nefarious people walking past your car. I wish they'd automatically retract after a couple minutes.

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MRDR1NL@reddit

I hate how that is considered nailing it. They can easily have flush door handles with no motors in them at all. But they prefer complex solutions because of preceived luxury and planned obsolescence.

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Atenza25@reddit

Hyundai is killing it comment moment

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WCWRingMatSound@reddit

If it’s flush but there’s no motor, wouldn’t that require two actions by the user to open the door? That couldn’t be considered luxury

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MRDR1NL@reddit

Not really. You can push with with you thumbs and pull the handle in one motion.

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t-poke@reddit

Yeah, that's how Tesla does it on the 3 and Y.

It's a manual action to pop it out. But then pulling it triggers electronics to pop the door open.

Kia is a motor to pop the handle out, then a mechanical action to open the door.

So I guess the best of both worlds would be no motor to pop the handles and a mechanical action to open the door.

Which, AFAIK, is what lower end EV6 trims have as I believe the motors are on the higher trim. And that's what my car would become if the motors ever died out of warranty and I didn't want to pay to fix them. Which is fine with me.

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WCWRingMatSound@reddit

So the answer is “yes”? 😆. We went from “cup handle and pull” to “push out the handle with thumb, cup the extruding section, and pull” and calling that luxury?

Meanwhile in China they’re probably working on hands free auto-open and close.

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t-poke@reddit

Eh, I don’t really mind. Still functions fine without, in fact I don’t think the lower trims have the motorized handles.

If my car was out of warranty and the motors broke, I could choose to not replace them and still open my door. It’s not like a power window motor where you can’t roll the window down when it breaks.

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wafflesbananahammock@reddit

I hate how the handles remain out when unlocked. I also hate how there is no walk away lock. They'll send me a stupid bluelink notification saying my doors are unlocked but they can't just program in walk away lock?

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Ya-Not-Happening@reddit

if you park your car and forget to lock the doors,

?? Set it to auto lock when you leave. I cannot imagine otherwise?

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t-poke@reddit

Not a feature on my car

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SirLoremIpsum@reddit

hey're motorized and pop out when you unlock the car

Thats like... still not great. Just make a regular handle!! Why does a door handle need a motor!??!

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enaK66@reddit

Yeah the aerodynamic benefit to flush door handles is a rounding error. Give us regular door handles.

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willpc14@reddit

But when you add up all the savings that are rounding errors you get a noticeable improvement.

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gaius49@reddit

At the cost of cost, complexity, higher failure rates, poor performance in snow and ice, etc.

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enaK66@reddit

a story from body builder dave tate. the original page seems to be gone but this reddit thread has it.

https://old.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/1xk3lt/nsfw_lanuage_heres_a_quick_story_by_dave_tate/

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Gorgenapper@reddit

It needs a motor just as much as the glovebox needs an electrical actuator to open, which is stupid either way.

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imightgetdownvoted@reddit

Wife has an EV9. Can still be opened mechanically from both inside and outside. From outside just push hard on the left hand part of the handle and it will sort of pivot to allow you to open the door.

Much better design than my Tesla.

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t-poke@reddit

Wife has an EV9. Can still be opened mechanically from both inside and outside. From outside just push hard on the left hand part of the handle and it will sort of pivot to allow you to open the door.

Yup, exactly how my EV6 is. Not surprised they didn't do anything radically different, but you never know. That's how it should be.

Much better design than my Tesla.

Yeah, had a Model 3 and the door handles never bugged me until I had a PTC Heater fail, which killed the entire 12 volt system and I couldn't even get into the car. I frequently have my dog in the backseat. That made me realize that if the failure happened in the split second between me closing my drivers' door and me opening the back door to get him out, I wouldn't be able to, and he'd be trapped in there, potentially on a hot day. From then on I made sure to not close the driver door until the rear door was open. But it's still stupid that I had to even think about it.

