Why are smart electric doors so difficult to use?

In recent years, we can find many changes in the process of automobile intelligence, including the increase in the application of voice and touch in the smart cockpit. At the same time, the mechanical mechanism of electric control has become more popular. For example, the electric tailgate, electric seats, electric rearview mirrors and other configurations have almost become standard, and even the switches of the four side doors on some models can be electrically controlled.

In fact, electric side doors have long been standard on some ultra-luxury models, such as the Mercedes-Benz Maybach S680 and the Rolls-Royce Phantom. However, as the domestic electric vehicle market has become a trend, many high-end configurations have been transferred to models priced between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan. In theory, the transfer of high-end configurations should be a good thing, but the first few pure electric models that used electric doors were all complained about the difficulty of using the doors. Why do the same electric doors have different experiences?

Is the smart electric side door "mentally retarded"?

In 2021, a domestic new car company launched its first electric car, which provided the option of intelligent electric side doors, and all car doors were electrically opened and closed, as one of the selling points. However, after the car was delivered, the owners complained about the electric doors.

The vehicle quality website shows that the number of complaints about the electric door of this model has remained almost stable since its launch, including problems such as poor opening, inability to identify obstacles, inability to stop manually, small door opening angle, and large damping of manual door opening and closing. For example, when facing a low stone pier, the door cannot identify the obstacle and directly collides with it, and this situation is not an isolated case.

As the first model to offer smart electric side doors at a price of around 300,000 yuan, it has indeed promoted the widespread application of electric doors. From the design concept, the smart electric side doors can free your hands, and you can open and close the doors elegantly by simply pressing a button. The angle of automatic opening can also be determined based on the space outside the door. At the same time, the opening and closing can be controlled manually, and the experience when manually controlled is similar to that of ordinary car doors.

However, the electric door that car owners spend a lot of money to choose is not as good as the traditional manual door. It does not open when it should, and the manual control makes the door dragging because of the motor or structural problems, which makes it take more effort to open and close. These problems have also led to many people labeling the smart electric door as a "retarded door".

But in the subsequent new models, the electric door has been updated, and new hardware has been used to improve the experience of the electric door. However, after multiple OTAs, the old models still have more or less problems, which proves that the hardware structure of the electric door will have a great impact on its user experience.

How to improve the experience of smart electric doors

First, let's take a look at the main components of the smart electric door. According to Brose's solution, the electric side door system includes several main parts, such as the driver, anti-pinch sensor, anti-collision sensor, control unit, and wire-controlled door lock with self-priming device.

First of all, the key to realizing the automatic opening and closing of the car door and hovering at any position lies in the driver. The driver is equipped with an electric limiter, which can stop the movement of the car door when it encounters an obstacle and fix the current opening and closing angle. But at the same time, after stopping the movement, people should also achieve low damping when manually pulling the car door. This requires the control unit to cooperate with the driver to provide corresponding assistance in time when the user pulls the car door to avoid the damping feeling caused by directly dragging the motor.

In terms of collision detection, ultrasonic or millimeter-wave radar can be used on the side doors of cars. Millimeter-wave radar is less affected by the environment, but its price is also higher; while ultrasonic radar is relatively cheap and has high accuracy at short distances, but it is easily affected by the environment and cannot accurately describe the location of obstacles. Therefore, millimeter-wave radar is used on high-end smart electric side doors to improve detection reliability. For example, Brose's smart electric door solution uses 79GHz millimeter-wave radar.

In addition to being used for door collision avoidance, the integration of the smart car's electrical architecture also allows these sensors to be used in smart driving applications, such as valet parking.

The Magna SMARTACCESS electric door system, first installed on the Ferrari Purosangue, is a good example of how to achieve an "easy-to-use" electric door. The main advantage of this electric door system is that it can customize the feeling of the door opening and closing according to the needs of consumers, while providing a reliable experience in collision detection, gesture control and other aspects.

In addition to the electric door structure, the Haptronik software in SMARTACCESS is also the key to improving the door experience. Haptronik is an innovative motion control software that optimizes the touch of the door when opening and closing, so that the door can be opened and closed smoothly. It can detect whether the car is parked on the side of the road or on a hillside, and then automatically adjust according to gravity. In this way, the door can be opened and closed smoothly in any terrain. In addition, the software also has anti-collision and wind protection functions.

summary:

In the new cars released this year, we can see that smart electric doors have become more and more popular, from the previous models with a price of more than one million yuan to models with a price of less than 300,000 yuan. However, the experience of smart electric doors still requires manufacturers to optimize the structure and control software to avoid the embarrassment of smart doors becoming "stupid doors".