- EU voiced concern soon after China proposed new door handle regulations.
- Regulators insist handles must open for emergency responders at all times.
- The European Transport Safety Council says reforms are urgently required.
A growing debate over the safety of electronic door handles has reached new urgency in Europe, where regulators say design improvements are now a priority. After several crashes and fires left occupants trapped inside their vehicles, safety agencies are pushing manufacturers, including Tesla, to ensure doors can always be opened in an emergency.
RDW, the Netherlands’ vehicle authority that inspects and approves Tesla models sold in the European Union, notes that “a key priority for both Euro NCAP and UNECE” is for door handles that can be opened in the event of an accident. The safety of electric door handles has been a matter of debate in Europe for several months.
Watch: All It Took Is A Few Kids Trapped Inside For Tesla To Make This Change
According to Bloomberg, the Working Party on Passive Safety, a subsidiary of the World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations, discussed the difficulty of opening electrically-operated doors in May this year.
During a meeting, a German expert said the group had “started to look into this issue and saw an urgent need [to] ensure safe opening of the doors after an accident.”
In a recent statement concerning the matter, an RDW spokesperson noted that “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. Where current regulations fall short due to the introduction of new door concepts, this issue is being addressed within the respective committees.”
Concerns Spread Worldwide
Regulators in Korea, Germany, and the Netherlands, have all raised the alarm on door handles with this design, and, according to the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), authorities in the Netherlands have already linked the issue to repeated deaths in submerged vehicles.
“This is not a theoretical problem – people are dying because they cannot get out of vehicles when every second counts,” ETSC executive director Antonio Avenoso said.
“UNECE discussions are welcome, but the pace must be urgent. Europe cannot wait years while thousands of cars with these systems remain on the roads. Recalls should be on the table, and safety rules need to be updated swiftly to cover all vehicles with electronic doors,” he added.
Last month, three occupants of a Tesla Model S were killed in Germany after the EV crashed and caught fire. An eyewitness attempted to save the occupants, but was unable to open the doors.
In China, a man recently died after crashing his Xiaomi SU7, and in that case, bystanders were also unable to open the car’s doors. This has already prompted local regulators to draft new rules that could ban the use of such handles.
