Tesla’s Controversial Door Handles Could Trigger New Safety Rules

• Tesla's controversial door handles and releases have once again ended up in NHTSA's lap.
• The feds officially denied a petition to investigate Tesla's door handles over safety concerns.
• Instead, it granted a petition to begin looking into rewriting regulations to better address safety in new cars.

Tesla's door handles have been controversial for about as long as its been making cars. They're sleek, aerodynamic, and became a trend-setter in modern automotive design. We're talking about both the smooth pop-out handles on the outside and the modern electronic push-button releases on the inside. Now regulators are questioning whether this kind of setup is too unsafe. 

After fielding complaints, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has decided that it will not investigate the Tesla Model 3's interior door releases as a safety defect. Instead, the federal agency says that it might do something more wide-reaching. In a filing reported by Bloomberg, NHTSA said it would "commence a rulemaking proceeding" to "mandate a robust and obvious door egress system in all motor vehicles." In other words, the agency will start working on requirements that would ensure people can safely get out of their cars in an emergency. 

Photo by: Tesla

Last year, Bloomberg uncovered a pattern of incidents, some fatal, in which people couldn't exit Teslas following a crash because the vehicle lost power. Teslas do also have manual backup releases inside. But they are not necessarily obvious, and don't help first responders get into a car. NHTSA later opened an investigation into Tesla's handles, and lawmakers have proposed a law that would mandate manual backups in cars with electronic door handles. (Tesla isn't the only one with some version of this design.)

To be clear, this doesn't mean that anything will change overnight. NHTSA says that the rulemaking process generally takes the longest time to complete of any regulatory tool at its disposal because of how broad and far-reaching its implications might be. It would require seeking public comment and a long process. But this kind of rule wouldn't be unprecedented. Earlier this year, China announced it would enforce more stringent rules on both interior and exterior door handles beginning in 2027. 

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