 |
|
|
.-') _ .-') _ |
|
( OO ) ) ( OO ) ) |
|
.-----. ,--./ ,--,' ,--./ ,--,' |
|
' .--./ | \ | |\ | \ | |\ |
|
| |('-. | \| | )| \| | ) |
|
/_) |OO )| . |/ | . |/ |
|
|| |`-'| | |\ | | |\ | |
|
(_' '--'\ | | \ | | | \ | |
|
`-----' `--' `--' `--' `--' |
|
lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial |
|
|
|
|
|
ARTICLE VIEW: |
|
|
|
Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following |
|
trapped-passenger reports |
|
|
|
By Chris Isidore, CNN |
|
|
|
Updated: |
|
|
|
9:48 AM EDT, Thu September 18, 2025 |
|
|
|
Source: CNN |
|
|
|
Tesla is looking into redesigning the way to open its car doors in an |
|
emergency following several accidents where passengers were |
|
reportedly trapped in burning vehicles because rescuers could not open |
|
them. |
|
|
|
Even without an accident, other Tesla owners have reported having to |
|
break their own car windows after buckling their children in and then |
|
being unable to get in the car again, according to an launched by the |
|
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, citing owner |
|
complaints. An investigation by found 140 incidents of people being |
|
trapped in their Teslas due to problems with the door handles, |
|
including several that resulted in horrific injuries. |
|
|
|
Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen said in a podcast Wednesday |
|
that the company is looking to combine the manual and electronic |
|
release mechanisms in the doors, which are now separate, in order to |
|
make escaping the car easier and quicker in a “panic situation.” |
|
|
|
“The idea of combining the electronic one and the manual one together |
|
into one button, I think, makes a lot of sense,” he said in an |
|
interview for Bloomberg’s Hot Pursuit! . “That’s something that |
|
we’re working on.” |
|
|
|
It’s unclear if Tesla is working on a fix for all of its cars or just |
|
the new ones, but it’s unlikely the company will be able to combine |
|
the two ways of opening the door on existing models. |
|
|
|
The door handles of the Tesla Model S and Model X extend and retract, |
|
while the door handles on the Model 3 and Y mechanically flip out when |
|
pressed in. But when that fails, the doors need to be opened with a |
|
manual door release inside the vehicle to get out. That can happen if |
|
there’s a loss of power following a crash. |
|
|
|
And the location of the manual release buttons can be difficult to |
|
find, especially to a young child alone in a car, or a passenger who is |
|
not familiar with the vehicle, like in an emergency situation. The |
|
Bloomberg investigation found numerous instances of passengers who were |
|
killed or severely burned by post-crash fires when rescuers on the |
|
scene were unable to open the doors. |
|
|
 |
<- back to index |
