Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger report
61 comments
·September 18, 2025mtlynch
dgarrett
> In the rear, it's almost impossible to access the manual release in an emergency. You have to pull out a floor mat and then pop open a panel that requires a metal tool to extract, and then reach blindly into a hole to pull the release. And this process damages the car, so you can't really practice in a non-emergency.
Just so you know, this is improved the latest (2023+) Model 3. There is now an easily removable panel in the door pocket, with a yellow cable to release the latch.[0]
I still hope they improve the mechanism to not require this, but they did at least improve it a bit in the latest model.
_da_
The Y also has the redesigned release (from the beginning, afaik).
ashton314
Well, they put a sign on the trash can that says “this is in fact on fire” so you know that they’re aware it’s a dumpster fire.
rightbyte
> I couldn't believe I was actually understanding it correctly and that this could be legal
I think laws are usually reactive. Why would there be a ban on such a silly thing.
mrguyorama
Why is this desirable? Why is it a good thing that laws only happen after people already die from an avoidable and predictable problem?
vkou
It's not about banning a particular design, it's about mandating that emergency egress is possible.
If you're ever trapped in a burning car and can't open the fucking doors you might find that requirement to be a little bit less silly than you think it to be.
tartuffe78
No other car company has screwed it up this badly before. Tesla may force it to happen if enough deaths occur.
jp191919
In my experience, most passengers unfamiliar with the Tesla Model 3 instinctively use the emergency door release in non-emergency situations, rather than pressing the button as intended.
lawlessone
>as if they hopped into a 747.
I think escaping the 747 is , thankfully for those who fly , easier.
buildsjets
The handles are painted bright red, they have glow strips in the dark, and there are capital letter simple-English and pictographic instructions on how to use them clearly visible.
IncreasePosts
I have a model Y and it is the first car in my life where I need to give passengers a tutorial on how to enter/exit the car. Also, my mom in the front passenger seat just assumed the emergency door release was the normal one(because she has never pushed a small button to open a door in a car before), and she pulled it and a big "WARNING! YOU MIGHT BREAK YOUR WINDOWS DOING THAT" message popped up on the screen.
chrismeller
I don't own a Tesla, but I've been a passenger in well north of 100 different ones over the years (Uber/Bolt/etc.) and had no idea there even was a mechanical release. In the event of an emergency I would... not fare well.
Years ago (decades now?) I remember James May on Top Gear doing a segment where he was looking for the first mass-produced car that "looked like a car". Of course there have been tons of changes, but it's also amazing to me how much some things are still the same 100 years later.
Particularly when it comes to safety devices it just seems like you shouldn't mess with that combination of intuitive design and ingrained societal learning from media. It's literally something a child can do...
JumpCrisscross
> I've been a passenger in well north of 100 different ones over the years (Uber/Bolt/etc.) and had no idea there even was a mechanical release
I’d say these are grounds for removing them from the rideshare circulation until a user has completed a brief safety course.
_fat_santa
Just to share a personal anecdote. The other day me and my wife were getting into an Uber that was a Model 3 and she said to me "I don't know how this door works, can you open it for me".
Sure they are not that hard to figure out but something like door handles shouldn't be something to "figure out" at all, it should be immediately obvious how to open the vehicle.
Beyond that I just dislike electronic door handles in general, yes I get the argument that an electronic handle puts less wear on the car as it can accurately actuate the door release and do it better than a human but every time I have to use a button to exit the car, I always get flashing sirens in my head going "this is a massive point of failure"
wyre
I find public transit will often use electric doors, but they will also have ways to open the door or window manually in the case of an emergency which seems like the best middleground.
That said, when has a door handle ever been a major point of failure in a personal automobile? Electric door handles on cars for less wear is a bad argument, imo. My internal skeptic says Tesla saves as much money as they can on door latches, so they need it to be electronic to remain gentle enough it won't break.
PaulHoule
Often the emergency door mechanisms are very well labeled on public transit —- riding a train I know right away how to stop the train and get the hell out.
mixmastamyk
Same happened to us... we poked at the door "handle" for a few seconds.
