Why the door handles/locks should not be purely electric...

[SpaceEVDriver]

I’m certain Scout Motors is paying close attention to all the things in the automotive world.

That said, there’s been a trend of manufacturers going toward all-electric in everything, re-inventing things like door handles for no good reason, just to “disrupt” the space, apparently without any idea what their end-goal is.

Mechanical door handles can fail, of course. Locks can be engaged accidentally. Children have been locked in vehicles since the invention of vehicle door locks.

But there’s a greater chance of failure if a door lock is purely electronic when the failure of the source of power engages the lock (rather than electric failure automatically disengaging a lock). That failure mode can be incredibly dangerous. If the power fails, the default should be to disengage the door lock. And the exterior door handle should have a mechanical operation.

But the Mustang Mach-E relies on electrical power to activate the door plunger to open the door from outside. There’s a software error where if the low-voltage battery is low/dead, and if the door is opened by the interior mechanical handle, the car doesn’t change the door lock setting.

An example of how this can be problematic: A care-giver driving the Mustang has a child in the rear seat. They stop the car, exit, close their door, and go to open the rear door. If the low-voltage battery is low or dead, the car could remain locked after the driver exits the vehicle and closes their door. Then because the battery is low, the rear door will not open (because it uses 12V electrical power to engage the door plunger). The child is locked in the car with no way to get in without breaking a window (unless someone carries an emergency battery on the exterior of the vehicle somewhere, which nobody realistically does).

I’m a big fan of certain kinds of technology when it makes things better. I’m a huge fan of change. But I’m a huge opponent of changing things just to change them. Making things better is better. Just changing things to be different doesn’t always work well.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Sales Halted Over Door Lock Safety Problem

Over 300,000 Mach-Es around the world are affected by this stop-sale recall, which Ford expects to fix with an over-the-air software update.

insideevs.com

 

[cyure]

I’m certain Scout Motors is paying close attention to all the things in the automotive world.

That said, there’s been a trend of manufacturers going toward all-electric in everything, re-inventing things like door handles for no good reason, just to “disrupt” the space, apparently without any idea what their end-goal is.

Mechanical door handles can fail, of course. Locks can be engaged accidentally. Children have been locked in vehicles since the invention of vehicle door locks.

But there’s a greater chance of failure if a door lock is purely electronic when the failure of the source of power engages the lock (rather than electric failure automatically disengaging a lock). That failure mode can be incredibly dangerous. If the power fails, the default should be to disengage the door lock. And the exterior door handle should have a mechanical operation.

But the Mustang Mach-E relies on electrical power to activate the door plunger to open the door from outside. There’s a software error where if the low-voltage battery is low/dead, and if the door is opened by the interior mechanical handle, the car doesn’t change the door lock setting.

An example of how this can be problematic: A care-giver driving the Mustang has a child in the rear seat. They stop the car, exit, close their door, and go to open the rear door. If the low-voltage battery is low or dead, the car could remain locked after the driver exits the vehicle and closes their door. Then because the battery is low, the rear door will not open (because it uses 12V electrical power to engage the door plunger). The child is locked in the car with no way to get in without breaking a window (unless someone carries an emergency battery on the exterior of the vehicle somewhere, which nobody realistically does).

I’m a big fan of certain kinds of technology when it makes things better. I’m a huge fan of change. But I’m a huge opponent of changing things just to change them. Making things better is better. Just changing things to be different doesn’t always work well.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Sales Halted Over Door Lock Safety Problem

Over 300,000 Mach-Es around the world are affected by this stop-sale recall, which Ford expects to fix with an over-the-air software update.

insideevs.com

Which is why I’m so happy that Jamie posted a few weeks ago that the door handles will be mechanical. What a relief.

Post in thread 'Extra, Extra....Read All About It!'

Jun 1, 2025

The concept vehicle have actuators because of the complexity in mechanical systems on all four doors. Production vehicles will have regular mechanical door pulls.

Perfect

• J Alynn

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Which is why I’m so happy that Jamie posted a few weeks ago that the door handles will be mechanical. What a relief.