You should be able to get in and out of a car with absolutely no power. Period.

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IronSlanginRed@reddit

Tesla is great about trying to reinvent solved problems and make a ton of mistakes that are only seen from other car companies 50+ years ago when features like power windows, seats and power closing trunks became mainstream. Everyone else figured out you need to put safeguards on them so they dont crush or cut off little fingers.

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MaybeNext-Monday@reddit

It’s because their main design principle is “if you can fake it with software do so,” closely followed by “if it works in California under ideal conditions, it works”

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imightgetdownvoted@reddit

It’s my biggest complaint about the car.

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count_nuggula@reddit

Yeah I have the same complaint. And if you are in tight spaces and forget, ouchies

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qb4ever@reddit

Sounds stupid and i dont understand why there are some many upvotes.

There are so many ways to design a flush door handle that is 100% mechanical and ergonomic. Motorizing is one of the worst ways to design a door handle.

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Frisks@reddit

I know it's a completely different segment of car, but a lot of Aston Martins have flush door handles. Completely mechanical, save for pushing in the handle to lock the car. No motors, no actuators. Just as reliable as any other car. I never understood manufacturers trying to reinvent the door handle.

I had a 2025 E350 as a rental the other day that had the pop-out handles. I know in 10-15 years those motors will for sure jam or break leaving you without a way to get in.

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aprtur@reddit

I had a 2025 E350 as a rental the other day that had the pop-out handles.

After a long day at work, my brain had to do a double check here because I thought you meant a Ford E-350, which threw me for a loop...lol.

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GrandMarquisMark@reddit

Hahaha , I own a detail shop and when a customer, who owned a few high end cars, mentioned his white E350 that's exactly where I went as well. "You have a van?"

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Mountain-Union2347@reddit

Had to pry open a handle on a Mercedes SL, and upon doing so spent 3 minutes trying to wedge the key blade into the hole because there’s barely enough clearance to do so.

If you don’t have a plastic pry tool, good luck.

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OkLibrary4242@reddit

So the damn things on fire, like some Teslas, and I have to sit there and mess with some key fob, find a key inside to get out? Yea, right.

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t-poke@reddit

Well, if you want to get into a burning car for some reason, yes.

It’s a regular door handle to get out of the car.

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greg-maddux@reddit

My Cadillac vistiq puts the handles flush but you press on one side of the handle it’ll pop out for you.

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Ziakel@reddit

How much does aerodynamic really improve with retractable door handles on economy cars? Like little to none?

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SojusCalling@reddit

It's been a few years, but I think some German manufacturer said, when pressed on this subject by a journalist, that it adds something like 500m of range.

So it's all show.

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s1ravarice@reddit

They do this and that random bits of plastic and weird shapes to the fronts of the cars. Make it make sense

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dattroll123@reddit

almost as good as adding speed holes

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shoryaku@reddit

Almost the same as adding flames to the side.

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Ziakel@reddit

Flames, 5ZIGEN, Enkei, Injen, Tanabe, etc

+5hp for each 💨

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Theo1352@reddit

Same question I had in reading the comments.

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ukemike1@reddit

The jaws of life.

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V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit

Sadly, no more people read manual book when they get their new car, so it doesn’t help much.

If many buyers were known, China shouldn’t have made rule to ban electric door.

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madn3ss795@reddit

Everyone can read the manual of their car and it sill won't help when they're unconscious inside and need someone to open from outside. Banning any complex door mechanisms even when they're fully mechanical is the right move safety wise.

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w0nderbrad@reddit

Or little kids. The worst thing about Rivian is that you need to do a fucking pre-flight safety presentation for passengers in case the power gets cut in an accident. "Ok Timmy, in case we get into a bad accident, you need to pop this hidden cover and pull this cable really hard to open the door if the button doesn't work" is a fucking awful awful awful solution to a problem nobody had.

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costafilh0@reddit

Brake the windows. Works every time.