Nearly 3 million Teslas recalled in China over hidden door handles
Nearly 3M Teslas recalled in China over hidden door handles
China's largest-ever car recall targets over 4 million vehicles, including 2.98 million Teslas, due to safety concerns about minimalist hidden door handles that are hard to find and open in emergencies. The recall follows fatal crashes involving Xiaomi EVs where power failures may have trapped occupants. Tesla will add warning labels and update software to lower windows after collisions. Other brands like XPeng, Xiaomi, and Geely are also affected. New Chinese regulations banning such handles take effect in 2027.
Tesla said in a statement on Friday that it was recalling some of its Model 3, Y, S and X vehicles due to door handles that are 'difficult to identify and operate because their colour is similar to the interior trim.'
- aurareturn
Hidden door handles, button open doors when inside the car, only touch screen buttons, rear red turn signal lights.
Reverse these trends. They all suck and unsafe.
Ok the rear red turn signal lights were already a trend in the US before Tesla. But please reverse this too. It's very difficult to see blinking red lights on the freeway when it's sunny. For you people out there who buy cars with red blinking signal lights, I hate you.
- Animats
It's not "recessed" that's the issue. It's "mechanical".[1]
China is requiring door handles openable from both inside and outside without power, and without any difficulty finding the release.
Tesla model X manual: "Opening a Rear Door with No Power
To open the falcon wing doors in the unlikely situation when Model X has no power, carefully remove the speaker grille from the door and pull the mechanical release cable down and towards the front of the vehicle. After the latch is released, manually lift up the door."[2]
[1] https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202602/03/WS69818ec6a310d...
[2] https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C...
- A_D_E_P_T
Good move. There's an interesting old article on the door handles here:
> https://medium.com/@arunchidambaram/is-teslas-door-handle-an...
In aerodynamic terms, door handles are nbd compared to side mirrors. Mirrors account for 6% of a car's aerodynamic drag. Door handles: roughly 0.2%. Basically they make no difference -- their effect is a rounding error -- and they were implemented for form-over-function style points.
- hunglee2
this is a good move by China, hopefully its the end of the line for hidden door handles for EV's everywhere. Some things are cool but impractical; others are cool but dangerous.
- vrighter
"they are difficult to open in case of power failure"
"We'll just open the windows automatically using the same power that was lost"
- userbinator
They could've made exterior door handles that look exactly the same as they currently do, but without adding all this additional fragile complexity: put them on a pivot, so you press one end and the other pops up so you can pull on it...
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61xdWAXl2ML.jpg
...no electricity required to operate those.
door handles that are "difficult to identify and operate because their colour is similar to the interior trim".
Except for those which still have chromed handles, I think this is the case for the majority of cars. It's not the colour that's the problem.
- lelandbatey
I hope there's more "no, your 'luxury' feature is just unsafe."
Being unable to turn on the windshield wipers (not engage for a swipe, turn on) without fully taking eyes off the road to interact with the giant touch screen, that's going to get people killed. The #1 thing that convinced me Teslas are absolutely unfit to operate safely for many common actions was driving one at all.
- protocolture
China just continuing to be the super reasonable one.
I wonder if the USA will double down and make hidden door handles mandatory, or just try and place a tariff on normal doors.