Tesla is redesigning its door handles following security probe, Bloomberg investigation

Tesla is “engaged on” redesigning its door handles so they’re much less more likely to lure folks inside the corporate’s vehicles, chief designer Franz von Holzhausen told Bloomberg News on Wednesday.

The information comes simply in the future after the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA) opened an probe into Tesla’s door handles, and one week after a Bloomberg Information investigation highlighted a number of situations the place house owners or passengers had been caught of their vehicles following a crash.

Von Holzhausen didn’t specify when Tesla made the choice to rethink how its door handles work, in line with Bloomberg. China has already been pushing automakers to rethink using totally hid door handles due to security considerations, though the nation’s prime regulator has not taken a closing motion.

One of many two obvious issues with Tesla’s door handles has been they use digital locks, which might cease working in the event that they aren’t receiving energy from the automobile’s battery system. The opposite is that, whereas Tesla does have handbook door releases constructed into its vehicles, they’re typically exhausting to search out and tough to entry.

“The thought of mixing the digital one and the handbook one collectively into one button, I believe, makes a number of sense,” von Holzhausen advised Bloomberg. “That’s one thing that we’re engaged on.”

NHTSA opened its investigation on Tuesday after the company stated it had obtained 9 complaints from Tesla house owners who skilled a failure with their door handles. In 4 of these circumstances, the security company stated the house owners needed to break a window “to regain entry into the car.”

Tesla consists of directions in its proprietor’s manuals that describe the right way to use an out of doors energy supply to activate lifeless digital door locks, as each NHTSA and Bloomberg have famous. However NHTSA famous in its preliminary report that not one of the house owners who contacted the company reported seeing low-voltage battery warnings — that means they probably wouldn’t have identified what was the reason for the issue.