The 2024 Lexus NX 350 Has The Worst Interior Door Handles I’ve Ever Seen UPDATE: There’s A Good Reason!

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I’ll be honest with you: I’m way behind on finishing reviews of press cars I’ve gotten. I’ll do my best to get to them, but part of the problem is that for some of these cars, there’s one standout feature or design detail that grabs and holds my attention, like a monkey seizing a Moon Pie from a child’s hand. In this particular case, the car is the 2024 Lexus NX 350 AWD F Sport, and the one detail are its interior door handles, which may be the most over-thought, and confusing disasters I’ve ever encountered in the interior of a car. Just let me vent at you here.

First off, let’s discuss the state of interior car door handles here in the year of our fjord 2024: it’s a solved problem. For the vast majority of cars made in the past, oh, half-century or more, the interior door handles have worked generally remarkably well. They tend to be some manner of little lever that you pull as you push the door open, often with your elbow. While the design of these handles can vary a great deal, the process is generally the same: pull a thing, the door unlatches, you push the door open.

It’s generally not hard to figure out how to use or a hard act to perform. I say all of this because on the great list of things on cars that deserve to be re-imagined, the interior door handle is pretty far down there. And yet, somehow, Lexus seems to have spent a good amount of time on this non-problem, and the result is something that is, impressively, both harder to use, more confusing, and solves none of the problems of getting a car’s door open, whatever the Lexus design team imagined those to be.

I can show you what I mean, via the magic of moving pictures here, if you’d like, but I’ll break it down in detail here, too. Also, in this video, I mention the exterior door handles, too, which operate with a little button inside the handle instead of the usual pull-handle, but compared to the interior one, that’s trivial. Here, watch:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuXW1u-J5e8/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Do you see what I’m talking about? Let’s go into this in detail:

Doorhandle1

Okay, here’s the door handle, in its state of rest. Immediately, we see a problem: it has a label on it, giving some kind of instructions. The fact a fucking car interior door handle demands an instructional label on it at all means this handle has already failed. This isn’t new, unfamiliar tech: it’s a car door handle. Also, the label has a little icon that suggests you can remove it, meaning this label is an afterthought, and Lexus wants you to memorize what it does and then ditch it, because they’re embarrassed.

Maybe that’s okay for the people who live with the car every day, but if you get rid of this label, you’re going to have another problem. Because, look at this:

Doorhandle2

The stuck-on label isn’t the only bit of instructional information on the door handle. In addition to the label that says PUSH OPEN, there’s a little icon of the door handle being pulled open, and that one is permanent and illuminated.

Just take this in for a moment: this simple door handle has two contradictory instructions right on it, before you even touch it. So, what do you do? For this type of handle, I think the natural instinct is to just pull it and then open the door. That’s how a normal door release would work, right? But there’s that sticker telling me to push.

So, okay, let’s say I push there. When you push on the lever, the door latch releases electronically, and you can push the door open. Is this easier than pulling a handle or lever to release a latch? No, not really. Plus, about half the time you push it, if you don’t push the door at exactly the right moment, the latch sort of half-catches and then the door doesn’t open, because it’s still latched, albeit loosely.

This wasn’t just me that had this problem; over the week I had the car, I had five people try this, and, on average, the push-release mechanism wouldn’t really open the door about half the time. The parts technically worked – you could hear the latch release and all that, but if your timing was off by a bit, the door would catch and not be able to be opened.

So, what if we try it the other way, by pulling the handle? You know, like how most door releases work? Let’s take a look:

Doorhandle3

Oh, good, another label. Fantastic.

This label has The Great Bible of Information, an icon of the car with the door open, and instructs that you must pull the damn thing twice for it to work. Also, the red color sort of implies this is a kind of emergency manual release?

To its credit, the manual release proved to be more reliable than the push-electrical release mechanism, but having to pull the handle twice was irritating.

But that fits, because the whole thing is irritating! Somehow Lexus’s talented engineers and designers got together with the concept of car interior door handles and overthought the whole thing right into a huge cauldron of crap. How did they screw this up so dramatically, and with such needless complexity?

