Tesla has confirmed that it is redesigning its door handles with electronic releases after people were left trapped inside its cars.
Earlier this week, we reported that the NHTSA had opened a new investigation into Tesla over children getting stuck inside cars after electronic door releases fail.
Tesla uses frameless doors with electronic door handles. The button to open the doors first causes the window to lower slightly, allowing the door to open. Then, it electronically unlatches, enabling the door to be swung open.
There’s also a manual latch, but it has been known to be somewhat hard to locate for people who didn’t read the owner’s manual, which is most people.
If there’s an electronic failure, especially after a crash, it can result in occupants having issues exiting the vehicle when they are in a state of panic.
Additionally, if a child is in the vehicle after a failure, it can be challenging for them to locate and use the manual release, which is what the NHTSA is now investigating.
Following the publicization of this long-standing issue this week, Tesla announced that it is redesigning its manual release.
Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s chief designer, said in an interview with Bloomberg that the automaker is going to combine the electronic and manual releases into one:
“The idea of combining the electronic one and the manual one together into one button, I think, makes a lot of sense. That’s something that we’re working on.”
The designer said that Tesla is already testing this in China.
It’s not a novel design. Toyota already has the same concept in some of its vehicles. The electronic button to release the door can also be pulled to activate the manual release, which works even if the car has no power.
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