Door Handles?

Snowbird

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So much to admire and be excited about with Mach E...but I'm concerned about the interior door handles. Perhaps someone can provide more detail? As I understand it, the front doors have a mechanical override on the interior in case of post-crash power loss so front passengers can exit. But, the rear interior door handles are electronic only... no manual override in case of power loss and the capacitors discharge. Is this another situation like Tesla where the advice is for rear passengers to crawl out through the front? I am so hoping not. Anyone have better/more info? TIA
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Would you site your source on the interior rear door handles of the Mach E being different than the front?

I hadn’t heard that and can’t imagine that Ford would do that.
 
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https://jalopnik.com/heres-how-the-2021-ford-mustang-mach-es-unusual-doors-w-1839923650

You have to read a bit into the article but it explains the rear interior door handle setup. Here is the excerpt:

"As for getting out of the vehicle in such a situation, Ford says the little levers shown above that require only a few millimeters of movement to activate the electric latches can be forced rearward farther than just a few millimeters. Doing so mechanically unlatches the doors. Ford says this mechanical release is only present in the front doors, so if the electric system (and the windows) fails for some reason, and you’re in the rear seat, you’ll need to jump up to the first row to get out."
 

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That's one aspect of the design that I find very disappointing. Even if they're not required by law (I'm assuming it's not required, otherwise they would have it ...) to have mechanical actuation for the rear door latches, I can't fathom why they would compromise passenger safety to save whatever extra money that would cost. Heck if they were smart they could advertise real rear door latches as a reason to buy the Ford over a Tesla ...
 
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I agree. This is beyond annoying as it could be the deal-breaker on a car where I really like 99.9% of everything I've read, seen, heard. There are so many scenarios one can imagine where this could be life/death...a car submerging, front occupants unable to move post-impact becoming an obstacle for those in the rear, rear occupants not having the presence of mind in a panic to try the front, etc. I'm hoping the journalists have this wrong and Ford can say it isn't true. I've never rejected an entire car before due to the door handles, and I don't want to start now! Does anyone know more about this?
 


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That's one aspect of the design that I find very disappointing. Even if they're not required by law (I'm assuming it's not required, otherwise they would have it ...) to have mechanical actuation for the rear door latches, I can't fathom why they would compromise passenger safety to save whatever extra money that would cost. Heck if they were smart they could advertise real rear door latches as a reason to buy the Ford over a Tesla ...
Rear passenger doors are often times child locked so you can't open them from the inside anyways.
 
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Rear passenger doors are often times child locked so you can't open them from the inside anyways.
What is your source for "often times"? I haven't actuated a child lock in decades. And, child locks can be turned off at a moment's notice for adults or children well secured in restraints. Apparently, the Mach E design cannot. Doesn't explain or defend the problem Jalopnik identified.
 

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What is your source for "often times"? I haven't actuated a child lock in decades. And, child locks can be turned off at a moment's notice for adults or children well secured in restraints. Apparently, the Mach E design cannot. Doesn't explain or defend the problem Jalopnik identified.
Source: Me. Every time I get in the car.

If you exercise the option to disable the rear door handles, occupants have to exit the front row unless someone lets them out. That's the same result as a malfunctioning rear door handle. No big deal.
 
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Source: Me. Every time I get in the car.

If you exercise the option to disable the rear door handles, occupants have to exit the front row unless someone lets them out. That's the same result as a malfunctioning rear door handle. No big deal.
N=1 is an anecdote, not data. You may do as you wish. Others who do not use child locks expect exit ability to be present. This will be a big deal after the first person is trapped either under water, or as happened in a recent Tesla with a poorly designed "innovative" door handle, and burned to death.
 

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N=1 is an anecdote, not data. You may do as you wish. Others who do not use child locks expect exit ability to be present. This will be a big deal after the first person is trapped either under water, or as happened in a recent Tesla with a poorly designed "innovative" door handle, and burned to death.
Seeing how I'm confident the auto industry did not institute child locks merely for my benefit, I'm reasonably sure many others also use them. However, I'm just speculating since I don't have a source for that.

Again, malfunctioning electronic rear doors are the same as child safety locks engaged. The outcome is the same. Either rear doors have to mechanically open 100% of the time for safety reasons or they don't. Pick one.
 
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Seeing how I'm confident the auto industry did not institute child locks merely for my benefit, I'm reasonably sure many others also use them. However, I'm just speculating since I don't have a source for that.

