I largely agree, although in an emergency bystanders/emergency workers shouldn't be trying to figure out how a door handle works at all. As a general non-driver, I find it kinda disturbing how auto manufacturers are constantly making these cosmetic adjust that impact safety - excessively bright headlights, distracting animated turn signals, weird ass handles. Not all features are innovations, some are just bad ideas.
That’s fair. I would also support pyrotechnic bolts or other systems similar to seat belt tensioners that cause doors to fail open upon impact. The primitives already exist to support isolating the high voltage battery pack in a crash event (triggered by airbag deployment) using a pyrotechnic switch. When Bad Thing happens, the vehicle should be designed to maximize occupant survival odds, including minimizing time to occupant extraction.
The doors are part of the structural rigidity of a unibody vehicle. If you open the doors during or just before an impact, the car will fold like a tin can.
After impact is when any action would occur. Many automakers are using either supercapacitors or some smaller battery and logic to enable doors to function after impact.
My example of seat belt pretensioners wasn’t to demonstrate when the action would be taken, but that pyrotechnics and vehicle dynamics are components of orchestrating a controlled failure mode in the event of a crash.
> General Motors Co. has since made the Corvette door’s emergency release handle more visible, the company said. Graphics on the handle, which lies on the floor next to the door, illustrate its function. GM also has added a “bystander access” feature on its e-doors to unlock them after a crash, so first responders or good Samaritans can free the occupants.
> Stellantis NV engineered a similar system on Jeep and Dodge models with electric doors, where airbag deployment automatically unlocks all doors. Stellantis and Ford also have outfitted their electric doors with supercapacitors that act as a battery backup to keep the power flowing to the latches even when a car’s 12-volt battery has died. And Ford, in response to this year’s recall, updated the software on its Mach-E to keep electricity flowing to door handles for 12 minutes after the small battery that normally supplies them — separate from the electric car’s main battery pack — goes dead.
