China is banning hidden door handles on all cars sold in the country, becoming the first country in the world to target the feature – which was popularized by Tesla but has for years drawn concern over safety risks.
The feature has previously come under heavy scrutiny, both in China and elsewhere.
Last September, Tesla said it was looking into redesigning the way to open its car doors in an emergency, after several accidents where passengers were reportedly killed or severely injured in burning vehicles because rescuers could not open them.
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 investigation by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
An investigation by Bloomberg found 140 incidents of people being trapped in their Teslas due to problems with the door handles, including several that resulted in horrific injuries.
So now Tesla can’t sell any cars in China. Take note investors.
Also, Chinese car makers like Jaecoo, who have also been using hidden car door latches, launched practical copies of models with normal car door latches in 2025.
Tesla will just add regular handles to chinese models, they have factories in China just for the chinese market.
I expect Tesla will continue to decline in the chinese market tho, even now its only bought as a form of conspicuous consumption.
Yes, but when? How long to redesign the door with regular handles? What do you do with the ones already built? Replace the whole door?
Like a day? Car door handles are a pretty mature technology.
Yes, you do a staged recall, using the previous recalled doors as material to build the new ones.
But I suspect the law will have a grandfather clause, theres a lot of chinese cars that copied Tesla’s mistakes.