Pop-out car door handles could finally disappear for good –as Tesla responds to global backlash about their safety

• The NHTSA opens investigation on Tesla’s electric door handles
• Chinese authorities might ban them altogether
• VW boss says flush door handles are “terrible to operate”

Tesla was arguably the first major automotive brand to introduce electronic door handles back in 2012, when the style-forward mechanism on the Model S remained flush to the body work and then magically popped-out whenever the vehicle is unlocked.

The company even has a page on its website^[1] dedicated to how to live with them.

It is a technically neat design feature that has now been copied by multiple automotive brands, including Range Rover, Porsche and myriad Chinese EV brands.

But aside from being horrendously confusing to anyone not au fait with the technology, flush door handles are now under scrutiny by several authorities that are questioning their safety.

Car News China^[2] reported that regulators in the country have kick-started the process of investigating fully retractable door handles due to safety concerns, suggesting that there may be an outright ban on new vehicles offering them.

The same website cites China Insurance Automotive Safety Index (C-IASI) crash tests that revealed vehicles with electronic door handles achieved only a 67% door pop-out success rate in side collisions.

In the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation into around 174,000 Tesla Model Y cars from the 2021 Model Year following several complaints from owners that they were unable to unlock the doors after stopping, according to the Financial Times^[3].

There have been cases where occupants have become trapped inside Teslas after the onboard 12V battery has died. Unless the owners are familiar with the emergency release protocol, a number of cases have had to resort to breaking windows.

Tesla has now responded, telling Bloomberg^[4]that it’s redesigning its door handles to make them more intuitive for people in “a panic situation”.

This update will apparently combine the electronic and manual door-release mechanisms into one button, with Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen saying “we’ll have a really good solution for that” in response to those potential Chinese regulations, too.

VW boss says no to flush door handles

Thomas Schäfer, the CEO of Volkswagen passenger cars, has gone on record to say flush door handles look nice but are “terrible to operate”.

Speaking at the IAA Mobility show^[5], Schäfer was ramming home the importance of functions being easy for customers to use. “We definitely have proper door handles on the cars and customers appreciate it,” he added.

Aside from offering minuscule improvements in aerodynamic performance, flush door handles are largely a styling or design choice, offering a touch of technological theatre that many customers have been convinced by.

But they are awful to use, often get completely stuck when frozen, with the potential to trap small fingers inside the mechanism.

I took custody of a Porsche Taycan Turbo for a couple of weeks this year and experienced pinched digits on multiple occasions.

Similarly, I also experienced the door handles completely freezing shut on an XPeng G6, having to head indoors for a jug of hot water just to get into the vehicle. I’ve also been trapped inside an early Tesla Model X, but that’s another story.

Granted, this issue isn’t limited to just fully flush door handles, but it is exacerbated by a feature that isn’t entirely necessary.

Now, we could see authorities clamping down on grounds of safety, killing off a major automotive annoyance for good. Hallelujah.

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