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.
The only drawback is that some pasengers struggle to understand how to open the door, specially old folks. I do not understand how a normal customer can’t use few minutes to learn critical safety stuff about his new car, even the frosting argument is explained in the manual.
So I have to study a manual every time I hop into a taxi?
It would probably be more like airplanes where the taxi driver would inform you of how to put on a seatbelt, get out of the car, use the seat as a floatation device, etc.
In Farsi!
Wow, racist as well as stupid.
You really need some bling for your airbag cover Andrew!
Yes, that’s mandatory. “Farsi in 10 lessons” if you’re in New York.
The only drawback?! That drawback is that some people are roasted alive.
Critical safety systems and overrides should be redundant, mechanical. They should also be simple enough a child, or panicked person, should be able to understand it.
Part of the problem and why it’s so severe is that it’s an EV, which can burn up like a road flare in seconds when the battery catches flame. No time to look for a curb stone to bash the window in – the door has to open right now.
Burning alive is a pretty substantial drawback too
Just not true.
In an bad accident, bystanders want to be able to put a lot of force on the door handles.
The entire car is likely bent.
Yes, you don’t want to move an injured person, but fire.
I’ll grant that newer car door handle aren’t as good as older ones.
Those had a riveted steel band underlying.
Benz used the old style for an extra decade as they WERE better.
They used to care.
Retractable ones are just a dumb idea.
Popping the door latch solenoid automagically after a wreck is not a substitute, at all.
You need the latch held open until you can pop the jammed door open, with your shoulder from inside, pulling on the handle from outside or with a pry bar.
Shaved handles do not degrade gracefully.
These are just commercial versions of shaved handles, but not for show cars.
I’m amazed these stupid handles ever got DOT approval.
Must have been buying drinks in DC and that shithole where the EU HQ is. (Name escapes me?…GD sprouts…Brussels!).
Also note:
If you come upon an accident under no circumstances allow a walking about ‘victim’ to sit in your car.
The emergency crew will cut the roof off your car to extract the walking about person onto a backboard.
And F-you, nobody is paying except you.
You were not in an accident.
The point of the article was that there is no regulation for door handles. You shouldn’t be amazed that they got DOT approval, since it wasn’t required.
And no, the emergency crew will not cut the roof off your car.
That’s TFA claim.
I call BS.
Door handles were regulated before this.
Every part of cars is.
Seats, door arm rests, dashboards, everything.
Even stupid things are regulated to death.
Electric actuated latches passed safety inspection by government ‘experts’.
Somehow..?
Proof:
The mechanical backup release inside.
They were/are iterating.
Go ahead and let possibly injured people sit in your car.
You deserve it.
Ok. If it’s BS then please provide a link to the regulation you claim exists.
Similarly, please provide a link to a newspaper report or other published source with a story about how an emergency services crew cut the roof off a bystander’s vehicle to rescue a patient who was mobile.
Yeah, the passengers struggle as the flames rise, and unfortunately the driver, who was apparently a “normal customer” with time to waste on learning minutiae like that (and time to waste on deploying the door handle every time they get into the car, and money to waste on a car with that kind of pointlessly expensive design philosophy it in the first place), is dead at that point, and therefore not very helpful.
It’s stupid to have to read a manual to open a door. It’s also stupid to have a complicated, unreliable, powered system with motors and who-knows-what-else where a simple, reliable one will do. If you MUST have aerodynamic door handles, use recessed ones with a flimsy little manually operated spring flap over the opening. But even that is obnoxious.
So it’s okay to burn old people alive?
I don’t see a place in the article about the age of the people to burn. I think it’s not ok to burn any people, old or young if they are alive. You must kill them first, it’s more humane.
It is also ok to drown them if the vehicle enters water and the electrical system is fried.
You can’t open the doors under water so it doesn’t matter. People seem to forget that driving is an inherently dangerous activity, not a god given right. It requires responsibility on the behalf of whoever is inside the vehicle.
