What safety design considerations were made for the door handles of the Xiaomi Pengcheng?
Although interior and exterior door handles may seem like small components, they are critical for escape and rescue after a collision. Therefore, in our design, beyond meeting national safety standards, we focused on one key issue: whether the doors can still be unlocked and opened smoothly in extreme collision scenarios. To address this, we implemented triple safety redundancy across three aspects: exterior opening, door lock power supply, and interior opening.
The first layer is the mechanical opening capability of the semi-hidden exterior door handle. When a collision occurs and specific trigger conditions are met, the vehicle automatically unlocks the central locking system. At this point, the exterior door handle can be used to mechanically open the door, facilitating rescue by people outside the vehicle in emergencies.
The second layer is the redundant backup power supply for the door locks. We also considered situations where extreme collisions cause abnormalities in the vehicle's low-voltage power supply. Therefore, we equipped the door locks with a redundant backup power source. Even if both the auxiliary battery and the main high-voltage battery lose power due to a collision, a backup power source remains available to support door unlocking, preserving an alternative unlocking path independent of the main power supply.
At the same time, this redundant backup power supply is located under the driver's seat, relatively close to the interior of the passenger compartment, making it less susceptible to direct impact and compression during a vehicle collision. Our consideration goes beyond just "having a backup power source"; we aim to ensure that the backup power source itself remains functional even under more extreme collision conditions.
The third layer is the interior mechanical door handle. The Xiaomi Pengcheng uses mechanical door handles inside the vehicle, meaning door opening does not rely on electronic controls. Even if the vehicle loses power after a collision, occupants inside can still directly open the doors using the mechanical mechanism.
These three layers of design respectively cover exterior mechanical opening, redundant power supply for door locks, and interior mechanical opening. Our reasoning is simple: not only should the doors function well under normal conditions, but reliable opening paths must also be preserved for interior escape and exterior rescue in extreme situations such as collisions or power failures.