by Electronic Door Handles and Safety
The design of door handles is gaining increasing importance in the automotive industry. For the past fifteen years, manufacturers worldwide have been actively implementing electronic locks instead of mechanical ones, sparking debates about their reliability and safety in emergency situations.
This trend has forced Jeep engineers to seek a solution to a problem that did not exist 20-30 years ago: how to open the doors when the battery is completely dead. The answer came in the form of supercapacitors capable of storing enough energy for unlocking.
How Does the Backup System Work?
The new Cherokee, like other Stellantis products, uses electric door locks. The front doors have a manual emergency unlocking mechanism in case of a dead battery. The rear doors do not have such a mechanism. In a serious accident, this could complicate evacuation from the rear seat. However, Jeep engineers have considered this scenario.
Jeep’s Head of Interior Design, Ryan Nagode, confirmed that each door handle button contains a small capacitor – a component that instantly stores and releases an electrical charge. If the battery dies completely, whether under normal circumstances or as a result of an accident, these capacitors can be lifesavers.
They essentially store energy for two or three button presses. If the system is completely dead, there’s a small reserve of energy left to open those doors. So, there is redundancy built into the system, and any time you see one of our vehicles, that redundancy is already built into it.
Physical Access and Handle Design
Head of Exterior Design, Vince Galante, supported the idea of redundant safety, adding to the discussion:
We’ve seen a lot of news about electronic handles, but often it’s about hidden door handles. Ours are not like that. It’s actually a recess in the door that you can grab and open in an emergency.
However, safety considerations did not end there. After all, what good is a recessed handle if the lock itself is electric and without power?
For this purpose, engineers added a classic lock cylinder on the outside of the driver’s door handle. It allows the key fob owner to enter the cabin even with a dead battery. This is another backup layer intended to improve safety.
Nevertheless, history knows examples of accidents that escalated from unpleasant to tragic in a matter of seconds due to questionable door handle designs. Compared to other solutions on the market, Stellantis’s approach may not be perfect, but it is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. The transition to electronic systems is inevitable, and the key task for all manufacturers remains ensuring the flawless and reliable operation of these mechanisms in emergency situations, where every second counts. The development of such multi-layered backup systems indicates that passenger safety is beginning to be prioritized even in seemingly simple components like door handles.