You can if the car is almost full of water, so there’s no pressure differential. Mythbusters episode something something.
Perhaps someday when you are more life experienced, you will understand.
Until then, a little compassion for those a little less mentally agile than yourself would be appreciated.
From, an old folk
Probably because most people don’t care :) . Just expect it to ‘work’ and move down the road and get in and out easily when stopped… I, at least, do look in the manual (and on-line) to find how to turn as much stuff off as possible like seat beat alarms and such. To many interlocks…. Pet Peeve on current vehicle — If I am rolling down the highway and want to take my coat off, I unbuckle, and … cruise control goes off! What? Ridiculous. Cruise shouldn’t care. Set and forget. Oh, and if the stupid eye-sight is unavailable, you can’t use cruise control…. Weird.
Secondly, a car should NOT be harder to use, but easier. grab the handle internal/external and open. Simple. Or should be. I also don’t like the dependency on electrical stuff to get in/out of a car. Battery shorts, dies…. should be able to easily exit or get into the car to pop the hood or whatever.
Sounds like a reason to carry a seat belt/window breaking tool.
Doesn’t Melon claim to have bullet proof glass?
Fun fact, window break tools utilize the pressure water puts on the exterior and focuses an impact on a single point. The force on a single point combined with the external pressure is significant enough that it will cause even a small-arms resistant (“bullet proof”) glass to break.
That seems like it wouldn’t help during a fire
Unless you’re in a car with anti theft window film or, supposedly, unbreakable glass like a Cyberdreck
the latest cars have laminated windows which won’t shatter. Not just Tesla.
Although I found that image of the person in the trunk slightly disturbing, I could not help wondering if there still is enough room left for some lengthy piece of rope, a roll of tape, a large plastic sheet, a medium size chainsaw and a shovel? And does anyone know if this car model has an easy way of preventing the trunk from being opened from the inside? Just curious.
Don’t forget the back seat bench fold down.
That’s your worst case.
A bag of quicklime is great for adding traction to the back of your car.
The frunk is better for storing quicklime, as you can shovel it directly in front of the wheel track. Always use the frunk for plausible deniability.
Good. <“Do It” Meme>
It’s easy to foresee, but difficult to admit.
When Mr. Musk says “I want flush door handles, I want, I want!”, the engineers who say there’s a hazard of people getting trapped inside and burning alive will get fired, just like he fired the engineers who said that the Autopilot was an accident waiting to happen.
Then when Tesla does it, the Chinese copy it, and who cares if it’s safe or not. You don’t embarrass your superiors with stupid questions. You “voted” them to be your leaders, now follow.
The good part is that they’re at least reacting to the problem, but hindsight is always 20/20.
Like the sensible government engineers in China, who came up with the idea of processing coal into methanol and blending it to fuels to save on cost, then realized, “wait, where’s all this deadly smog coming from?”.
It’s not like the parts that go on street cars aren’t already insanely regulated.
To the point where the rules are a big ‘barrier to entry’ for new car companies.
Can’t recall the name, but small car company making street legal 3/4 race cars used (IIRC) Chrysler interior parts as the cost of getting things like door ‘arm rests’ approved exceeded their total bankroll.
How these door handles got approved in the first place deserves serious examination.
What are we paying those clowns for if they approved this?
From a regulation stand point, those handle are ok. There’s a safety measure that allow to operate them in case of crash. From a moral point, they are dumb, you’ll never be able to find the emergency rope if you’ve been hurt and shocked, trying to escape while fumes are accumulating indoor. So, the problem isn’t the regulation, you don’t need more regulation. You need people able to think and reject something based on pure logic even if it complies with the regulation. In short, give more power to an independent experts who will spot the issue and less to law abiding regulator that’ll just check the box “Emergency latch present”.
Don’t need more regulation.
Fix the current rule.
Maybe find a second useless rule to delete while you’re at it.
A little refactor.
If you ban solenoid actuated car latches (but not locks), you can forget about the whole mechanical backup cable pull thing.
