Recently, a video of a child's fingers being pinched by a car door in Jinan, Shandong has aroused discussions in the industry about the anti-pinch function of car doors, especially the anti-pinch function of electric suction doors. As early as 2005, traditional fuel vehicles have begun to popularize the configuration of electric suction doors, and most of them are installed on million-dollar luxury models, which are regarded as the iconic configuration of luxury cars. In the era of new energy vehicles, the price of electric suction doors continues to drop. New energy vehicles priced at 150,000 yuan can also be equipped with electric suction doors, which are used as one of the "black technology" selling points for car promotion.
According to product planners from many car companies, the original intention of the electric suction door design is to make the closing sound quieter and minimize the noise interference for passengers in the car. However, with the increasing weight of car doors, stricter safety requirements such as rollover, and increased cabin sealing requirements, electric suction doors can help women, the elderly and other groups with small strength to close the door more easily, and have become a must-have for many car companies.
But in real life, electric suction doors suck many people's fingers. According to incomplete statistics from China Business News, there have been dozens of cases of fingers being pinched by electric suction doors in recent days, ranging from finger swelling due to squeezing to finger fractures. As the industry pays more and more attention to vehicle safety, the "biting hand" problem of electric suction doors needs to be solved urgently.
"Hand-biting" electric suction door
In recent years, safety accidents involving "hand biting" by electric suction doors have occurred frequently, which is another potential safety hazard besides hidden door handles and has also sounded a new alarm for car door safety.
China Business News reporter learned that the electric suction door is a configuration that is driven by electricity, allowing the car door to automatically complete the suction and full locking when closing. It is mainly used to tighten the door lock cable through the motor after the door is closed to the half-locked state, allowing the lock tongue to flip over to reach the fully locked state. From a visual point of view, this closing process looks like the door is being sucked toward the car body, so it is called an "electric suction door."
The person in charge of the commercial enterprise department of a new force told reporters that in the past, electric suction doors were only available on luxury cars. After the advancement of intelligent technology, new energy vehicles are equipped with electric suction doors in order to bring the experience of a high-end brand and allow drivers and passengers to get on the car more elegantly. Many models and even entire series are equipped with electric suction doors. He said: "Today's car doors are getting heavier and heavier. If there is no power door suction, the door lock may only be half-locked and cannot be fully tightened. At this time, the user needs to open and close the door again and it is easy to slam the door hard. Electric door suction can solve this problem."
However, some people from traditional car companies told reporters that although the company's existing products also include 400,000-class models, none of the models on sale are equipped with electric suction doors. On the one hand, it is a cost issue, and on the other hand, it was found in early user surveys that electric suction doors are not strictly required by users and have low perceived value.
A problem that cannot be ignored is that electric suction doors frequently "bite" people's hands. Currently, most electric suction doors do not have an anti-pinch function during the suction stage.
According to video information released by the Lianyungang Fire Rescue Detachment, firefighters experimented with electric suction doors by simulating actual scenarios. Experiments show that although the electric suction door has a certain buffer after sensing an obstacle, it still closes with a large force, posing a risk of pinching children or unobserved passengers. Data shows that the torque of the electric suction door motor is about 12 to 20 N/m, which is equivalent to being squeezed by about 30 kilograms, which is enough to cause damage to human fingers.
BYD stated that for MPV models, the final electric suction stage of the electric suction door is not the work of the sliding motor of the side sliding door, and it is not anti-pinch at this time. All electric doors currently on the market are basically not anti-pinch during the electric suction stage. At the Wenjie M6 press conference previously, Yu Chengdong, Huawei's Managing Director, Chairman of Terminal BG, and Director of the Product Investment Review Committee, stated that the model is equipped with electric suction doors throughout the vehicle, which cannot prevent pinching during the suction process. That is, when there is only a crack left in the door and the moment it is closed, please do not put your fingers into the crack, because the physical design during the suction process determines that the door cannot prevent pinching at this time.
The reporter learned from R&D personnel from many car companies that electric suction doors need to overcome the reaction force of closing the door, and the conventional anti-pinch design logic also determines whether to activate anti-pinch by sensing the reaction force and changes in movement speed. Therefore, if the anti-pinch function is set during the suction and closing process, the door will automatically pop open when it senses resistance, which conflicts with the suction and locking function of the electric suction door. As a result, the anti-pinch of electric suction doors has become an industry problem for many years.