I suspect that there was some sort of demand that the doors unlatch electrically, under some misguided notion that this feels more “premium” or some similar bullshit. Then they must have realized that this approach demands that a purely mechanical override be present as well, because otherwise if your battery dies or you have some other electrical issue, you’re trapped in the car.

So, that made them design the pull-release mechanical method, which probably worked just fine, because that’s basically how the damn thing should have worked in the first place. So, because the people they were testing it with likely just pulled it to open and were happy in their ignorance that the push-electric actuator method existed, the product people couldn’t just let that happen, so they added the requirement that the pull-mechanical release have to be pulled twice, and then stuck the stupid temporary label on there for the electric method.

It’s so stupid – what has been solved here? How is any of this better than a normal handle? It’s more complex to use, more complex to build, maintain, and repair, confusing, all for what? So they can say it has electronically-released interior door handles? Who gives a shit?

This is a truly impressive unforced error on Lexus’ part. They’ve achieved that elusive trifecta of human-machine interface design: they took something well-understood to the point of invisibility and made it unintuitive, more complex, and more expensive.

Bravo. This is a real triumph for the subtle and beautiful art of absurd overthinking.

UPDATE

Commenter Jay Z has helpfully given some context to this puzzling design. It actually has a good purpose: not whacking cyclists with doors. You can see what Lexus was trying for here:

Now, this is great! If we can do things to keep from dooring cyclists, that would be fantastic! Could this have been executed better? Definitely, the design is still confusing as hell. For example, why can’t the anti-smack-a-cyclist functionality be separate from the handle mechanism itself, which could be easily understood and conventional, but a separate latch is engaged when the blind spot monitoring system triggers that something is approaching?

A double-pull could still act as an emergency release, and they could just eliminate the “push to open” bit? I’m just thinking here.

Still, glad to hear there’s a good reason behind all of this.

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104 thoughts on “The 2024 Lexus NX 350 Has The Worst Interior Door Handles I’ve Ever Seen UPDATE: There’s A Good Reason!”

  1. “You can see what Lexus is trying for here:” is followed by a blank space, and over the next paragraph is a little box saying “click to accept cookies and enable this content.” But it can’t be clicked. I’m assuming this is supposed to be an embedded tweet? Muskrat ruined that capability, so you guys need to do something else.

    I also don’t understand how making doors harder to open benefits cyclists, unless the idea is to one day weld the doors shut and make everyone exit the car through the sunroof.

    1. There should be a youtube video, but the gist is: sensors look out for passing traffic (bike or car) and beep at you instead of opening if you’re about to open the door into their path.

  2. Nah, there’s not a good reason for this- requiring two pulls in no way eliminates the dooring risk to cyclists, as people will just become used to the stupid double pull. The only way to reduce dooring is to teach the proper Dutch opening method, whereby the driver twists their body to open the door with their hand furthest from the door, and in doing so is forced to turn their torso and get a better view of any traffic coming up behind.

    And also, as a cyclist, just as a moto rider should, I assume 100% of the time people are going to do stupid shit, so I am never close enough to an occupied parked car to get doored.

    1. I get what you mean but disagree.The cycle/door episodes would be rare enough that no one would be getting muscle memory and start double-levering every time

  3. When you said “prevent you from hitting cyclists with your door” I thought it was meant to prevent you from opening your door while driving to smack that dastardly cyclist.

    I need some sleep.

  5. It’s a good idea implemented terribly. As a cyclist not being doored is appealing but as a former industrial design student the ergonomics are appalling

  6. I was “doored” just a couple years ago while riding my bicycle. And this is just stupid. Like most things you should do with a motor vehicle… LOOK FIRST.
    Why must everything in a modern car be a puzzle?