You lose remote open, otherwise someone will game it and make the ‘prime latch’ suck hard.
I don’t believe that will happen.
Because power grubbers.
Always more rules, normies love rules.
Also:
Put KISS back into automotive engineering.
First company that does it, gets rich beyond avarice.
Might have to time the battery market.
The ‘small block chevy’ of battery packs will only be obvious in hindsight.
I mostly think shaved door handles and such on new cars should be legal!
But hard to sell because people aren’t that stupid.
Data says: ‘Nope, people are that stupid.’
I’m also trying to convince idiots to put heavy jewelery on their car airbags.
Airbag bling is the best way to display you are a high status individual!
Your data would be valid if door handles were the only deciding factor in buying a car. The problem is, your options are rather limited if you start to eliminate cars by every stupid little thing they have, because they all have some stupid trend or regulatory feature.
Find me a basic car that has manual transmission, normal halogen headlights, no stupid infotainment system, no glowing multi-mode LCD screens but just a normal speedo with a needle, all physical buttons and levers for controls, a regular radio not integrated to the dash, no fat sweeping A-pillars that block your view, no random bleep bloop warnings and speed limiters that yell at you for going 1 kph over the GPS indicated speed limit that is always wrong, no apps or updates or internet connectivity required, no lane assist that tries to steer you into oncoming trucks because you’re driving too close to the shoulder or yank your steering wheel suddenly when another lane splits to the right… It should be a reasonably sized sedan, not a tiny hatchback or a SUV/Crossover. No tiny turbocharged 3 cylinder lawnmower engines either. A regular straight four with 100+ HP will do – the simpler the better.
Why not automatic? Well, you might, as long as it’s not a hybrid with a lithium battery that will rot on you past 10 years. It’s just more likely to break and more expensive to repair when it does. No DSG or “robot manuals” though – those are just annoying – and definitely not rubber band CVT.
Oh, and it needs to be made in the year 2025. The car described above was last made in the early 2000’s, so the only such examples you can find on the market now are just about ready to bale.
Your data would be valid if door handles were the only deciding factor in buying a car. The problem is, your options are rather limited if you start to eliminate cars by every stupid little thing they have, because they all have some stupid trend or regulatory feature.
Finally a good use for the Bedazzler !
Most of today’s “innovations” is stupidity over utility. Things that work are often substituted with something that is nice and shiny, overcomplicated piece of crap. My first thought when I saw those handles was what they will do in the case of a crash and all electrical failure (because you know, cars have fuses cutting the power in case of a crash). And they look ugly too.
It’s called product differentiation. When the best option is already invented, and everybody’s doing it, you have to do something worse to differentiate yourself on the market. Difference for the sake of difference – the rest is down to marketing.
“Product differentiation” on basic ergonomic features like the mechanics of OPENING A DOOR are, dare I say it, really really stupid.
When the consumers are confused over a multitude of similar but subtly different options with multiple pros and cons, they focus on inconsequential details like the door handles, or how fast the electric windows wind up. Just something that the salesperson can point at and say “Isn’t that neat?”. That is what seals the deal.
There’s also a real factor of having a big personality in a leadership position. They can get really fixated on some detail that they’ve decided is important. Even if market research/engineering says its a bad idea. I’ve worked for a few of the types, much smaller companies but same idea. They sign your paycheque though, so you find a way to make it work. That being said, I’ve only been asked to do pointless ostentatious stuff, nothing that could actually endanger lives. I’m not sure I could go along with that.
First tenant of engineering ethics.
‘Public safety and welfare: The primary duty of an engineer is to hold the safety, health, and welfare of the public paramount. Unless they pay you a F-ton.’
I think it shows that Tesla is a technology company, that ended up making things that resemble cars…
The first gen Tesla Ss were the worst for dumb handles.
IIRC they average 1 handle failure per car*year.
$2000+ part, when it was available.