In 2016, a BMW X5 owner in the United States had the tip of his thumb pinched off due to the automatic suction door. The injury was so serious that it could no longer be transplanted. Although BMW insisted that the vehicle system was not faulty and that the user manual clearly warned of the risks, the jury still found BMW to bear full liability and paid the owner approximately US$1.9 million.
In China, Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360, also had his finger pinched by the door when he was testing the "anti-pinch function" of the door of a certain model of GAC Haopin. At the beginning of this month, a car owner of a new power car company also suffered a minor fracture due to the electric suction door pinching his hand. The doctor who received the report said that the electric suction door squeezed the car under great pressure and was buffered by skin fat, which still caused fractures. Children are more likely to suffer serious injuries such as comminuted fractures.
Costs and Standards
During the development of electric suction doors for more than 20 years, hundreds of cases of injuries caused by electric suction doors have occurred frequently, and car companies are also actively looking for ways to solve this industry problem.
The most common way is to shorten the opening gap of the electric suction door to 6~8mm in terms of structural size, so as to avoid accidents in terms of suction conditions. For example: NIO said that for the anti-pinch protection of electric suction doors, the engineering team designed "segmented self-priming" and "self-priming interruption", while reducing the starting gap to less than 8mm; FAW Bestune's engineering designer also told reporters that after multiple rounds of testing by the development team, the electric suction door suction starting gap was compressed to 8mm. "The thickness of adults' fingers is generally more than 1cm, and a gap of 8mm means that fingers cannot reach the suction gap at all."
Some models also use a capacitive anti-pinch solution, that is, a circle of capacitive sensors are placed on the edge of the door to sense the intervention of objects. For example, Lideal L9 Livis adopts a capacitive anti-pinch solution, which determines whether to activate anti-pinch by monitoring changes in capacitance. However, there are also many high-end models of other brands that only place capacitive sensors on the half-door edge below the window line, which still poses a risk of hand pinching.
In addition, almost all car door anti-pinch devices currently on the market need to "clamp fingers first and then rebound", which cannot be predicted in advance and needs to be paid attention to by consumers.
From a technical perspective, there is still room for action in preventing hand-biting accidents with electric suction doors. In terms of cost, whether car companies are willing to increase costs to improve safety redundancy is also a big question.
A R&D engineer of an independent brand said that the cost of all four car doors equipped with "electric suction doors" is 2,000 to 3,000 yuan, but the price of subsequent optional electric suction doors is twice the cost. Previously, Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, also mentioned on social platforms that if the standard electric suction door is installed in the front, the cost is only 500 yuan, and the cost of the electric suction door in the rear is 5,000 yuan. He said that the front-mounted electric suction door only has four more small motors, and the reason why the rear-installed electric suction door is more expensive is the cost of various wiring harnesses and construction.
A person from the R&D institute of an automobile group told reporters that in recent years, due to industry price wars, car companies have been trying to reduce costs as much as possible. The safety redundancy of many configurations is not technically difficult, but requires increased costs. Based on the need to reduce costs, it will be difficult to put this safety redundancy into mass production. In more conventional operations, the solution for electric suction doors is given by the supplier, and the car company makes a selection based on factors such as cost and model pricing.
"Currently, the mandatory national standards do not require anti-pinch for electric suction doors, and the vast majority of models do not have anti-pinch functions during the suction stage." The above-mentioned R&D institute person told reporters that the current national standard stipulates that car door locks must have double safety redundancy, which is often called a primary lock and a secondary lock, but there is no requirement that electric suction doors must be anti-pinch.
According to GB 15086-2013 "Performance Requirements and Test Methods for Automobile Door Locks and Door Holders", the main door lock must have both a semi-locking (first-level locking) position and a full-locking (second-level locking) position. The test plan also stipulates longitudinal and transverse pull-off load and inertial pull-off prevention requirements for the two gears. Both levels of locking must pass the strength test. The mandatory national standard revision plan project of the "Automobile Door Handle Safety Technical Requirements" to be implemented in 2027 was mentioned in the solicitation of opinions, which stipulates the marking requirements for hidden inner door handles and emergency inner door handles, anti-pinch requirements and test methods for electric outer door handles, etc. As for the risk of hand-clamping and anti-pinch requirements for electric suction doors, neither of the above two standards has clear requirements.
WeChat editor| lamb