Chinese automotive journalists are discussing a potential 2027 ban on defective door handle designs due to high failure rates.
但是，不管是哪一种全隐藏式门把手其便利性和安全性都不如传统的门把手。根据媒体报道，有SAE论文数据显示，隐藏式门把手对轿车风阻系数改善仅0.005-0.01Cd，远低于车企宣称的0.03Cd。而在成本上，单个电子门把手成本是机械式的3倍，但故障率却是后者的8倍。由于故障率高，这导致新能源汽车的维修费用增加。有媒体曝光的某头部新势力售后数据显示，门把手故障占整车维修案例的12%，且不少需更换总成。
在安全性上来看，碰撞、起火等事故中，造成断电现象，使电动式外门把手、电动式车门内把手失效，增大救援及逃生阻碍。根据公开报道，2024年长春“冻车门”事件中，某新能源车型因门把手电机冻住，导致车内被困人员错过黄金救援时间；同年广东暴雨季，多辆车因电动门把手短路无法开启，乘客被迫砸窗逃生。
中保研碰撞测试显示，配备电子门把手的车型在侧面碰撞后，车门弹出成功率仅为67%，远低于机械门把手的98%。此外，据消费者协会统计，2024年因隐藏式门把手夹伤儿童手指的投诉同比增长132%，某品牌车型甚至出现儿童手指被夹骨折的极端案例。
在最近几年中，有多款热门车型在事故后车门门把手未能弹出，这导致无法及时救援，最终车毁人亡。这几起事故引发了轩然大波。（隐形门把手成“祸首”：发生碰撞后为何会打不开？该如何救援？｜明镜pro）而据国家车辆事故深度调查体系（NAIS）数据显示，2024年因车门把手故障导致的交通事故同比增长47%，其中隐藏式门把手占比高达82%。
In other words… regardless of which type of fully concealed door handle is used, their convenience and safety are always inferior to traditional door handles.
The article says SAE data shows that concealed door handles only improve a sedan’s drag coefficient by 0.005-0.01Cd, far below the 0.03Cd claimed by automakers. In terms of cost, a single electronic door handle costs three times more than a mechanical one, yet has eight times the failure rate. Due to the high failure rate, this leads to increased maintenance costs for electric vehicles. Leaked after-sales data from a leading electric vehicle manufacturer shows that door handle failures account for 12% of all vehicle repair cases, with many requiring complete assembly replacement.
From a safety perspective, in accidents involving collisions or fires, power outages can cause electric exterior door handles and electric interior door handles to fail, creating greater obstacles for rescue and escape. During the 2024 “frozen car door” incident in Changchun, an electric vehicle’s door handle motor froze, causing trapped passengers to miss the critical rescue window. In the same year, during Guangdong’s rainy season, multiple vehicles had electric door handles that failed to open due to short circuits, forcing passengers to break windows to escape.
China Insurance Automotive Technology Research Institute (C-IASI) crash tests show that vehicles equipped with electronic door handles have only a 67% success rate for door ejection after side impacts, far below the 98% rate of mechanical door handles. Additionally, according to consumer association statistics, complaints about concealed door handles injuring children’s fingers increased by 132% year-over-year in 2024, with one brand even having an extreme case where a child’s finger was fractured.
In recent years, several popular vehicle models have had door handles fail to deploy after accidents, preventing timely rescue and ultimately resulting in vehicle destruction and fatalities. These incidents have caused major public outcry. (Invisible door handles become “culprits”: Why can’t doors open after collisions? How should rescue be conducted?) According to data from the National Automotive Accident In-Depth Investigation System (NAIS), traffic accidents caused by door handle failures increased by 47% year-over-year in 2024, with concealed door handles accounting for 82% of these cases.
Tesla is known for its particularly bad designs, with many unnecessary deaths.
[Elon Musk] insisted on retractable handles, despite repeated warnings from engineers. Since 2018, they have been linked to at least four fatal accidents in Europe and the US, in which five people died.
In February 2024, we reported on a particularly tragic case: a fatal crash on a country road near Dobbrikow, in Brandenburg, Germany. Two 18-year-olds were killed when the Tesla they were in slammed into a tree and caught fire. First responders couldn’t open the doors because the handles were retracted. The teenagers burned to death in the back seat.
A court-appointed expert from Dekra, one of Germany’s leading testing authorities, later concluded that, given the retracted handles, the incident “qualifies as a malfunction”. According to the report, “the failure of the rear door handles to extend automatically must be considered a decisive factor” in the deaths. Had the system worked as intended, “it is assumed that rescuers might have been able to extract the two backseat passengers before the fire developed further”. Without what the report calls a “failure of this safety function”, the teens might have survived.
Failure of safety.