Tesla conflated in a bunch of stuff with electric vehicles.
Full auto driving (‘real soon now’, lane following was already common).
Unrepairable die cast chassis.
Dumb door designs of all kinds, not just the handles.
Weird material choices.
I expect it will end with Teslas being insanely expensive to insure.
‘Totals’ very common.
Nobody sane will touch a salvage title Tesla.
Nobody will insure a salvage title Tesla.
At some point junkyard Tesla drivetrains should get cheap.
Then ’57 Fiat 500 w Plaid Tesla drive.
Computerized wheelie control and differential steering hacked into traction control.
Record length wheelies around clover leaf highway interchanges.
There is an industry already (mostly in california, sadly) of pallets of tesla batteries and drivetrains. The vehicle is a writeoff so it gets parted out.
Electric assist steering assemblies, electric AC compressors, drive units for $2000, the list goes on.
It is a good time to build a kit car if you want to drive down with a trailer and a dream. :)
Regular junkyard behavior.
The point is the price.
$2000 is a lot for a junkyard IC engine for an older car…unless Honda B or similar of course.
Electric engine alone isn’t comparable…
Especially if your car is going to need two of them…Like a Fiat 500.
Thye already are expensive to insure, some of the Teslas are in the same insurance category as Ferraris, Porsche etc and it’s almost definitely due to cost of repairs.
There are several leasing companies in the UK which don’t offer Tesla or price them so high that they’re an extremely unattractive option and that, according to friends in the business, is because of poor build quality, poor reliability, awful spares availability, expensive spares and the need to have Tesla recertify the vehicle after accident damage
That and being stink fast.
‘Loose nut between wheel and seat’.
Dumb people w first money move way up in power/weight ratio, thinking they’ve bought skills.
Don’t have any respect for ‘stupid fast’.
Used to thoughtlessly stomping throttle.
Teslas not different.
IMHO if the NHRA says your car needs a safety cage, it needs a safety cage, on the street.
Owners of stink fast cars say the NHRA has banned their cars, which it hasn’t.
They just need to gut the interior to install an ’11 second cage’.
Or a 9 second cage and a parachute, as the case may be.
The “two stage handle” design is so obvious. Somebody had to deliberately remove the handles in the name of aesthetics.
I was prepared for a wild ride when I saw the Model 3/Y door handle as the article’s image of a “retractable door handle” (it’s not). But the amount of misinformation in the comments is staggering.
The Model S/X have door handles that detect you and present themselves (e.g. electronically deploy and retract). The Model 3/Y handles are just levers that lay flush to the car.
The Chinese regulators are going after the former, not the later. However there is concern that the later might also be impacted.
Everyone is focused on Tesla because that’s the main western car they can cite as having those door handles, but they are more wide spread in China on dozens of cars. The Model S/X make up approximately 6% of Tesla’s fleet.
Model 3 door handles are just switches that activate a solenoid to actually open the door.
They are slightly less stupid then S/X handles, but still very dumb.
“a small but measurable aerodynamic benefit”
I find it strange that the manufacturers of these death traps would turn to electronic door handles with several obvious and potentially deadly failure modes by which occupants are left trapped inside the vehicle (fire, water, electrical failure, accident, dead battery, icing, etc.)
My 1988 Subaru XT-6 had flush mechanical door handles that worked extremely well, even when completely iced over! If these companies want to put flush door handles on their cars, fine. Just do it in a way that makes sense.
Hyundai uses flush door handles on the Ioniq 5. They electrically present themselves when the car is unlocked, but are easy to operate manually too.
Electric power required to open doors or apply the emergency brake = idiotic. Grok says electric windows typically work for 30 seconds to a few minutes on a submerged vehicle.
Why do we need electric door handles? You can do aerodynamic door handles mechanically. Balancing aerodynamics with usability without electricity may be a bit of a challenge, but I think car companies can do it if they put their minds and money to the task.