Post in thread 'Extra, Extra....Read All About It!'

Jun 1, 2025

The concept vehicle have actuators because of the complexity in mechanical systems on all four doors. Production vehicles will have regular mechanical door pulls.

Perfect

• J Alynn

I agree.

 

[IdahoJOAT]

This kind of thing needs to be shouted from the rooftops to bring over the old-skool hardliners.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Note: There’s also a danger if the LVB failure automatically disengages a lock. If a driver/passenger is unsafe because of something going on outside of the vehicle and they attempt to lock their doors but the LVB is low/dead, then the locks might not engage or might disengage, increasing the danger to the occupants.

 

[Jamie@ScoutMotors]

This question comes up quite often in the forum. Scout production vehicles will have mechanical handles.

 

[TreeKiller]

This question comes up quite often in the forum. Scout production vehicles will have mechanical handles.

Love it. This is just one more reason why I feel like Scout has an excellent handle on what they can make electric / electronic (new school) and what they can keep mechanical (old school) to create a perfect balance that will attract a wide audience of buyers.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

This question comes up quite often in the forum. Scout production vehicles will have mechanical handles.

Yeah, I see the questions often enough that I thought I’d share a reason to avoid going all-electric with certain aspects of the vehicle.

Will there be keyholes or otherwise mechanical interfaces to the locks on the exterior handles?

 

[J Alynn]

This question comes up quite often in the forum. Scout production vehicles will have mechanical handles.

Great and Fantastic. We can put this debate to bed

 

[J Alynn]

Love it. This is just one more reason why I feel like Scout has an excellent handle on what they can make electric / electronic (new school) and what they can keep mechanical (old school) to create a perfect balance that will attract a wide audience of buyers.

Nice use of “Handle”. I love a good pun

 

[theonetruestripes]

A care-giver driving the Mustang has a child in the rear seat. They stop the car, exit, close their door, and go to open the rear door. If the low-voltage battery is low or dead, the car could remain locked after the driver exits the vehicle and closes their door. Then because the battery is low, the rear door will not open (because it uses 12V electrical power to engage the door plunger).

While I suppose this is possible, I’m not aware of any EV that doesn’t use a DC to DC converter to run the 12V/14V/28V electrical system off of the main 400V/800V traction battery when the traction battery is on. So exiting the vehicle and walking around would only rely on the 12V battery system if the traction battery were deliberately disengaged.

Ah! If you control the traction battery connection with a power button on the steering wheel as opposed to proximity to the owner’s phone, perhaps if you decided to buck the EV trend of using proximity in order to chase a throwback ascetic you are more likely to have the traction battery disconnected and amplify any 12V battery issues.

Also, if you do manage to drain the traction battery though, and the 12V is also drained you do get into unpleasant territory. Not just with the door handles, the 4 way flashers will also be out. Hope you aren’t in a traffic lane and/or you managed to get some flares out.

I’m not saying “electric doors are the only way to go, mechanical doors suck”, just that the failure modes for them are a little narrower then you are thinking about here.

While I’m at it, the electric doors tend to have manual releases, they are not always easy to “unrelease”, so you can get into a situation where the door is unlatched, but you can’t latch it. Which is not great for towing a disabled EV. (pro-tip: sometimes you can address this with a ratchet strap)

 

[cyure]

While I suppose this is possible, I’m not aware of any EV that doesn’t use a DC to DC converter to run the 12V/14V/28V electrical system off of the main 400V/800V traction battery when the traction battery is on. So exiting the vehicle and walking around would only rely on the 12V battery system if the traction battery were deliberately disengaged.

Ah! If you control the traction battery connection with a power button on the steering wheel as opposed to proximity to the owner’s phone, perhaps if you decided to buck the EV trend of using proximity in order to chase a throwback ascetic you are more likely to have the traction battery disconnected and amplify any 12V battery issues.

Also, if you do manage to drain the traction battery though, and the 12V is also drained you do get into unpleasant territory. Not just with the door handles, the 4 way flashers will also be out. Hope you aren’t in a traffic lane and/or you managed to get some flares out.

