China is banning hidden door handles on all cars sold in the country, becoming the first country in the world to target the feature – which was popularized by Tesla but has for years drawn concern over safety risks.
The feature has previously come under heavy scrutiny, both in China and elsewhere.
Last September, Tesla said it was looking into redesigning the way to open its car doors in an emergency, after several accidents where passengers were reportedly killed or severely injured in burning vehicles because rescuers could not open them.
Other Tesla owners have reported having to break their own car windows after buckling their children in and then being unable to get in the car again, according to an investigation by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
An investigation by Bloomberg found 140 incidents of people being trapped in their Teslas due to problems with the door handles, including several that resulted in horrific injuries.
Good!
I just got myself a Chinese Lynk & Co 08. It has hidden door handles. After reading news like this I get kinda nervous.
Great car overall, shares the same platform and tech as the newly announced volvo XC70 (the new one).
Honestly do not understand how cars are not more heavily monitored for these kinds of safety features even for today.
They weren’t regulated because nobody tried to make door handles that weren’t always accessible before. Now that someone has, and it has proven to be dangerous, regulation is starting to happen.
Most modern cars lock the doors when going faster than the walking speed so in case of crash the doors are more unlikely to fly open. Similary most modern cars unlock the doors after crash so passengers can get out from the car. Tesla included. In case the door fails to unlock there usually are way to manualy open the locks, but Tesla has made it to a treasure hunt with multiple stages, hidden paths and there is a wizard at the end asking quizzes before you can open the door. So in the end Musk can say there is a way to mechanically open the doors, because there is. Its just not convinient or safe.
Gee, why did DOGE fire most of the NHTSA? Auto safety has been corrupted since Detroit got addicted to selling people cheaply made trucks on a safety loophole. Ironically, people will tell you they bought their flippy tanks for safety.
Like when they suddenly decided every single function of the car including those you’re expected to operate while driving should be under 4 sub-menus on a touch screen you need to look at.
Tesla leads all manufacturers for crashes two years in a row.
Coincidentally, DOGE fired most NTHSA staff the first week, while Teslurrr was under 17 investigations.
And often not even haptic.
The Pinto became so renowned not because it easily blew up, but because people found out Ford had calculated the cost of payments to victims’ families and worked out it was cheaper than recalling all the vehicles and fixing the problem. Capitalism has been alive and well for at least the last 50 years.
The Pinto is a good example of how law firms in class actions seed the minds of the public. All Detroit manufacturers had similar gas tank designs at that time, they just decided to focus on Ford because they had more money.
Similarly, unintended acceleration lawsuits against AUDI and Toyota were bullshit, but Toyota had black boxes installed to prove those crying moms were lying.
Chevrolet has been killing people with electric door locks since 2015, but no one cares.
Texas Man and His Dog Found Dead After Becoming Trapped Inside Car https://share.google/CmKibwq8sWOHwHimD
500 years more so
I don’t know much about this, but in my understanding, it’s not that the handle hides in the door, but the fact that the latch inside is electronic. Using a mechanical latch that will work even without any electrical power would solve the problem.
It’s both. The electric latch can trap occupants inside the vehicle, and the external handles make it difficult for rescuers to quickly access anyone trapped inside.
Any locked car cannot be opened from the outside regardless of whether handles are there or not.
One is definitely way worse than the other though.
The flush handles on a model 3 are annoying in ice but the situations in which you desperately need into a car seem less likely than the situations where you need out but can’t find the stupid pull tab that’s hidden under plastic.
Good
So now Tesla can’t sell any cars in China. Take note investors.
Also, Chinese car makers like Jaecoo, who have also been using hidden car door latches, launched practical copies of models with normal car door latches in 2025.
Tesla will just add regular handles to chinese models, they have factories in China just for the chinese market.
I expect Tesla will continue to decline in the chinese market tho, even now its only bought as a form of conspicuous consumption.
Yes, but when? How long to redesign the door with regular handles? What do you do with the ones already built? Replace the whole door?
How long to redesign the door with regular handles?
Like a day? Car door handles are a pretty mature technology.
What do you do with the ones already built? Replace the whole door?
Yes, you do a staged recall, using the previous recalled doors as material to build the new ones.
But I suspect the law will have a grandfather clause, theres a lot of chinese cars that copied Tesla’s mistakes.
I got uber once, and tesla arrived. I was unable to enter this piece of death machine.
So now imagine that you want to help people locked in burning tesla, but you have no idea how to open freaking door. Tesla is protecting the world from some kind of people.
Safety policies are written in blood. Or in this case, ashes.
