trying to replace my Volvo S60 T8 with another Plug-in Hybrid i ran into an unexpected issue - all nice new PHEVs have electronic door handles that turn a car into Auschwitz Crematorium on Wheels because you can’t get out of the car when it catches on fire in an accident.
i was specifically looking at Mercedes E53 AMG Hybrid ( which i can’t afford )
1 - E-Class is 2025 Motor Trend car of the year
2 - it’s the first Long-Range AMG Hybrid ( about 40 miles of EV range versus 10 miles or less for their E-Performance Hybrids ).
3 - it’s about $30,000 cheaper than other sporty hybrids from Germany, namely BMW M5 and Panamera E-Hybrid and all the reviews say it’s a good value.
Of course being a new car it has what Mercedes calls “seamless” door handles:
I then tried to google what you are supposed to do in an accident when power is lost and all i found is this:
so let’s say you crashed your car and are unconscious while your car is starting on fire. a bystander trying to pull you out of a burning car would have to know how to use a trick specific to current generation Mercedes door handles to open the door with a credit card … there is a 99.9% chance they would NOT know how to do this and you will die.
i googled to see what Mercedes customers think about this and they believe that in an accident the door handles will extend / present automatically …
from:
I would assume Mercedes to unlock doors if a crash is detected, likely door handles popping up too?
i decided to investigate this …
after googling FOR LIKE AN HOUR i was not able to find a single document anywhere online that would suggest this is the case …
i then watched the crash test video of this car and door handles do NOT extend / present …
my googling did reveal, on other hand, that Tesla manual states that in a Tesla Model S door handles will extend / present in case of accident however …
as you can see in the above crash test they do NOT extend.
i also came across news stories of people burning alive in Teslas where the handles were supposed to extend but did not and bystanders were not able to open the doors to get them out.
so in a Tesla the handles are SUPPOSED TO extend / present in case of airbag deployment, but don’t seem to do so in practice and in Mercedes the people buying the cars ASSUME the handles will extend but no Mercedes document states that they do and also they don’t in crash tests.
I have actually driven that generation 5 Series ( in 530i variant ) and it has pretty normal looking / feeling handles … but are they actually normal ? or do they just look normal but actually are electronic ?
so i googled up a discussion on the subject:
and here is what BMW buyers think:
Agree there is definitely some issues that technology introduces that we didn’t see coming. But (and I’m definitely NO fan of regulation) hopefully regulations have a lot of this stuff covered. Safety regulation I can agree with to a degree.
I will say, and in a bad enough accident however, it doesnt matter one bit what kind of door handle the car has, the age, or the operating mechanism. Many times the car door wont open at all, locked, unlocked, fuse, no fuse, from inside or outside. Doesnt matter. The doors many times, especially on side impact are such that jaws of life are required to get people out because the door is smashed and wedged in a manner that it wont open no matter what.
Thats why on the side pillars and seats they have a little label there “airbag” it doubles as a neat little selling /marketing thing showing the manufacture followed the law, or maybe were early adopters of “side impact airbags”. Neat… But, the reality is… those little labels/emblems are there so that in the event jaws of life have to be used the emergency crews don’t cut into an un-deployed airbag and have it explode into a victims face.
So if they have that, I can almost guarantee they have or will have regulation regarding door handles inside and out, electronic or not.
Also why the “keyless” fobs, have the little clip in key lets the ket slide out, to be able to open the door with the key if power is cut to the car, or battery dead in fob.
It’s a nice thing to have, but im sure, it exists because the government forced them to.
in other words they think whatever the design of the door handles is - it must be safe because there surely are some government regulations that would require it to be safe.
there is only one problem … THERE ARE NO GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS THAT SPECIFY HOW DOOR HANDLES SHOULD WORK WHATSOEVER.
“There is no federal regulation that regulates how a door handle works during a crash or for how it’s constructed,” Joe Young, IIHS media relations associate, told us. “There’s no regulation requiring certain mechanics of a door handle ( … ) Maybe it [tesla door handle design] from a safety standpoint, is not the best thing. Certainly we would want people to be able to get out of the vehicle in an emergency,” Young says. “Having a mechanical release would certainly be something we would support from a safety standpoint.”
So we have a situation where the consumers ASSUME the design of the door handles is safe or it would be illegal, but in fact there are no regulations AT ALL because before Elon Musk there was something known as COMMON SENSE and there was NO NEED to regulate door handles, but then Elon came and “disrupted the industry” and then Tesla stock went to the moon and companies like Mercedes were forced to copy all of Tesla’s gimmicks or be seen as Legacy Dinosaur Automakers that are out of touch and left in the dust by startups like Tesla.
So now we have a situation where most new fancy sports cars have door handles that pretty much will trap you in an accident as your car burns with you inside of it … and most people buying these cars have no idea because they can’t imagine that government would allow this …
well for one thing government has inertia. for example in college i used one of the most powerful steroids ever made and it was completely legal because it was a new drug and government simply had no time to ban it. it was banned while i was using it, and i took that as an opportunity to quit steroids.
but i only got to ride that train for 2 years. meanwhile Model S has been on sale for 12 years and the door handle design is still not banned, why ?
it is for the same reason why Immigrants can rape our Children and get a slap on the wrist - because laws are for white people only.
and in case of Automakers laws are for legacy manufacturers only, and even then mostly for import vehicles.
Tesla is a domestic electric car startup and Elon Musk is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader - which means that laws do not apply to him.
the Government refuses to interfere with Tesla’s operations whether it has to do with financial fraud " 420 funding secured " or lying about self driving technology … or suicidal door handles.
even with Mercedes entering this game at this point most cars with such handles are still Tesla because Mercedes only puts these handles on their pricier models. i assume if the trend proliferates and such handles become more common in Combustion Engine Cars and more people die at some point the regulators may need to step in but it hasn’t happened yet.
right now we have a dangerous disconnect where the public thinks these handles are safe when they are anything but.
this happened because people have grown dependent on government for safety and stopped thinking for themselves. we saw how this can have tragic consequences during the COV1D pandemic with MRNA V@cc1nes, and the exact same situation is playing out with these door handles ( albeit on a smaller scale in terms of the number of victims ).
in both cases though misplaced trust in government combined with cynical behavior from corporations with de facto immunity is the driving force …
in case of V@cc1ne companies they have legal immunity from prosecution. in case of Tesla it has DE FACTO immunity.
well you can physically grab them … but is the actual lock mechanism actuated mechanically or electronically ?
i was unable to find that information because most people are too stupid to be able to even conceive of such a question. they just assume everything will just work out using government magic until they find themselves burning alive and nobody can save them.
if the actuation is electronic and power is lost in an accident being physically able to grab the door handle will do nothing for you.
if you’re an engineer you will probably be able to FEEL whether the actuation is mechanical or electronic just by using that door handle, and it is something i may need to try next time i’m in a BMW dealership. you would have to pay close attention to amount of force required to open the door and any kind of delay between pulling on the handle and the door opening. if the force requires is high and there is no delay it is likely mechanical. if the force required is low and there is a minute delay between pulling on the handle and door opening - then it is likely electronic.
