There is an element of automotive design.
Put it in normal times.
Low wind resistance, fashionable technology, sense of ceremony.
It should be as fragrant as it is fragrant.
One to winter. The style of painting becomes.
** "Knock on the door".
The protagonist of this controversy is.
Concealed door handles
This is the preferred configuration of new energy vehicles.
More than 900 models have already used this design.
It is easy to freeze the short board.
Every winter, it will be complained about by car owners.
This year, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has increased.
The team of complaining is also growing.
After a cold spell.
Fancy complaints from car owners.
Reach new heights.
It made me have to rethink.
The value that this design brings to the user.
Is it more convenient or more troublesome?
Frozen door handles become a problem
A cold wave that swept across the country has revived the controversy over hidden door handles. Enter "door handle" on multiple searches** and social platforms, and the first keyword associated with it is "what to do if the door handle freezes". There are not only the complaints of car owners, but also the content of car bloggers' science tips.
Some bloggers ridiculed, "The hidden door handle reduces the wind resistance, and the oil of 100 yuan can run 3 centimeters more, if it freezes, the door cannot be opened, and it can save 100% of fuel." "For the safety of the car owner, we took great pains to prevent the car owner from driving on icy roads. "A related ** on the Douyin platform, there were 300,000 likes and 500,000 times in 3 days after it was released**.
In some car owner groups, there are also car owners who share the ** of the door handle being frozen, and laugh at themselves that this is called the "Frozen Throne".
The methods suggested by car bloggers who share tips are: blowing with a hair dryer, pouring glass water, installing silicone handles, etc., and the traffic is relatively large, there are more than 10,000**. Tesla's official account also went down to popularize science in person, suggesting that you use the app to unlock the car door, hit it with your fist, and use your mobile phone to turn on the air conditioner in the car in advance to heat up.
In fact, the problem of hidden door handles for users is not limited to being easily frozen. On the e-commerce platform, there are a large number of "hidden door handle reminder stickers" products, such as "press here to open the door", "pop up and pull again", etc., behind each reminder sticker, is the embarrassment of family and friends when they get into the car, facing the hidden door handle and not knowing "I should pull **". Some consumers are worried that when the vehicle is hit by a side impact, the door handle will not be able to pop out, creating obstacles for rescue outside the vehicle.
Seventy percent of the handles of new energy vehicles are hidden
Although there are no official figures, it is generally accepted in the industry that in 1952, Mercedes first introduced hidden door handles on the 300SL model, but since then it has only appeared on a few supercars or ultra-luxury models. The hidden door handle that will automatically pop up was first equipped by Tesla on the original Model S in 2012, and since then the hidden door handle has become one of the symbols of new energy vehicles.
How many models are choosing this design now?The New Yellow River reporter screened the model library of the car ** "Autohome", which included a total of 1551 car series, and you can check the filter condition of "hidden electric door handle". As a result, 172 models and 958 models are equipped with hidden door handles, of which 125 models and 645 models are new energy. That is to say, at present, about seventy percent of the models with hidden door handle design are new energy vehicles, and about three percent are fuel vehicles.
Among all the cars that use hidden door handles, the proportion of domestic production is also very high, with 728 models in 120 car series. In other words, about 70% of the cars that use this design are domestically produced.
In terms of positioning, hidden door handles are not exclusive to high-end models, and this configuration is very common in new energy vehicles at the level of 150,000-300,000 yuan. It is not surprising to see models such as Baojun Yunduo with a price of about 120,000 yuan, and even models with a price of less than 100,000 yuan, such as Chang'an glutinous corn with a price of 50,000 yuan, have begun to be equipped with hidden door handles.
Baojun Yunduo **58 car.
The sense of ritual is greater than the practical value
According to ** report, as early as 2014, a paper titled "Redesigning Door Handles to Reduce Aerodynamic Resistance of Road Vehicles" was published at the then Applied Aerodynamics Conference, which studied the impact of different door handle shapes on the drag coefficient. The authors tested four common doorknob forms and used simulation software to perform wind resistance calculations in a realistic environment. The result is that the hidden design can only reduce the number of pull-out designs by 012% air resistance. GAC Aion insiders said in an interview with Red Star News that the hidden door handle can increase the vehicle's range by 5-10km.
Although the experience of driving and energy saving is not significantly improved, the maintenance cost of hidden door handles is much higher than that of traditional door handles. According to a 2020 report by China Economic News, a Tesla Model S owner had a door handle failure and asked the Tesla service center for a price, and the estimated price at that time was 3,500 yuan, and the four door handles were 140,000 yuan. The ** of the traditional handle is much lower, and the estimate of the second-tier luxury brand Volvo S90 to replace the front door handle is 1159 yuan, plus the working hour is not more than 1500 yuan.
Why do car companies choose this design?Wang Jiantao of the Automotive Engineering Research Institute of Guangzhou Automobile Group mentioned in the article "Forward Development of Automobile Flat Hidden Handle" that "through the application of hidden handles, users can establish a brand image of high-end luxury and intelligent technology, and establish its leading position in the industry."
An introduction to the design of hidden door handles on the official website of a brandA car reviewer said that the design of hidden door handles can make the vehicle "more technological and more ceremonial to open the door". Just like some models will set up welcome lights in the main driving position, this kind of device has no convenience, but it will bring the owner a "sense of luxury" in psychological cognition. The concept of futuristic, technological, technologically advanced, and new era of travel tools flaunted by new energy vehicles needs this device to set off.
More and more car companies are beginning to refuse to follow suit
Traditional internal combustion engine manufacturers do not seem to be interested in this design, whether it is the Great Wall, Chery and other domestic car companies, or Buick, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and other foreign car companies, most of them retain the traditional exposed door handle design on their most advanced fuel models.
Because there has always been a debate about the pros and cons of hidden door handles, some new energy manufacturers have also begun to try other solutions for their newly launched models. For example, the ZEEKR X, which was launched in April this year, canceled the door handles and replaced them with buttons, and the buttons for the front and rear doors are at the B-pillar and C-pillar positions respectively. The Jiyue 01, which was just launched at the end of October, also canceled the door handle, and the owner can open the door through a variety of methods such as UWB key, voice, and buttons.
Xiaomi SU7 door handle design **Screenshot does not follow the crowd and Xiaomi. Xiaomi SU7, which has not yet been officially launched, has also attracted attention from the industry. The new Yellow River reporter noticed that Xiaomi Su7 uses a "semi-hidden handlebar", which looks like a traditional design of "one pick and open", and I don't know if there is any mystery in the real car. With Xiaomi's exemplary role, there may be more and more car companies adopting solutions that take into account both aesthetics and experience in the design of door handles.