OP is confusing awd with 4wd. You can tow around a part-time 4wd truck all day long without a flatbed. Try that with a Subaru or an Audi quattro though, and that’s where you start running into problems.

And by your latest post’s logic then, mechanically an electronic door *is* much simpler than a standard, contemporary door lever. Which means that you shouldn’t have posted in the first place.

A push-button start is not “mechanically” (it’s electronically, btw) much simpler. You have the battery in the car, AND the battery in the key fob. You need the fob to be programmed to the car. You need MULTIPLE transmitters (even a tiny car like the Miata has 4 inside the cabin), so that it will only start when the…

In addition to this reply to @jvbftw if you go read the threads, it sounds like Champion’s owner passed away last year. So it’s possible that he realized under new leadership and auditing of everything, his house of cards was about to come down, so he ramped up his game and decided to leave before he got arrested. And…

these guys and gals were able to hit the angles necessary for this deployment to occur.

More recently than the ignition switches have been some of their coupes and sedans blowing airbags in parking lots. Happens at 55 seconds:

Go look at all of the other trucks though. I’ll use Toyota as an example, look at the craziness of people using their Tacomas, 4Runners, GX470's, etc. offroad without any sort of issues like this.

Watch the first video, and the sand video again. They aren’t “extreme angles”. They are relatively tame. This is poor software development on GM’s part. They have had Camaros and CTS-V’s have their airbags blow during autocross and track events as well. They need to hire better software developers.

Porsche and Mazda do as well, those were the first 2 I googled. That dude is a douchebag apologist.

Tons of companies do. Porsche does, for example. Mazda actually pays you contingency money for using their vehicle for motorsports. I could keep going, but I feel like 10 seconds google searching, and going 2 for 2 was enough evidence to smack down your ignorant rhetorical question.

You’re describing normal operation with a push-button start system. Similarly, during normal operation with this electronic door handle, instead of a manual one, there are advantages. For the engineers, you don’t have to fill the door with a bunch of unnecessary weight, full of mechanical linkages. For the designers,…

Yeah, you can also wring the engine out through higher compression, adjusting the design of the intake manifold, cams, etc. These either make the car not fun to drive around day to day, shift the power band instead of increasing it, hurt your fuel mileage, require higher octane and increase risk of detonation, etc.

You’re being deliberately obtuse about how simple it is to see your rocker panels when the door is closed. That photo is taken from where it was because with a camera, you don’t have the same latitude for exposure, EV, etc. And it’s a specific focal length with a camera, whereas you can rotate your head and dart your…

Your eyes have a much higher tolerance for the exposure value than cameras do. Go to Carmax, or your nearest dealership that you find has one of these cars sitting around. If you’re trapped for 13 hours in a car and don’t even find that, accidentally confusing it for the trunk release for example, then you have no…

That’s the point of an electronic door latch, just like push button starting. In normal usage, it is MUCH easier to use in standard working conditions. And just like push button start, it has a mechanical backup for the once in a million moment when you need to use this. Because for the XLR owner in the story to get…

Don’t shame people for being bald, you dipshit. It isn’t like that’s something over which anyone has control.

So in your opinion, is push button start equally stupid? Because my manual transmission car has push button start, which is equally “tech for the sake of tech.” Electronic door latches have advantages, just as electronic ignition systems have their advantages.

I’d argue that the release is not awkwardly placed. It’s where both of my family’s cars have the trunk releases and fuel door releases. And they’re different brands, manufactured in different continents. 

The door release is on the floor, by the rocker panel, where like 90% of other cars put the gas and trunk release. It’s marked with a red icon too. You can’t put the release where the door locks are, because the striker is on the door, the release is on the body. Think of your house’s door, and why you need the knob…

This door release was EXACTLY IN THE SAME LOCATION as the emergency trunk release. On the door sill, marked with a red icon.