I'd be interested to see how much actual power savings you get from a more aerodynamic door handle anyway, but it seems that this could be handled by a simple locking flip down cover over a recessed handle if the savings is actually non-negligible.

You add drag any time there's a divit in the panels. There's lots of vortexes and disruption that happens just because of how your hand is shaped and where it needs to go.

There might be a better way to do it, but the other car companies haven't done anything yet that I've seen to drastically reduce the drag from the handles.

Customers want range and saving money. If it does that without extra hassle, it makes sense. But that's still up in the air. Especially with Tesla's anti right to repair making things more difficult all around.

I found a 12% figure. Aerodynamics are a primary driver of range, which is a major ev selling point. A 12% drag decrease is huge, because you can carry less battery which means you can have a smaller motor, lighter frame, leading to even more range. So it would be very important if that is true.

The retractable door handle design allows radical aerodynamic designing for the side body panel. Retractable door handles are invisible handles that contribute by about 12% to reduce the drag coefficient of vehicles. Retractable door handles eliminate the issue of airflow bulge creation, air flow turbulence generation, and air flow pressure conservation. The decreased drag coefficient will also contribute to increasing the fuel efficiency of vehicles as there will be low drag generation resisting the movement of vehicles through the airflow. Amey Vikram, a lead analyst at Technavio for automotive components research

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180105005468/en/Top-3-Drivers-of-the-Global-Automotive-Retractable-Door-Handle-System-Market-Technavio