Franz von Holzhausen, chief designer for Tesla, revealed the company is working on combining its mechanical and electronic interior door handles.
Mr von Holzhausen made the revelation during an appearance on a Bloomberg podcast. He said merging the two units into one “makes a lot of sense”, and would make it more intuitive for passengers to operate during “a panic situation”.
Although he didn’t explicitly state why Tesla was attempting to redesign its interior door handles, an investigation by Bloomberg found a number of people died or were injured after they were unable to open doors after power loss or an accident.
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The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has reportedly received at least 140 complaints when the doors on their Teslas malfunctioned, couldn’t be opened or were stuck.
Last week NHTSA formally opened an investigation into the Model Y’s doors, which according to customers have trapped children inside when the exterior door handles stopped working.
In some instances parents weren’t able to operate the doors, and resorted to breaking windows to gain access.
Under normal circumstances passengers press a button on the door’s arm rest to electronically pop their door open. However, if the 12V battery dies or is disconnected, say in a car crash, passengers need to find and use the mechanical door opener.
For the front passengers there’s an emergency door release — separate to regular power-operated door button — located just ahead of the power window switches.
The emergency rear door release can be hard to find for the uninitiated, and impossible to access for kids strapped into a child seat. There’s a panel at the bottom of the door bin, which has to lifted up to reveal a pull-string loop that will mechanically open the door.
The NHTSA probe affects 174,000 Model Y SUVs built for the US market after 2021.
It’s not the only door handle related issue facing Tesla at the moment, with Chinese regulators apparently looking at banning flush-fitting exterior door handles from 2027 due safety concerns, especially after an accident when responders need to gain access to passengers inside.
According to Mr von Holzhausen, the company has a “really good solution for that”.
MORE: Everything Tesla