    1. THIS… but also not this.
      Car drivers will never even come close to being this sensible.Not with the appalling driver training we have these days. Even if that was cured somehow,people make mistakes.Sadly

  7. Imagine how fun it would be to put some schmear on the back corners of the Lexus so the sensor thinks there is traffic and the people have to use the “emergency double pull”. I’m too nice to do it, but I dislike this dumb handle so much it’s tempting.

  10. Overheard at a party: “It just cost me $4500 to replace a door handle because a sensor failed.”

    I’m sure I’ll never walk into a dealership and ask if they have a car with a stupid design ‘solution’ like this, but if I see an otherwise interesting vehicle with this, I’ll definitely walk out. Just the dumb trendy rear door handle in the c-pillar of the new Prius, is enough to make me scratch it off my list.

    The simple cycle safety solution is to force a Dutch Reach. Put the interior handle right behind the occupant’s shoulder so they have to look behind them. A lot of taxis have this kind of set up.

    2. First of all, a “Dutch Reach” sounds like something you have to pay extra for…

      Second, I like the idea, but for people with flexibility problems, it might be problematic, especially if they have to get out of the car quickly in an emergency.

      Instead of this strange push/pull setup that Lexus designed, why didn’t they make it a bit easier? Single pull on the lever will open the door normally. If the car detects another vehicle or cyclist, it prevents the door from opening with a single pull and requires the double pull, along with an audible warning sound. That way, people can still use the regular old single-pull action regularly that we’re all used to, yet still provide safety for other drivers, cyclists, and your vehicle when necessary. There’s no reason for this extra push-button action that is obviously confusing, even to experienced auto journalists/enthusiasts.

  13. A simpler solution to the dooring cyclist problem would be to only have doors on the passenger side of the car. Yes, the driver and one rear seat passenger would have to scooch over every time but it would also mean the return of bench seats. Also, just think how much cheaper it would be to make.

    1. This would depend on which side of a bike lane there is parking or passenger drop off. I say, go all sliding doors! Or weld the doors and make everyone climb out the window.

    2. The OSI Daf city car had a sliding driver’s door and hinged passenger doors (front normal, rear suicide and IIRC no B pillar). I had the Corgi model but mislaid it in the 70s.

  15. I bicycle commuted for 15 years. Getting doored was never an issue. I learned that if you are close enough to parked cars to get doored, you aren’t properly taking the lane and asking to get run off the road. most of my issues were at intersections, but that’s a rant for another day on a different website.

    I don’t see why they couldn’t use the normal door locks (with manual override) or have a fail safe electromechanical interrupt that blocks the mechanical action or disconnects it. Changing the user interface isn’t ideal.

  16. Use all the fancy sensors and add a solenoid that blocks the action of a regular handle. Make it so the override is simply overpowering the electromagnet in the solenoid.

    This ain’t rocket surgery.

    2. Or better yet, just have a passive system that beeps when the car is stopped, the key is inside the car, and an object is approaching from behind. Then let me decide if I give shit or not. Maybe I want to door the cyclist. Maybe he just snatched some old lady’s purse and is riding past my car on his getaway. Dammit, Lexus! Don’t deny me my moment of hero-dom!!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntGQOqNVVL4

      1. Are you sure? The Venn diagram of bicyclists and repeat DUI offenders has a big overlap here.

        If you change “bicyclists” to “bicyclists with a crappily added 2 cycle engine careening through residential neighborhoods at maximum speed” its nearly a perfect circle.

    2. I guess there’s more space in the US, but over here in the UK you always look as you open the door, because there’s a good chance that a car will be passing close enough to hit you. Even if you’re opening a door onto the pavement there might be someone walking right there.

  18. This kind of stupid shit that’s doesn’t need to be reinvented and they make new just for the sake of being new really pisses me off. Just like a lot of things being changed that have worked for decades! The principle of the matter is when it’s not an improvement, you’re going backwards! I can just see someone accidentally putting their car in a lake and is dead BECAUSE they couldn’t open their door, especially if it’s electronic (Yes, of course they can use metal on headrest to break window if too much pressure on door) Why?! Why?
    This is insanity

  19. First of all, I don’t care if they are using some sensor to prevent banging a biker, that’s an insanely complicated design. I guess that design team had a few two many Zoon meetings during the past few years… Whatever happened to using the side-view mirror to see if it’s kosher? Kids these days and their silly lawsuits mucking everything up.

