A Bloomberg according to the investigation of the Tesla recessed door handles on its vehicles contributed to the deaths of 15 people after accidents that were not initially considered fatal.
According to the report, the Bloomberg Since 2012, he has analyzed data from US traffic accidents involving fire to estimate how many deaths can be attributed to doors that did not open.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) provided the data between 2012 and 2023 to the medium, while the data for 2024 and 2025 were provided by the Bloomberg analyzed independently.
During the examination process a Bloomberg said they reviewed thousands of pages of police, fire and autopsy reports. If possible, photographs, audio recordings of emergency calls, and police body camera recordings were also analyzed.
Although the Tesla is not the only automaker to use recessed door handles, the company receives the most complaints of this type from its customers.
A Bloomberg investigation revealed about a dozen cases where passengers or emergency services were unable to open the Tesla doors of models after they have crashed and caught fire.
Although the Bloomberg emphasizes that the 15 deaths are only a small part of the hundreds of fatal electric car accidents that have occurred in the last decade, the number of deaths related to electric door handles is increasing.
A Bloomberg according to his analysis, more than half of the deaths occurred since November 2024, indicating a worsening trend.
The outlet pointed out that there are no comprehensive, publicly available statistics from state or federal authorities on how many people have been trapped by car doors that did not open. This was explained by the fact that it is often difficult to determine exactly what happens in the immediate moments after an accident.
A Tesla after fatal accidents involving the doors of its vehicles, on September 15 of this year, NHTSA launched an investigation into Model Y regarding recessed door handles of vehicles.
A Tesla the electric door handles of your cars are powered by a 12-volt battery. However, in the event of a crash, when the battery is depleted or deactivated, the system becomes virtually unusable.
Although vehicles have manual emergency release mechanisms for the front doors, these are not clearly marked and can only be found in the vehicle’s owner’s manual.
It is important to emphasize that a Bloomberg according to the Model 3 and Model Y do not have the same release mechanism for the rear doors. For those a Tesla in vehicles equipped with a manual backup solution in the rear, the releases may be located under the carpets, behind the speaker grilles or under plastic elements, making them particularly difficult to find in an emergency.
In order to deal with the problem a Tesla published an article on its website detailing that the vehicles will receive a system that automatically unlocks the doors after an accident. However, the company did not say which models will receive the security update.
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