Again, malfunctioning electronic rear doors are the same as child safety locks engaged. The outcome is the same. Either rear doors have to mechanically open 100% of the time for safety reasons or they don't. Pick one.
The analysis is far from that simplistic. Safety-related decisions are based on the applicable, specific risks and benefits. Child proof rear door locks were developed after a weighing of risks/benefits in the time when too many parents did not properly restrain their children and/or their children managed to take off their restraints unnoticed. The benefits of preventing them from being ejected from an inadvertantly opened door, and their age-related inability to manage themselves in an emergency in any event, outweighed the risk of them not being able to purposefully open the door if needed during an emergency. Frequency of occurrence of each risk likely was the determining factor.

However, an industry database shows that 13% of new car buyers have children in the household under age 6, and 16% have children between 6 and 12, so the child proof lock population constitutes approxmiately 29% of total new car buyers. Of that 29%, we don't know how many are successfully properly restraining their children and/or how many actually ever actuate the child proof feature.

For the majority of buyers who have no need for the child proof door lock feature, adolescents and adults would expect and should be able to exit the vehicle on an emergency basis if/when needed. When the rear seat is occupied by older passengers, the child proof feature should be deactivated. There is no reasonable expectation for adult occupants that they may not be able to open their own door if needed. If an impact renders them unable to function the sole electronic release, the risk to their safety is quite clear. There is no offsetting benefit for that majority to justify the risk of this design (if this is what Ford has really done, and we can only hope the reports are incorrect), as there may have orginally been with infants to pre-teens, and a reexamnation of current child restraint usage rates might also question continuing the child proof door lock feature.
 
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silverelan

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The analysis is far from that simplistic. Safety-related decisions are based on the applicable, specific risks and benefits. Child proof rear door locks were developed after a weighing of risks/benefits in the time when too many parents did not properly restrain their children and/or their children managed to take off their restraints unnoticed. The benefits of preventing them from being ejected from an inadvertantly opened door, and their age-related inability to manage themselves in an emergency in any event, outweighed the risk of them not being able to purposefully open the door if needed during an emergency. Frequency of occurrence of each risk likely was the determining factor.

However, an industry database shows that 13% of new car buyers have children in the household under age 6, and 16% have children between 6 and 12, so the child proof lock population constitutes approxmiately 29% of total new car buyers. Of that 29%, we don't know how many are successfully properly restraining their children and/or how many actually ever actuate the child proof feature.

For the majority of buyers who have no need for the child proof door lock feature, adolescents and adults would expect and should be able to exit the vehicle on an emergency basis if/when needed. When the rear seat is occupied by older passengers, the child proof feature should be deactivated. There is no reasonable expectation for adult occupants that they may not be able to open their own door if needed. If an impact renders them unable to function the sole electronic release, the risk to their safety is quite clear. There is no offsetting benefit for that majority to justify the risk of this design (if this is what Ford has really done, and we can only hope the reports are incorrect), as there may have orginally been with infants to pre-teens, and a reexamnation of current child restraint usage rates might also question continuing the child proof door lock feature.
Seems like you've given it some thought! I don't disagree with your analysis. However, the fact remains that the end result between actively engaged child locks and rear doors malfunctioning is the same. It's possible that regulatory bodies and manufacturers might change things but it might take some convincing to show a situation that prevents an electronic door from opening that would not also negatively affect a mechanical system.
 

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I initially thought it was weird that the rear seats lacked an emergency release, but then I realized that I had cars that didn’t have any doors in the rear seats. Any two-door vehicles don’t have exits in the back seat, and you must exit through the front door. Also, all three-row SUVs do not have entries in the last row. It seems very unlikely that power would be lost to both the rear doors and the individual capacitors in each of the rear doors would fail at the same time.
 

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I initially thought it was weird that the rear seats lacked an emergency release, but then I realized that I had cars that didn’t have any doors in the rear seats. Any two-door vehicles don’t have exits in the back seat, and you must exit through the front door. Also, all three-row SUVs do not have entries in the last row. It seems very unlikely that power would be lost to both the rear doors and the individual capacitors in each of the rear doors would fail at the same time.
I hadn't considered that, but yeah, you're right.
 

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I initially thought it was weird that the rear seats lacked an emergency release, but then I realized that I had cars that didn’t have any doors in the rear seats. Any two-door vehicles don’t have exits in the back seat, and you must exit through the front door. Also, all three-row SUVs do not have entries in the last row. It seems very unlikely that power would be lost to both the rear doors and the individual capacitors in each of the rear doors would fail at the same time.
You're correct about two-door cars, but every two-doors I've owned had front seats with a release latch so the seat would move forward to allow a way in or out.
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