Those car door handles that blend into the exterior door panel for a sleek look might soon be a thing of the past – and China's taking the lead in outlawing them.
They might marginally enhance a vehicle's appearance and aerodynamics – and in the case of EVs, the latter can amount to longer range. But these flush door handles can pose a range of potentially hazardous issues.
That includes people being locked out of their cars because the handles froze over in cold weather, and preventing passengers in crashed cars from being rescued because the handles wouldn't deploy from the outside without a key or sufficient power. This actually happened in December 2023 to a Tesla Model Y SUV owner in Virginia: an off-duty firefighter who spotted a couple inside trying to escape their burning car noted the passenger door wouldn't budge because the electronically powered doors failed.
The incident prompted an investigation into Model Y and Model 3 handles by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last September. A day later, Tesla said it was working on a redesign of its retractable handles.
China is said to have begun looking into the issue back in July 2024; Bloomberg notes it followed multiple EV crashes that proved fatal when people in those vehicles were trapped inside because the doors wouldn't open. Last October, when a Xiaomi SU7 Ultra sedan's collided with a median barrier in Chengdu, West China, the EV caught fire and bystanders' attempts to rescue the driver failed; the doors equipped with flush-mounted handles reportedly didn't open.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has ruled that starting January 1, 2027, all cars sold in the country must have mechanical releases on their door handles. They must also come with mechanical releases on the interior.
That means 'hidden' handles like the press-to-release ones on the Tesla Model Y and Hyundai Ioniq 5, as well as motorized ones that pop or slide out when electronically activated, are banned. You can instead have a conventional handle, or a semi-hidden one with room for your fingers to slide under it and release it.
The move is critical for the country's enormous auto market, where China Daily notes 60% of the top 100 selling EVs feature hidden handles.
China's government conducted safety research with dozens of automakers and testing institutions, and drafted the Safety Technical Requirements for Automobile Door Handles. It brought on board the likes of Xiaomi, BYD, Geely, Toyota, Hyundai, GM, Ford, Volkswagen, and Porsche.
Other countries would do well to follow suit, and stop this worrying design feature from becoming the norm and causing more incidents around the world. China's not only done all the legwork, but also shown it can get major brands to adopt the necessary measures to avoid going down this road.
In India, for example, you can find Tesla's Model Y starting to become available with its hidden handles; one of the country's top-selling EVs, the MG Windsor MPV, also prominently features them; one of the largest local automakers, Mahindra, recently launched a couple of futuristic electric SUVs with these too.
The move to make doors accessible again is gaining momentum, though. In Illinois, Representative Robin Kelly proposed legislation last month to require manual door releases in new cars – hopefully we'll see more such recommendations in the near future. A couple of extra miles of range is well worth sacrificing to enhance vehicular safety.
Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China via TechCrunch
