The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened another probe into Tesla regarding its electronic door handles.
According to Reuters, the regulator announced on Wednesday that it is investigating the company’s Model 3 sedans over concerns that emergency door release controls might not be easily accessible or clearly identifiable.
The Office of Defects Investigation said the probe covers an estimated 179,071 model year 2022 vehicles.
These vehicles could be recalled at the end of the investigation.
For reference, Tesla produced 1,298,434 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in 2022. The company does not distinguish between the two in its quarterly production reports.
Tesla Door Issue
This is not the first probe into Tesla‘s door handles, as the NHTSA had started investigating the Model Y on a similar issue in September.
By then, the US Auto regulator was holding a preliminary evaluation covering Model Ys from the 2021 model year.
It came a few days after a Bloomberg report that several people were injured or died after being unable to open the doors when the power was lost, particularly after crashes.
Tesla is facing a lawsuit over a fiery crash in Wisconsin that killed all five occupants of a Model S, with the families claiming the victims were trapped inside because a design flaw prevented the doors from opening.
The company is also being sued by the families of college students who died in a Cybertruck crash in a San Francisco suburb in November 2024.
Autopsies revealed that the victims did not die in the crash itself but from asphyxiation afterward, as they were unable to escape the burning vehicle due to a malfunction in the door handles.
A person standing outside the vehicle trying to help the victims was also unable to do it, as the handle did not open the door.
Issues with Electronic Door Handles
Although manual door releases exist within Tesla models, most owners are unaware of them because they are located in unusual places and differ between models.
Speaking with Bloomberg News in September, Tesla’s Design Chief Franz von Holzhausen said that the company is tackling the issue as it looks into combining electronic and manual door-release mechanisms.
The executive admitted the decision aims at making handles more intuitive for occupants in “a panic situation.”
Features such as flush door handles, while initially characteristic of the manufacturer’s vehicles, have presented challenges for both occupants and first responders in crisis situations.
Weeks after the NHTSA investigation, Bloomberg reported that Rivian was redesigning its vehicle doors following employee concerns about potential safety issues.
The Irvine-based company plans to incorporate “a manual release that is more clearly visible and located near the electrically powered interior handles in the rear doors” of its upcoming SUV, the R2.
China Regulation
Electronic door handles are also being challenged in China, where a new draft on safety standards from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) draft of its new safety standards included the issue.
New rules specifically target concealed and electronic door handles, which requires Tesla to redesign its door handles in the market.
A few weeks after that, a Xiaomi SU7 Ultra caught fire after a crash in Chengdu.
A person was trapped in the driver’s seat after the vehicle failed to open its doors, according to a National Business Daily report.
Electronic door handles, which gained popularity in electric vehicles after Tesla introduced them on its Model S about a decade ago, were featured on roughly 60% of the top 100 best-selling new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China earlier this year.
The Nio ES8, Li Auto i8, Xiaomi YU7, and the XPeng P7 models all feature such handles.
