New door handle design

CM?

centimeter?

retinadoc said:

I was surprised not to have seen this on the board already. I was at the White Plains SC on Friday and there were many new Model S' being prepped for delivery. ( Finally saw a red one). Rapheal showed me the new door handles that are now coming off the line. Unlike my door handles, these have about a CM of motion before the door latch opens. A nice improvement that should address the reliability issues.

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Hey, Doc, did you get the VIN on the red? I'm hoping it's mine . . . should have arrived on Saturday but might have on Friday.

CM = 900
cm = centimeter

If I understand it right, there's an additional (centimeter- worth) "give" when you pull on an already-extended handle?! That's cool.

retinadoc said:

I was surprised not to have seen this on the board already. I was at the White Plains SC on Friday and there were many new Model S' being prepped for delivery. ( Finally saw a red one). Rapheal showed me the new door handles that are now coming off the line. Unlike my door handles, these have about a CM of motion before the door latch opens. A nice improvement that should address the reliability issues.

Click to expand...

Is it just me? I am the only one who has no clue as to what you're talking about? Aside from the CM ambiguity?

sp4rk said:

Is it just me? I am the only one who has no clue as to what you're talking about? Aside from the CM ambiguity?

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sp4rk, think of how a conventional door handle on other cars comes out a bit when you pull on it before the door actually unlatches and opens. So, now, the good eye doc is saying that, once the S's handles extend all the way out, when you tug on them, they sort of come out a bit more - giving you some feedback too that way - before the door unlatches.

OK, Mine (VIN 8521) has this. I guess I never studied the original design closely enough to notice the difference. If this prevents the randomly presenting and opening doors, this is AWESOME. It (along with the failing 12Vs) are the 2 major concerns I have. With a newborn and a 2YO daughter, I dont need the scare of such happening. (Not that they would fall out since they are strapped in to car seats, but it would be a scary moment for my family for sure).

I will take video of this. I noticed it does this, but I had no idea it was a new design. Will add that to my sig once I confirm it.

- - - Updated - - -

Here's the video I just took.

[video=vimeo;64491890]https://vimeo.com/64491890[/video]

I noticed it, and actually thought the handle was loose. Hopefully, this is an improvement!

Me likey.

Thanks for the video! I'm sure the demo car I drove was not like this. It needed increadibly little pull to unlatch - too little IMO.

Thanks for sharing a video Jomo25!

I definitely noticed a difference between your door handle and mine. Looks like the additional travel is 1 cm or so. I noticed that after you pulled it out the additional distance, opened the door, then closed the door, the handle retracted in the 1 cm so that the handle could be pulled again.

Interesting... I wonder how they'll handle the service of door handles for earlier models? Will failed individual Rev A handles get replaced with a Rev A or Rev B? And if you get one Rev B, will they replace all the door handles at once to Rev B? Just asking questions out loud... not that important what the answers are as long as Rev A doesn't continue to cause unintended door openings.

Cheers,
David

Second time poster here.

I noticed this when I first opened the door of one. I thought it was really cool that it popped out like that, but felt "dead" once I actually tried to open the door. That's a nice improvement.

I'm curious to see how they handle the spares issue as well. I've seen other companies screw this up.... Since this is a "luxury" sedan, I would like to think they would just go ahead and replace them all unless the owner said not to.

Is this definitely a hardware change, or just a software change to tell the existing hardware how much to retract or extend?

Good question. My guess would be hardware, but it's hard to tell. The reason I would guess hardware is that if the old design extended 100% and now it's only extending 80%, requiring a tug to travel the final 20%, I'd worry that the force of pulling it would cause damage to the motor over time, if that makes sense. And when I pull, I'm not feeling like there's a motor I'm pulling against. Also, if it was software (and I'm on 4.4) I'd imagine that all 4.4 upgraders would see the same.

but again, I could very possibly be wrong.

I had a door handle changed about a month ago and the service tech mentioned that the handles had already been redesigned once before, and were being redesigned again. That would mean that these new handles are at least the third version. I can't tell any difference between my originals and the new handle I received last month but mine are not this new version with the extra movement.

I asked if the hot weather was causing more failures because I noticed that my handles get very hot sitting in the sun all day. He didn't think the failure rate was thermal related but he did say that one motivation of the redesign was to reduce the heat of the handle as more of a safety issue.

I had the driver's door handle replaced a few weeks back, too. Mine is still the no-further-movement design: after extension you tug on it and the door latch pops open with no perceptible movement of the handle, which makes me think there's a strain gauge sensor that triggers the latch. All of which is a long-way-around explanation of why I don't think it can be a software-only change.

jomo25 said:

Good question. My guess would be hardware, but it's hard to tell. The reason I would guess hardware is that if the old design extended 100% and now it's only extending 80%, requiring a tug to travel the final 20%, I'd worry that the force of pulling it would cause damage to the motor over time, if that makes sense. And when I pull, I'm not feeling like there's a motor I'm pulling against. Also, if it was software (and I'm on 4.4) I'd imagine that all 4.4 upgraders would see the same.

but again, I could very possibly be wrong.

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Yes good point, if it was solely software everyone on your release would experience the same behavior.

Very interesting. I'd be interested to try one of those handles. I have the no-further-movement design, and they have worked well for me so far. I actually like that they don't move noticeably when I open the door, so it would be interesting to compare the experience.

One question for Hans, though: How does this design address any heat issues?