“usability without electricity may be a bit of a challenge”
Shouldn’t be… Been using mechanical handles … well almost since the car was invented…. And they can be quite stylish too. At the speeds ‘most’ cars are intended for, aerodynamics is a non-issue for ‘door handles’. Like bell-bottom pants, the flush handles is just a ‘fad’… but a dangerous one.
It’s because mechatronic engineers can’t think like mechanical engineers: they abstract the design task and break down the system into sub-components and design them separately, usually by separate teams as well so the work can be delegated or even outsourced and done in parallel – like software which can be written in modules by following a common API. One team works in India, the other in Pakistan, and the third team just wraps them together and calls it done.
The idea that the door handle mechanism would actually need to be coordinated with the door lock mechanism as one system starts to become a problem: it would slow down the third team that is concurrently and independently designing the door unit, because you’d need three-way communication with the teams that produce the lock and the handle.
So, it’s “simpler” to connect them by wire rather than a push rod or a cable.
“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.”
Camera-based rear view systems DO have a significant problem. They require re-focusing in a way that optical mirrors don’t because of light physics. Letting automakers get rid of physics-based, reliable safety systems for digital toys they can show off on dealership lots, with the excuse of getting an extra 5 miles of range on an EV (something they could do just as well by not using 25 inch wheels on everything), wouldn’t be great.
Of course, that seems trifling in the context of retractable door handles. Forget the safety issues, they’re outright stupid, A convoluted mess to dazzle simpletons. Ban them, blacklist anyone who signed off on them from positions of leadership. Useless idea by useless people.
This is ridiculous. If Tesla door handles make it so someone can be trapped inside, that’s just a defective design and has nothing to do with them being flush with the door. The problem is the purely electronic design. And it’s a symptom of Tesla not having enough experience. GM cars typically are built so that if the door is locked, the first pull of the interior handle unlocks it. The second pull opens the door. Problem solved. As for the exterior, it’s not a big deal. Locked doors can’t be opened from outside anyway? The issue then becomes the door lock. Let’s go back to GM. GM has a key lock on only one opening these days. On my Equinox,it’s on the hatch. If the power fails and you need to get in, you can still open the hatch. Onn some cars, if the power fails you can’t open anything. That’s a problem. That’s a defect and the solution is to provide an emergency key that opens one of the doors or the hatch. It has literally zero to do with flush door handles. But if you REALLY want to fix the very insignificant problem with electronic flush door handles retracting while unlocked and when if the power subsiqiently fails, the unlocked door handle will not open, simply require them to make it mechanically operated. In other words, on a typical flush door handle that has retracted, if the door is unlocked, pressing on the handle makes it extend. Just make it so that if you press it hard it will activate the latch and it will pop out. If you press it lightly, it activate the switch, and a motor releases the latch so it pops out. If you actually think that it’s necessary to be able to open an unlocked door, with the power off, if that unlocked door latch has retracted prior to power being lost. It’s not a big deal either way
People here in the US are latching onto it like a hungry pitbull onto a t-bone steak because of political reasons. It’s more of the ev-hater crowd looking for something wrong with them. “Omg the flush door handles are unsafe”. It’s probably the same in china. Except that someone got a payoff as well.
What you want from automotive designers and engineers and from lawmakers and homologizators, when cars are designed with taillights off when the daily frontlights are on, even in rain or fog. Mercedeses, Hyundais, Lexuses, Audis, Toyotas etc. In the age of electricity there should be all lights on when the motor is on.
I was saying that there too much régulation already, let the darwin théory make it’s way for people willing too, and if not enough, let’s them go for a submarine ride!
But i’ve to admit that not the solution. in some case, this type of technology backed by uneducated people become the only available, due to the educated/uneducated ratio in society. It’s stupid, do not make life easier, cost a bunch more, and sometimes dangerous, not only for the owners but for people around too. There is tons of example, the worst i could find being already in the previous comment, the auto-pilot. It’s fun that most of EV pack all this stupid things in one car. It’s say a lot about people owning them.