The Chevy Blazer EV is decorated with a bevy of all-electric design themes, including an aero-friendly front grille design and prominent wheel covers. Interestingly, the Blazer EV doesn’t include flush, deployable door handles, unlike it’s smaller, less expensive brother, the Chevy Equinox EV. The question, then, becomes this – should the Chevy Blazer EV get deployable door handles?
The deployable handles on the Chevy Equinox EV can be seen in the following GM Authority feature video:
As highlighted by GM Authority Executive Editor Alex Luft, the flush door handles on the 2024 Chevy Equinox EV don’t actually provide any aerodynamic benefits compared to the traditional door handles on the Chevy Blazer EV. Rather, the flush-mounted door handles are primarily for aesthetics, which some buyers might find important when purchasing a brand-new electric vehicle.
The deployable door handles on the Equinox EV will open up when approached by a user with the key fob in their pocket, utilizing a proximity sensor to flip forward at the right moment. However, even with the handle deployed, the user will need to touch an inside section of the front handle to unlock the vehicle.
The door handles will also deploy by touching one side of the handle, flipping it forward.
Chevy Equinox EV
Chevy Blazer EV
Opening the door is straight-forward – simply grab the handle and pull outwards, away from the vehicle, and the door should swing open. There’s also small indentation on the outside of the handle that will prompt it to sit flush with the body and lock the door.
Alternatively, the unlock button on the key fob will deploy the door handles as well, while the lock button on the key fob will move the handles back into the body.
Indeed, it’s a slick little feature, but for some folks, a traditional door handle may be preferred. It’s really all down to preference – do you think the Chevy Blazer EV should include the sleek style and gadgetry of the deployable, flush handles seen on the Equinox EV? Or do you prefer the traditional door handles? Let us know by voting in the poll!
Comments
We have enough unnecessary and unwanted tech already.
Agreed!
Contrary to what the Editor said, it’s not just a styling exercise, it’s about Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH). There is no engine/exhaust noise to cover up wind noise produced in the doors at the handles, therefore wind noise is a lot more prevalent EVs vs ICE vehicles. This is why most EVs have different door handles.
The Equinox EVs handles “present” via an actuator system however should the actuator fail, they can still be mechanically flipped open and mechanically unlatch. If the 12V battery is dead, the handles can still be used mechanically however the door lock itself is electric. There’s a key lock cylinder to manually open the tailgate to gain access to the vehicle, which isn’t ideal but thankfully it will rarely be used by owners.
All this to say, styling-wise the flush are nicer and buttonless for not much of a penalty but if they were able to make the regular ones work on the Blazer EV without much of an NVH penalty then it doesn’t make much of a difference.
So you’re saying that using a traditional handle on the Equinox EV would have a substantial negative impact on NVH? Show me material to support your claim or it’s just BS.
I’m a GM dealer, factory-trained, EV-certified tech. My references are internal documents that cannot be shared.
Tell me which part of what follows is BS, and please tell me what your supporting arguments/documents/références are: Flush-mounted handles don’t catch as much wind as a door handle, that is fact. Catching wind = increased wind noise therefore NVH. Have you noticed that most outside mirrors are now mounted to doors instead of the front corner of the DLO? Even though it increases the frontal area it is still a reduction in NVH. EV tires are specially formulated to reduce wind noise, some of them even have a strip of foam inside to dampen noise frequencies. The Trailblazer/Trax/Encore GX/Envista aren’t luxury products yet they have sound-canceling systems to reduce NVH from the triple. When replacing a panoramic sunroof panel, we have to have an exact for-and-aft gap as well as an exact up-and-down offset between the front and rear glass panels. If this isn’t done the out-of-spec gap will produce considerable wind noise.
The point is automakers, including GM, are going to great lengths to address NVH regardless of class of vehicle. It makes sense for handles in an EV whether it’s additional sound deadening in the door or aerodynamically-optimized flush-mounted handles.