MisterTea
> The Bloomberg investigation found numerous instances of passengers who were killed or severely burned by post-crash fires when rescuers on the scene were unable to open the doors.
Have any of these incidents result in major law suits? Seems pretty likely they would and should sue.
Honeslt yI hate modern automotive designs. My one wish for the Chinese EV makers was that one of them just makes a friggin normal car that's an EV without stupid gimmicks abut no, doesn't seem like the industry has the ability to design a reliable car.
lotsofpulp
Why did Bloomberg write numerous instead of specifying the number?
Someone1234
That quote is from the linked article/CNN, it is a summary, you can read the original reporting from Bloomberg if you wish to learn more about what they found.
lotsofpulp
> 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.
The above is from CNN, but in the original bloomberg article, I don’t see any specifics. If I was a writer, and the number of incidents was high, I would want to specify it to maximize engagement.
So I prone to assume when they don’t share data and instead use vague descriptions, it is probably because the data is not compelling enough to present.
> Complaints about Tesla’s electrically powered doors also pervade NHTSA’s database that the agency uses to identify potential defects. Bloomberg identified more than 140 consumer complaints related to Tesla’s doors getting stuck, not opening or otherwise malfunctioning since 2018. While it’s difficult to assess how that compares with other models with similar doors, the regulator has taken notice.
https://archive.is/2025.09.18-161757/https://www.bloomberg.c...
null
Animats
China is preparing to require obvious manual handles for car doors. China's own vehicle manufacturers have been copying Tesla in this, so it affects far more cars in China than Tesla products.[1]
[1] https://carnewschina.com/2025/09/05/chinas-auto-regulators-e...
ashleyn
You would think the therac-25 was enough of an engineering lesson on designing safety-critical systems in software that lack hardware redundancy. Maybe they didn't consider the door handles "safety critical".
marcosdumay
I don't know about hardware redundancy, but yes for at least "easily verifiable limiters".
What is "hardware" anyway? Does a microcontroller-based integrator or debouncer count? Depending on how you define that, it can become a serious roadblocker. But anyway, I guess that point is moot for a door handle, you can fix it with stuff that is unambiguously hardware.
chrismeller
> What is "hardware" anyway? Does a microcontroller-based integrator or debouncer count?
Hmm, good question. In this context, I guess "continues to work after the EMP"?
lawn
Another lesson not learnt from therac-25 (and really most disasters caused by humans) is that safety is a cultural issue, that needs to be taken seriously from top to bottom in the organization.
This is clearly not the case with Tesla.
burnt-resistor
Elon does watch or understand USCSB or their videos, he defunds them because he "knows better".
happytoexplain
I see a lot of questioning as to why this isn't required by regulation around this topic. I have no idea, but my intuition would be that it simply never occurred to regulators to require that door handles work? That door handles be accessible? Could it be that simple?
kennywinker
This is a failure of regulation.
Companies come and go. The idea is that we have simple, efficient, long lasting gov orgs that can make sure each new company doesn’t repeat moronic mistakes like this in the name of design.
mediaman
The funny thing is that Elon has been very critical of regulation in car design, such as the rules around the side-view mirrors (he wanted to get rid of them and replace with cameras).
But then they find something unregulated and manage to flub it so badly it makes a strong case for regulation.
I'm not sure if Elon was involved in these door handles on the interior, though I do recall he was very involved in the early touch-to-expose exterior handles and insisted they use them despite internal engineering pushback. I think a lot of the bad engineering designs seem to originate from internal engineers getting overruled by Elon.
jp191919
Many countries (EU, Japan) allow cameras instead of side mirrors, but not the US.
kypro
I always found what we regulate and don't regulate when it comes to motor vehicles interesting...
Demanding Tesla's need door handle regulation because of safety concerns is genuinely insane to me given how relatively safe Teslas are and that current regulation literally allows people to buy vehicles which go 60MPH+ with just two wheels, no airbags, and no doors at all.
