Whose pens are the case: a dangerous flaw in Chinese cars has been found
There has been a second fatal accident involving a Xiaomi electric car in China. The reason, as before, was the newfangled hidden door handles, which prevent passengers from being trapped in the cabin. The problem has also affected other car brands. Izvestia investigated whether dangerous pens would be banned.
Trapped in the fire
According to Chinese media reports, the accident occurred on the morning of October 13 in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, on Tianfu Avenue, which is considered the longest street in the world. The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra electric car shifted sharply to the left to avoid a collision at a pedestrian crossing, lost control and crashed into the median strip. After the collision, the car caught fire. Xiaomi founder Lei Jun previously promised that the battery of an electric car is able to withstand a blow, and if it catches fire, the flame will be directed downwards — this will give time for the rescue of passengers.
Video recordings made by eyewitnesses captured a heartbreaking scene: four people took turns trying to save the unconscious driver, vainly pulling the door handle. They also failed to break the window with their hands and shoes. Later, rescuers arrived at the scene, but due to the intense heat, they could not approach the burning car for a long time. As a result, the 31-year-old driver died in the fire, and the electric car completely burned down.
Later, Chinese authorities said that the driver had exceeded the speed limit before the collision and was probably drunk, but the cause of his death was that rescuers could not open the door from the outside.
This is the second high-profile accident involving a Xiaomi car, the first occurred on March 29 in Anhui Province. The electric car, moving at high speed in the NOA autopilot mode, crashed into a concrete barrier. Three passengers died in the fire, again because of the locked doors.
Xiaomi justified itself by saying that all four doors of this model are equipped with mechanical emergency handles. They operate independently of the power supply, and ensure that passengers can leave the vehicle even in the event of serious battery damage. However, this did not happen.
Not only Xiaomi
Newfangled hidden door handles fail not only Xiaomi. In April 2024, in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, three people, including a two-year-old child, died in a Seres Aito M7 crossover that caught fire after colliding with a truck, after which the doors locked. Moreover, the M7 handles are completely hidden in the door, and Xiaomi has a finger groove under them. There shouldn't be any problems opening the door of the SU7 Ultra. However, the handle here is fixed, and there is a button on the inside that unlocks the door, but it has no mechanical connection to the lock. If the electrics fail, the door cannot be opened from the outside. To save the passengers, you first need to break the side window, and then look for an internal emergency handle, but as it turned out, it's not easy to do this.
In both cases, we are talking about modern advanced machines. Thus, the Seres Aito M7 was recognized as the best Chinese car of 2024 by the social network Weibo, and the Xiaomi SU7 last year showed the best result in updated crash tests using the C-NCAP method.
Now, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China has begun a public discussion of changes to the national standard for the safety of car door handles, Mingjing Pro writes.
So, it is planned to prohibit the design of completely hidden external handles. Each door (with the exception of the luggage compartment door) must be equipped with a mechanical release function. The new standard is expected to enter into force on January 1, 2027.
Tesla at the center of the scandal
The problem is not only with Chinese cars. Tesla, which essentially popularized pull-out handles, also found itself at the center of the scandal. On September 19, in the German village of Villigst, a Tesla left the road, trying to overtake another car, crashed into a tree and caught fire. Three people inside burned to death, a nine-year-old child managed to get out and was taken to the hospital.
An eyewitness who tried to save people said that he could not open the door with the help of sliding handles.
The parents of two teenagers who died in a Cybertruck accident last November have sued Tesla. The lawsuits allege that problems with opening the handles of the electric pickup truck prevented them from getting out of the burning vehicle. The handles are powered by a 12-volt battery, and if the car loses power after a collision, the electronic door mechanism will fail. There are emergency door opening mechanisms at the front and back, but they are difficult to find.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating cases of door handles blocking the Model Y crossover, which caused passengers to be locked in the cabin. Tesla has received at least 9 complaints from owners of electric vehicles.
Dangerous electric vehicles are already in Russia
Earlier, the chairman of the board of directors of Great Wall Motor, Wei Jianjun, criticized the hidden door handles, saying that they pose a security threat.
However, the company continues to produce Wey and Haval models with extendable handles and supplies them to the Russian market.
In Russia, other car manufacturers also offer sliding door handles of various designs. They are mainly found in the premium segment, as well as among hybrids and electric vehicles. As for Xiaomi electric vehicles, they are supplied to Russia unofficially — according to ASM-Holding, 265 potentially dangerous electric vehicles were registered in the first nine months of this year.
Should I ban pull-out handles?
According to UN Regulation No. 94, the side doors should not be locked after a collision, Denis Zagarin, head of the NAMI Test Center, told Izvestia. There are no requirements for the type of handle, but if it is "stuck" and the door cannot be opened, then in fact it is a lock.
— We saw footage of Xiaomi burning, when people couldn't open the doors and tried to break the glass to get to the backup handle, which is inside. According to the crash test certification rules, you should not have a door jamming. Another issue is that in real life, the actual conditions of impact differ from crash tests, and this is superimposed by the fact that the handle does not extend, usually due to an open electrical circuit. The person outside can't pick it up in any way. Initially, everyone was afraid that in the conditions of the Russian winter, the sliding handles would freeze. Although there have been such precedents, life has shown that the devil lies in another detail — in a traffic accident. When your electrical connection is lost and the handles do not slide out. Rescuers cannot get inside without special tools. That is why a ban on the implementation of the door unlocking function through purely electrical communication without mechanical duplication is currently being considered at the international level," said Denis Zagarin.
Introducing any bans on sliding door handles is the simplest, but completely wrong decision, says Igor Morzharetto, partner at Autostat.
— There are millions of cars with retractable door handles in the world. It is premature to ban them after one or two accidents in which the doors did not open on cars with such handles. It is necessary to understand the reason and conduct an expert examination. Maybe. It's not about the handles themselves. And if the problem is really in them, it means that it is necessary to introduce some kind of technological solution in which, in the event of an accident, the doors with such handles would unlock or the handles would automatically slide out," the expert said.
Do they make sense?
Not only the safety, but also the functionality of the sliding door handles are questioned. Calculations by the American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) show that they improve car aerodynamics to a much lesser extent than automakers claim.
The additional weight of 7-8 kg of mechanisms negates any aerodynamic advantages.
Electronic door handles are about three times more expensive than mechanical ones, but they have an eight-fold higher failure rate.
In 2024, a door freezing incident occurred in Changchun, which trapped passengers in an electric vehicle. During the 2024 heavy rain season in Guangdong Province, many vehicles with electric door handles experienced short circuits, causing the doors to not open. Passengers had to break windows to leave their cars.
Crash tests using the C-IASI method developed by the Chinese Insurance Institute for Road Safety showed that the success rate of opening doors in side collisions for vehicles with electronic door handles is only 67%. Whereas for mechanical handles, this figure is 98%.
According to statistics from the Chinese National Accident Investigation System (NAIS), the number of road accidents caused by door handle malfunctions increased by 47% in 2024 compared to the previous year.
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