If you still think this is BS because of no documentation, I’m looking forward to your supporting references.
So your qualifications are that you’re a tech at a dealership. That’s good for you, but you don’t actually design or develop the vehicles.
I’m an aero specialist. I live in the wind tunnel and work on all things on wheels. The surface area and contact patch of a door handle like the one on the blazer EV is simply insignificant when it comes to aero and NVH. You’d achieve a greater aero benefit by making a 1 mm change to the frontal contact patch of a vehicle than you would by tucking the handle and you’d achieve more NVH from mirror shapes.
Internal documents that can’t be shared huh? You’re a tech, please do not pretend that you have access to secret info. GM won’t make any claim in any documents about aero or NVH benefits stemming from door handles. It’s not even a point of consideration, that’s how insignificant it is. The more you type, the more BS you produce.
There’s literally a confidentiality statement as the first page of all training documents.
Contact patch pertains to tires, but whatever Mr. Aerodynamic engineer.
Furthermore, you’re referring to drag, I’m referring to wind noise. If you make a tiny hole at just the right angle at just the right location on a vehicle, you can produce an effective whistle without affecting the “contact patch”.
An open sunroof without a wind deflector causes buffeting. Once you the wind deflector is up, increasing the “contact patch”, the buffeting goes away.
Frontal area and NVH are two different things.
I drive a ’23 Bolt EUV at highway speeds every day, which features tradtional door handles, and I don’t notice wind noise from that specfic feature… While I’m sure it helps (until the actuators fail and you drive around with them semi-deployed all the time), I notice nothing. Most of the wind noise I hear comes from the windows / glass.
Needs the 3.6, not those Nox handles.
Those of us in the winter climates have grown to hate the flush door handles. Any benefit from wind noise is negligible at best. One of the only reasons I even considered a blazer EV was the lack of flush door handles.
Ironically I have a Tesla now, it’s amazing in many ways, but as I feared a huge negative of the car is the flush door handles.
Hi Curt,
What happens in freezing weather? Do they bind up?
Can you provide more info please? I don’t know anyone who has a vehicle with door handles like that yet. My first concern is how the handles would react to being exposed to an overnight freezing rain storm. If you approach the vehicle in the morning to start de-icing it, will the handles try to force themselves through 1 or 2 inches of solid ice? Secondly, what about a simple coating of light snow? If the handles pop open, does the snow fall down into the slot that the handles have to go back into?
Give us more options for a V8 and the wind noise from door handles won’t matter.
Does the door open if u have gloves on?
It’s still unnecessary along with potential of something breaking.
Oh yes please. I love useless gimmicks that serve no purpose other than break down the road and cost hundreds or thousands to fix.
While you’re at it, please replace windshields with LCD screens and cameras.
So walking around your garage, driveway, or yard the doors are constantly going to motor the door handles in and out? And they probably extend unnecessarily when you’re getting out of the car? Is there a way to make sure the car is locked before walking away (without digging the key fob out)? What a useless waste of time and money just to annoy the customer.
I own a 2 month old 2024 Equinox EV and if there was an option to have normal door handles I would have paid to have them. These goofy pop out handles aren’t all that ergonomic in opening the car door in beautiful warm weather and I shudder to think what a pain-in—the-guzza the handles will be when they are covered in a nice freezing rain buildup. Think what happens when your windshield is covered in ice and what the usual result to the wipers is if they are turned on. Ice always wins………
As the Equinox EV production hasn’t been through a real northern winter yet it will be interesting to see what kind of door handle complaints will be generated in real world winter driving. I hope that I am wrong.
This is an absurd feature that no one wants, it solves no problem and actually creates new problems (ice, presenting unnecessarily, etc). I want a vehicle that looks and drives like any other vehicle but has the charging capabilities of a Tesla. Few people buy a Tesla for aesthetics, so stop trying to look like a Tesla and instead steal the best feature which is getting 200 miles of range in under 15 minutes.