Tesla to redesign door handles on its electric cars

Tesla will review the design of its car door handles. The company is working on changes following reports of passengers being trapped inside cars as a result of accidents. Tesla's chief designer Franz von Holzhausen announced this in an interview with Bloomberg.

The decision was prompted by the launch of an investigation by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Earlier, Bloomberg also published an investigation citing examples of cases where owners and passengers were unable to leave their cars after a collision.

According to the publication, Tesla has identified two main problems with its door handles. First, they use electronic locks that stop working when the battery is dead. Second, although the cars are equipped with tools for mechanical unlocking, they are difficult to find and inconvenient to use.

Nine complaints have been received from Tesla owners about door handle malfunctions. In four cases, people had to break windows to get out of the car. One of the solutions the company is considering is combining the electronic and manual mechanisms into a single button.

Tesla's owner's manuals describe ways to supply external power to unlock the doors. But, as the NHTSA notes, owners did not see low battery warnings and could not understand the cause of the problem.