I am bemused every time I use Uber and the car has some flush-mounted door handle that I have to figure out. When exiting the car and closing the door, I end up leaving fingerprints I would not have left if the handle had been designed by someone who had been in a car before.

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jjtheblunt 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

agreed on fingerprints, though i bet the rationale is coefficient of drag, not lack of experience with various door handle designs.

in the article, it shows a Magna-Steyr handle on a Mercedes Gelaendewagen, which looks like those on the Ineos Grenadier, and not very different than the ones that Ford uses on various trucks.

that contrasts with those on Audi and BMW evs, for examples i see often, where the CoD is a stated spec for ev shoppers, and the handles have motion to them, but are flush (but not Tesla vanishingly flush). Weirdly, some Porsches (intimately related to Audi...just read the shared parts) use flush handles and some the protruding handles with an actual handle.

i admittedly pay an unusual amount of attention to car componentry, sort of a hobby really.

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AlotOfReading 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The additional drag is negligible. People have been producing "racing doors" with handles for decades. They focus on cutting all the other features of the door like weight and mechanical complexity instead. It's an even more irrelevant consideration for consumers, who could save far more fuel by changing how they drive.

Flush handles exist as brand differentiators. They're a "futuristic" feel-good feature that consumers want, like engine noise, tablets, and colorful dashboards.

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zamadatix 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's about more than just one thing alone. E.g.

https://media.landrover.com/new-range-rover-sport-press-kit-...

https://usa.infinitinews.com/en-US/releases/2025-qx80-press-...

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recursive 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It's an even more irrelevant consideration for consumers, who could save far more fuel by changing how they drive.

These are not in conflict. The energy you save from drag stacks with the energy you save from "learning how to drive".

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hshdhdhj4444 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, but making opening doors a puzzle to solve is an incredibly terrible trade off.

And that’s before we consider the other aspects of these door handle designs that make the cars a death trap.

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recursive 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The death trap claims come from the internal affordance, which seems to be totally independent from the exterior one.

I have a car with a "novel" handle situation. (Ford Mustand Mach E) The door is operable from the inside with a dead battery. Maybe this particular one isn't as challenging as some of the other designs, but calling it a "puzzle" definitely overstates the case. I think it took me maybe 4 seconds to figure out the first time.

	▲	kevin_thibedeau 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The Xiaomi SU7 has notably threatened the lives of many of its occupants because rescuers couldn't open the doors from the outside after power loss from a crash or fire. This car is partly responsible for China's new safety regulation banning flush handles.

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kube-system 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They add a tiny bit to the efficiency and/or range, they look cool (e.g. serve a gee-whiz marketing purpose), and safety evaluations in the markets where they still exist don't penalize them -- up until now they've had very little against them.

Maybe as legal and reputational backlash spreads the pros will not outweigh the cons. But someone designing a car a decade ago, marketed towards early adopter types, would have had no reason not to.

And I say this as someone who hates these handles designs personally.

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AlotOfReading 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not presenting it as a conflict. I'm presenting it as a revealed preference of how much consumers actually try to optimize fuel use. There's significant reductions to be had completely for free (or even with savings by purchasing smaller, cheaper vehicles). And yes, the savings from flush handles are too small to show up in the MPG number.

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kube-system 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

All of the things you mention are considerations that every automaker considers. Product design engineering is simply an exercise in weighting those factors, among many others.

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AlotOfReading 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm saying flush handles aren't about drag, not passing judgement on whether those other factors are bad.

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kube-system 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Drag is absolutely one of those factors. Yes, it only contributes a small amount to the overall drag profile of the vehicle, but a vehicle is a sum of its parts ultimately.

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AlotOfReading 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's not a meaningful factor in decisionmaking. Manufacturers went on an aerodynamics optimization spree in the 80s after the fuel crisis. Concepts like the Ford Probe actually dropped handles and all other protruding surfaces in favor of things like electrical touch panels. Seriously, go look at the photos. Even the pillars are flush.

The production vehicles designed after these concepts often used flush pull-up handles for aerodynamics. Those handles later disappeared in favor of the more reliable pull-bar handles we're familiar with because improved CFD made it clear how minimal their benefit actually was for the tradeoffs.

Of course, even if we accept that all the mechanical complexity of flush handles is necessary for aerodynamic reasons, it's not the only alternative to pull-bars. Look at the Volvo EX60 for an example. Designing a flush handle is hard. Tesla spent years working on it. It's not something undertaken for negligible aerodynamic benefits.

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jjtheblunt 2 hours ago | parent [-]

What tradeoff is there between pull-up and pull-out handles?

	▲	AlotOfReading an hour ago \| parent [-]
		They can't take as much force and they're less reliable. Sometime in the 90s-ish a new test came into force that greatly increased the impact they had to take without unlatching and continue working. The pull bars made it easier to meet because they're secured on both sides. The pull-up latches also caused issues for people with long nails. In some places spiders liked to nest inside them. Places with snow had issues with a sheet of ice forming over the entire panel, an issue that also occurs with modern flush latches.

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PearlRiver 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly it is not science but purely cosmetic. Which for some reason makes HN mad but guess what people choose cars based on how they look and how they are marketed! There has never been a rational man. Spock is not real.

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WalterBright 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People who race stock cars will even dip body panels into acid to make the panels thinner. Anything to reduce weight!

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recursive 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those that care about fingerprints on their car seem like they're different people from those that drive for Uber.

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chankstein38 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Or someone who had to open their own car door before lol