Comment by jjtheblunt
6 hours ago
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.
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.
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-...
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.
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.
I'm saying flush handles aren't about drag, not passing judgement on whether those other factors are bad.
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People who race stock cars will even dip body panels into acid to make the panels thinner. Anything to reduce weight!
> 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".
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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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.