So when Tesla goes bankrupt and all these people own cars locked down by software, unable to service them, I guess they just turn into giant paper weights?
They can push them into local rivers because they are green.
People are already hacking/jailbreaking Teslas, but that definitely not for everyone
How can it has been approved first? in case of crash and battery disconnect for whatever reason, you are trapped in the car, cannot get in cannot get out‽‽‽
Also I’d like to know after let’s say 10 years, how many kWh did you save thanks to that?
So, the flush handles actually save a lot.
The thing is, there’s purely mechanical ways of solving the problem. Including a hinge set somewhere towards the middle- so you push one side in, and the other angled out so you can open it.
Not the most convenient, but it’s less inconvenient than an over engineered piece of shit that breaks every winter.
They do not “save a lot” It’s purely a marketing gimmick.
The normal pocket handles do create a not insignificant amount of drag.
The pop out mechanism is stupid, don’t get me wrong, but it does have an appreciable effect on range.
The normal handles might shift the coefficient of drag by 0.01 by the most generous estimate I could find, and the Lucid Air has a coefficient of 0.197… It’s insignificant. A flap-type door handle that is recessed is probably exactly the same as the ‘cool’ flat handle look, and if not an air baffle for the lower half would absolutely make it the same as the weird ones
No, it really doesn’t. Having your tires low by 1 psi would be a bigger difference.
Last time I got on a coworker’s Tesler, thats how they worked. Push the large part in with your thumb and the handle pops out. Curl your fingers around it and pull.
The thing I thought of later was “that made sene to me, who grew up in the 70’s/80’s/90’s with handles that had a button you push in with your thumb. No kid knows that anymore.”
That’s not what is being banned- though the newer style could still be electric and problematic, the style they’re really going after seems motorized pop out handles that look like this:
Yeah, that design is dumb… but also they must have changed the design. I don’t have and don’t ever care to have one, so I’m not sure on that.
The more expensive models have the motorised handles.
The older ones, because they learned it was a bad design.
I don’t have and don’t ever care to have one, so I’m not sure on that
Same, really. Even just getting in one is a bad idea.
in case of crash and battery disconnect for whatever reason, you are trapped in the car, cannot get in cannot get out‽‽‽
You can get out using a manual pull.
But Americans don’t read manuals.
Americans also like bad interiors in their expensive vehicles, it seems. That door card looks horrible.
This is why Tesla has been a mixed bag. They have made some smart choices and they have made some not so smart choices. Unfortunately, because they essentially are the EV market in America, all other companies looking to bring EVs to the market have copied Tesla in many ways, both the good and the bad. I think that’s at least part of the reason why the EV market is suffering right now.
People shouldn’t buy Tesla because a) their cars are garbage and dangerous, and b) the owner of the company is a Nazi. Have a good day, y’all!
A.2, overpriced!
a) their cars are garbage and dangerous, and b) the owner of the company is a Nazi.
also c) the owner is a pedophile who frequented Epstein Island.
Anyways, this will all be moot in a few years, Tesla is getting out of cars and shifting to robot butler sex robots.
Moot? b) and c) are surely timeless crimes.
You been asleep? Laws mean nothing any more.
I don’t mean he’ll be prosecuted, I mean we won’t forget, and won’t buy his products.
They’re overpriced.
Yup, any price for garbage is too much
I love the Audi e-tron. Feels sturdy like an audi, no stupid gimmicks like disappearing handles.
But it’s an AUDI, so it will fall apart 11 seconds after the lease is up.
I dont lease, I buy, audi last forever as long as you do regular maintenance.
Do you own one?
I test drove one (Bolt Drive rental lol) and it was honestly a bit less smooth on the road than my 2007 A6 Allroad. The performance was amazing (even though it was the lower power version I believe), but due to the hefty weight it seems the suspension is compromised. But since it wasn’t brand new, I also don’t know how good a shape it was in. IIRC it was on air suspension, so it should’ve been better than steel springs.
Buuuuut with the prices they have dropped down to, they’re also god damn enticing these days! And 300 kilowatts is a ridiculous amount of power lol. The downside of course being that a brand new battery off Audi is twice the value of the car if it goes bad lol. But EV battery repair shops are starting to be a thing here, so that might make replacing single cells a very affordable option.
A colleague has an etron ( French slang for turd). She leased it after her Model S had to be exchanged twice under lease because they couldn’t fix it. She can’t wait to get rid of it because of monthly warning lights, but she’s glad she didn’t buy one because they devalue badly and most non AUDI dealers won’t take them as trade in.
