Tesla Inc.’s safety regulators in Europe are joining an expanding global effort to more closely scrutinize the door handle design popularized by the world’s leading electric vehicle manufacturer.
The Dutch authority RDW, which inspects and approves Tesla’s vehicles for sale in the European Union, said Thursday that regulators will shore up rules to ensure that occupants can safely exit vehicles after a crash and be rescued by first responders.
The authority’s comments follow a Bloomberg News investigation into Tesla’s doors losing function in the event of battery power outages and entrapping drivers and passengers — including in cases where vehicles caught fire.
“Doors must always be operable — from the inside by occupants and from the outside by emergency responders — even in the event of a power failure,” an RDW spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Where current regulations fall short due to the introduction of new door concepts, this issue is being addressed within the respective committees.”
Read More: NHTSA Opens Probe Into 174,000 Tesla Model Y Cars Over Door Handle Failures
The opening of electrically powered doors in the event of accident is “a key priority for both Euro NCAP and UNECE,” the RDW spokesperson said, referring to Europe’s safety testing and rating organization and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
Tesla representatives didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Days after Bloomberg published its report about Tesla doors on Sept. 10, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a defect investigation into the door handles on certain Model Y crossovers, the automaker’s top-selling vehicle. Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s longtime design chief, then told Bloomberg the carmaker was working on making its door handles more intuitive to use.
China has meanwhile proposed regulations requiring all passenger vehicles to feature mechanical door releases accessible from both inside and outside cars. The rules aim to eliminate the flush external handle design championed by Tesla and replicated by competitors including China’s Xiaomi Corp.
‘People Are Dying’
The Netherlands is part of a global safety working group that discussed difficulties with opening electrically activated doors in May of this year, according to a UNECE report. The meeting minutes note that an expert in attendance from Germany “indicated that they had started to look into this issue and saw an urgent need” for solutions to “ensure safe opening of the doors after an accident.”
Last month, a man and two children burned to death in a Tesla following a crash in Schwerte, Germany’s Focus magazine reported. A first responder told the publication he tried but was unable to pull the children out of the car.
“This is not a theoretical problem — people are dying because they cannot get out of vehicles when every second counts,” Antonio Avenoso, executive director of the European Transport Safety Council, said in a Sept. 24 statement. The Brussels-based nonprofit is calling for regulatory work to be sped up and for recalls to be initiated in the EU for vehicles that can leave occupants trapped in emergency situations.
While the organization lacks regulatory powers, it participates in UNECE work as an observer.
Photograph: A visitor interacts with the door release button on a Tesla Inc. Cybertruck electric vehicle in Berlin. Photo credit: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
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