It would be cool if Tesla can come up with something a bit safer if there are problems with their door handles, but ultimately I think the only regulation required would be transparency of safety data. If Tesla's are really dangerous people should know that and decide if they want to buy one anyway. Two-wheeled motor vehicles are death traps, but I don't think we should introduce regulation to demand all motor vehicles have four wheels. If people want to buy a vehicle with two-wheels that's up to them.
I hate this idea that something so insignificant as a car door handle needs to be regulated to safe at best a handful of lives which possibly could have been saved more effectively with other safety changes (perhaps many of which Teslas already have). Ultimately if you're in a car where your life depends on the design of a door handle, that's a problem already and not one door handle regulation will necessarily be best suited to address.
Just let manufacturers innovate... If a car is extremely unsafe so long as consumers know that then manufacturers will have a strong incentive to improve safety in innovative ways.
fullshark
Ever since reading this story I decided I wasn't buying a Tesla: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68622898
Just so stupid, how many unnecessary deaths in Teslas have there been because of the overengineered crap door handles? Really tragic and pointless.
bangaladore
She was highly intoxicated and driving under the influence, reversed the car into a pond and died because of it. Whether or not the doors contributed to her death is a guess at best. When a car is submerged, you aren't able to open a door generally due to the weight of the water pushing in on the car. That car has a completely standard gear stalk as well, so blaming it on that make no sense.
I don't have sympathy for those who DWI. Luckily, she didn't kill anyone else.
fullshark
She drowned in a glass coffin surrounded by her loved ones unable to figure out how to get her out. You are able to open a normal car door when the interior is fully submerged due to the water pressure equalizing. It's very clear to me she would have survived with normal door handles and your "anyone who DWIs deserves to die and doesn't receive sympathy cause I worship Elon Musk/Tesla" position is truly contemptible.
null
cfeduke
I bought a Model 3 in 2018, a Y in 2020, and another 3 in 2024. The end user design has only continued to get worse on various aspects of the car. Regarding non-safety issues, living in the northeast and mid-Atlantic, the door handles freeze shut during the winter and become impossible to open from outside of the car.
But why continue to buy these poor end-user design experiences, you think? My car maintenance costs since 2018 has been a gallon of windshield wiper fluid and new tires. So I deal with poor design decisions.
But the cup holders in the latest Model 3 may be my breaking point.
jp191919
You can use the app to open the door if the handle is frozen. Still not a great design, might as well have a button instead.
mikestew
The peak of tech jackassery: "We can fix it in software."
mikestew
My car maintenance costs since 2018 has been a gallon of windshield wiper fluid and new tires.
If you're buying a new car every two years, you could get the same low level of maintenance with an ICE Toyota. Or, you know, you can buy an EV from a company that knows how to make a door handle, and still get that low maintenance of an EV. There are many to choose from.
geor9e
I am deep in tech, but still struggle to open a tesla door. Hiding the handles, both inside and outside, will never make sense to me.
I considered buying a Model 3 but the door handles were the dealbreaker for me.
The standard door handles don't work if the vehicle has a loss of power (such as after a collision).
In the front, there's a manual release in the front seat that's accessible if you know where to look, but would be easy to miss in an emergency.
In the rear, it's almost impossible to access the manual release in an emergency. You have to pull out a floor mat and then pop open a panel that requires a metal tool to extract, and then reach blindly into a hole to pull the release. And this process damages the car, so you can't really practice in a non-emergency.[0]
I couldn't believe I was actually understanding it correctly and that this could be legal in the US, so I called Tesla's hotline and asked how to exit the vehicle in an emergency. The Tesla rep said it's easy to activate the manual release if you know where to look, so I asked how passengers unfamiliar with the car are supposed to use it to escape in an emergency. The rep said, "Oh, it's just a quick 5-minute explanation when they get in."
Apparently, because Tesla decided to put this stupid design on their door rather than one that works without elecricity, it's now the car owner's responsibility to sit every passenger through a 5-minute safety briefing as if they hopped into a 747.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PbRBbIGnv4