I’m not saying “electric doors are the only way to go, mechanical doors suck”, just that the failure modes for them are a little narrower then you are thinking about here.

While I’m at it, the electric doors tend to have manual releases, they are not always easy to “unrelease”, so you can get into a situation where the door is unlatched, but you can’t latch it. Which is not great for towing a disabled EV. (pro-tip: sometimes you can address this with a ratchet strap)

I know nothing about the towing part of this, but it’s been confirmed by Jamie that the door handles are mechanical. So one less thing to worry about if the 12V is dead.

 

[J Alynn]

While I suppose this is possible, I’m not aware of any EV that doesn’t use a DC to DC converter to run the 12V/14V/28V electrical system off of the main 400V/800V traction battery when the traction battery is on. So exiting the vehicle and walking around would only rely on the 12V battery system if the traction battery were deliberately disengaged.

Ah! If you control the traction battery connection with a power button on the steering wheel as opposed to proximity to the owner’s phone, perhaps if you decided to buck the EV trend of using proximity in order to chase a throwback ascetic you are more likely to have the traction battery disconnected and amplify any 12V battery issues.

Also, if you do manage to drain the traction battery though, and the 12V is also drained you do get into unpleasant territory. Not just with the door handles, the 4 way flashers will also be out. Hope you aren’t in a traffic lane and/or you managed to get some flares out.

I’m not saying “electric doors are the only way to go, mechanical doors suck”, just that the failure modes for them are a little narrower then you are thinking about here.

While I’m at it, the electric doors tend to have manual releases, they are not always easy to “unrelease”, so you can get into a situation where the door is unlatched, but you can’t latch it. Which is not great for towing a disabled EV. (pro-tip: sometimes you can address this with a ratchet strap)

I’m still a fan of manual. But I still find pleasure in every aspect of driving. Some like vehicles to commute and other like to Drive. To each their own

 

[Mousehunter]

electric over manual is probably fine - plus perhaps even have a keyed entry on something. Which brings me to a feature to add to another thread - but it has been already mentioned. A waterproof way to open a door.

My VW has a physical key hidden in the handle assembly - but I never managed to get the non-electrical key for it cut. Honestly, a physical key separate from the fob should come standard.

 

[theonetruestripes]

I know nothing about the towing part of this, but it’s been confirmed by Jamie that the door handles are mechanical.

So I have heard. I’m not sure what we really lose out on by having “only technical” door latches, so I’m willing to just believe it is “not enough to worry about” so I’ll just focus on it being one less thing to worry about if the 12V goes out.

I guess that means the place you add 12V power to bring a totally out of power Scout back to life might be _inside_ the passenger cabin while for EVs with electric door latches it has to be outside the passenger cabin (front bumper I think on a Tesla, rear on a Rivian, under the tow hitch cover inside a round plastic insert, you don’t need more then a flat headed screwdriver you are willing to abuse as a pry bar to get to it...and a fairly strong 12V power source; I used an RV battery conditioner).

I guess if the Scout is iced shut by a thick layer of freezing rain or something it might be a little harder to get it open then a EV with a electric latch, but I doubt that is common enough to matter, and it might not even be true depending on how good a design the mechanical latch is. (sorry, I’m an engineer by trade, so I always like to know what the tradeoffs are with a choice!)

 

[R1TVT]

Not to add to much complexity here, but just to be clear on the Rivian set up...

The LOCKS operate electronically (like they would in an ICE vehicle). The EXTERIOR flush door handles open electronically (they pop out and present themselves for opening when unlocked), however, when you pull a door open from the outside, or when you pull a door handle from the inside, a cable is pulled which mechanically allows the door to open. If an exterior door handle does not extend & present itself for opening when unlocked for some reason, and provided the vehicle is in fact unlocked, you can physically press the handle in at the front of the handle to get it to open.

NOTE*** On GEN2 Rivians, the interior door pulls have BOTH an electronic button to open the door (located above the door pull on the arm rest) AND a mechanical pull.