    Secondly, and of much less importance, JT can you guys just use youtube for your embed vids like a normal person? Thanks in advance for catering the whole site to my preferences 🙂 I can’t be the only one who tries to limit data scraping and Meta is the King Kong of it. I get why you folks have every SM account possible, but…pee-yew.

  20. Tell me you don’t bike around a city without telling me…

    These door handles could have been better designed, but the underlying mechanism is there to try to prevent you from dooring a cyclist. The car is using the blind spot sensor to gauge whether or not to actually open the door.

    I’ve driven a current NX and RX and both have these pushbuttons. Everyone in the car figured it out after their second attempt, and after learning the car would try to prevent you from opening the door into a semi or killing a cyclist, comprehension was much higher.

    1. is that the thinking? That’s great, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s a way that could have been communicated better?

      3. I don’t see why they couldn’t have used a standard “UI” for the handle and still had the dooring safety function operate the same way. The confusion comes from changing the way the passengers have to interact with the handle in the first place.

      4. So those times when it stopped you from opening the door, those were because it thought there were cyclists? I’m guessing there were no actual cyclists.

    2. I’m a city biker and I like the idea, but this design is lacking what designers call affordances: physical hints of an object’s function. And outside of tech for it’s own sake, no reason i can see they couldn’t have made a traditional style door handle operate the same way, a mechanical pull handle could still trigger a switch that checks the blindspot as you suggest.

    3. OK, I like the idea, but so far, I’ve never been in a vehicle where I couldn’t just gently pull the door handle and not push on the door, so that it just popped out barely an inch without actually opening into traffic or whatever. At which point it’s generally easy to physically look both ways and in the mirror on the door to see if anything might be coming my way.

    4. Is that why my old R53 Mini had (same with many BMWs) door handles you had to pull twice to open the door? I hated that “feature” and it was eventually just second nature to double-tap the handle without a second thought.

      1. I have that on my 328 just one generation back. Not a prob for me, but psgs tend to yank harder when no response at first – you can just see the handle and internals bending. So “pull gently twice” is the reflexively vocalized instruction.

      2. It should only be two pulls if the door is locked. First pull unlocks the door, second opens it. If the door is already unlocked one pull will open the door.

        1. I prefer the VW system where the door handle retracts further into the door when it’s locked. So when you pull on it, first it moves back to it’s normal position (which unlocks the door), then a further pull opens the latch like normal.

    5. I think it’s fairly easy to both make the handle easy to use and familiar while also retaining that function. Since the main mechanism to prevent opening the door into someone is the electronic release, you can set it up to work like a traditional door handle – pull out to release – while also retaining that functionality – electronic release that doesn’t trigger until the way is clear, maybe with a light or beep to tell you why.

      Doing it this way is poor implementation of a good idea.

    6. Fellow city cyclist here – I honestly had no clue that this was why the door opening mechanism was designed this way, but it makes sense if you think about it. That said, knowing the demographic for most Lexuses, well… I’m guessing that this is gonna cause a LOT of confusion. But, if confusing old people is going to prevent me from getting “doored”, then I’m ok with it since nobody (even here in bike friendly Portland) seems to understand how the Dutch Reach works.

  22. The exterior handles are similar in concept to VW/Audi style handles from the late 60s through the 80s. The plastic versions of which are well known for breaking in the cold

    1. Touching screens is so 2020. We’re moving everything to voice now so you can say “Hey, OK My Lexus, open the driver’s door”, it will misinterpret it and instead send a text message to your ex that says “I miss you”.

      2. No, it’ll be a haptic pad on the door panel and you’ll have to draw the word “OPEN” in cursive for the door to open. Similar functions for locking/unlocking and rolling the windows up/down.

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