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Chinese Regulators May Kill Retractable Car Door Handles That Never Should Have Existed
Headlights. Indicators. Trunk releases. Seatbelts. Airbags. Just about any part of a car you can think of is governed by a long and complicated government regulation. It’s all about safety, ensuring that the car-buying public can trust that their vehicles won’t unduly injure or maim them in regular operation, or in the event of accident.
However, one part of the modern automobile has largely escaped regulation—namely, the humble door handle. Automakers have been free to innovate with new and wacky designs, with Tesla in particular making waves with its electronic door handles. However, after a series of deadly incidents where doors wouldn’t open, regulators are now examining if these door handles are suitable for road-going automobiles. As always, regulations are written in blood, but it raises the question—was not the danger of these complicated electronic door handles easy to foresee?
Trapped
A number of automakers have developed fancy retractable door handles in recent years. They are most notably seen on electric vehicles, where they are stated to have a small but measurable aerodynamic benefit. They are often paired with buttons or other similar electronic controls to open the doors from the inside. Compared to mechanical door handles, however, these door handles come with a trade-off in complexity. They require electricity, motors, and a functioning control system to work. When all is well, this isn’t a problem. However, when things go wrong, a retractable electronic door handle often proves inaccessible and useless.
It’s not hard to find case reports of fatal incidents involving vehicles with electronic door handles—both inside and out. Multiple cases have involved occupants burning alive inside Tesla vehicles, in which electronic door handles failed after a crash. Passengers inside the vehicles have failed to escape due to not finding emergency release door pulls hidden in the door panels, while bystanders have similarly been unable to use the retracted outside door handles to free those trapped inside.
In response, some Tesla owners have gone so far as to release brightly-colored emergency escape ripcords to replace the difficult-to-spot emergency release pulls that are nearly impossible to find without prior knowledge. In the case of some older models, though, there’s less hope of escape. For example, in the Tesla Model 3 built from 2017 to 2023, only front doors have an emergency mechanical release. Rear passengers are out of luck, and must find another route of escape if their electronic door handles fail to operate. No Tesla vehicles feature an easily-accessible mechanical release that can be used from outside the vehicle.
It’s worth noting that in the US market, federal regulations have mandated glow-in-the-dark trunk releases be fitted to all sedans from the 2002 model year onwards. You could theoretically escape from the trunk of certain Teslas more easily than a Cybertruck or Model 3 with a failed electrical system.
Tesla isn’t the only company out there building cars with retractable door handles. It does, however, remain the most prominent user of this technology, and its vehicles have been involved in numerous incidents that have made headlines. Other automakers, such as Audi and Fiat, have experimented with electronic door handles, both for ingress and egress, with varying degrees of mechanical backup available. In some cases, automakers have used smart two-stage latches. A small pull activates the electronic door release, while a stronger pull will engage a mechanical linkage that unlatches the door. It’s smart engineering—the door interface responds to the exact action a passenger would execute if trying to escape the vehicle in a panic. There are obviously less concerns around electronic door releases that have easily-accessed mechanical backups; it’s just that Tesla is particularly notable for not always providing them.
Over the years, national automotive bodies have thrown up their arms about all sorts of emerging automotive technologies. In the United States specifically, NHTSA has famously slow-walked the approval of things like camera-based rear-view mirror systems and replaceable-bulb headlamps, fearing the worst could occur if these technologies were freely allowed on the market.
Meanwhile, despite the obvious risks, electronic door handles have faced no major regulatory challenges. There were no obvious written rules standing in the way of Tesla making the choice to eliminate regular old door handles. Nor were there strict regulations on emergency door releases for passengers inside the vehicle. Tesla spent years building several models with no mechanical door release for the rear passengers. If your door button failed, you’d have to attempt escape by climbing out through the front doors, assuming you could figure out how to open them. Even today, the models with mechanical door releases still often hide them behind interior trim pieces or carpets, where few passengers would ever think to look in an emergency.
Obvious Mistakes
Things are beginning to change, however. Chinese regulators have led the charge, with reports stating that electronic retractable door handles could be banned as soon as 2027. While some semi-retractable styles will potentially avoid an outright ban, it’s believed new regulations will require a mechanically redundant release system as standard.
As for the US, the sleeping giant of NHTSA has finally awoken in the wake of Bloomberg‘s reporting on the matter. As reported by CNBC, Tesla has been given a deadline of December 10 to deliver records to the federal regulator, regarding design, failures, and customer issues around its electronic door release systems. The Office of Defects Investigations within NHTSA has already recorded 16 reports of failed exterior door releases in the a single model year of the Tesla Model Y. It’s likely a drop in the ocean compared to the full population of Tesla vehicles currently on roads. Meanwhile, the US automaker also faces multiple lawsuits over the matter from those who have lost family members in fatal crashes and fires involving the company’s vehicles.
In due time, it’s likely that automotive regulators in most markets will come out against electronic door handles from a safety perspective alone. No matter how well designed the electrical system in a modern vehicle, it’s hard to beat a lever flipping a latch for simplicity and robustness. The benefits of these electronic door handles are spurious in the first place—a fraction of a percent reduction in drag, and perhaps a little more luxury appeal. If the trade-off is trapping passengers in the event of a fire, it’s hard to say they’re worthwhile.
The electronic door handle, then, is perhaps the ultimate triumph of form over function. They’re often slower and harder to use than a regular door handle, and particularly susceptible to becoming useless when iced over on a frosty morning. For a taste of the future, lives were put at risk. Anyone could see that, so it’s both strange and sad that automakers and regulators alike seemed not to notice until it was far too late. Any new regulations will, once again, be written in blood.
