A collective recourse in California argues that Ford should include a physical lock hole and manual door release
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- The owners of Mustang Mach-E pursue Ford due to the absence of manual door handles.
- They say that without them, entering when the battery dies is a major hassle.
- A court victory could force Ford to rethink the design of the door of the Mach-E for the future.
When the Ford Mustang Mach-E was released, he brought a new torsion to the Mustang heritage by adding a pair of doors, but in doing so, it also abandoned conventional door handles. Now this design choice has become the focal point of a legal battle between a handful of owners and Ford. According to the engines of the Mach-E, what Ford has marketed as a functionality is in fact more a defect.
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For those of you who have not met the Mach-E in person (or did not have the chance to block in one), here is the business: the electric crossing does not offer the usual door handles or even a traditional lock hole. Instead, it relies on electric locks that only open when the key FOB is nearby and, critically, when the battery has enough load to burst the doors.
A dead thing is not only a problem; It’s a headache
Now, if the battery of your electric Ford is dead, you are in trouble. The only way to get into a Mustang Mach-E dead is to access the battery and load it enough for the doors to work again.
According to the trial, the complainants argue that although the Mach-E is “designed to open electrically by pressing a button”, unlike most cars with electronic door handles, it “does not have a physical safety key that can be used if the battery fails; There is no hidden physical niche to insert one. As a result, they say, this “functionality” is actually a defect that needs correction.
To be fair to the complainants, the stories surrounding this problem mean that design looks more like a reflection after a well -planned functionality. In the past two months only, we have reported at least two separate cases of owners who have unexpectedly locked themselves up. In a case, a child was actually trapped in the car without a quick way to open the door.
“It’s not as simple as simply loading the car”
The complainants also emphasize that in the event of a battery failure, access the front luggage compartment (where the battery is ideally located) is not as simple as simply bursting the hood and connecting a charger.
“To access the front luggage compartment (where the battery is located) in the case of battery failure, drivers are required to follow a series of complicated and long steps than a average driver, without superior knowledge of vehicles and appropriate equipment, may not be able to finish successfully,” explains the trial.
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Currently, the collective recourse is only for owners in California and covering Mustang Mach-E Mustang every year. So, could this trial end up pushing Ford (and perhaps the industry) to rethink its design of the electric door handle? We will have to wait and see.
