China has banned concealed door handles on electric vehicles, becoming the first country to outlaw a design popularised by Tesla that is now facing global regulatory scrutiny owing to a spate of deadly incidents.
Cars sold in China will be required to have mechanical release both on the inside and outside, according to new safety rules issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Feb 2.
The ruling will take effect on Jan 1, 2027, the ministry said. Models that have already been approved by the regulator and are in the final stages of launching in China have until January 2029 to change their designs.
The crackdown follows several high-profile incidents, including two fiery Xiaomi electric vehicle (EV) crashes in China where power failures were suspected to have prevented doors from opening, leaving people unable to escape or be rescued to die.
While the new regulations will only impact EVs sold in China, the country’s influence on the global automotive industry means it could resonate elsewhere. Tesla’s doors are already the target of a safety probe in the US, while European regulators are looking to impose rules of their own.
“China is shifting from being just the largest EV market to being a rule-setter for how new vehicle technologies are regulated,” said Shanghai-based consultancy Automobility’s founder, Mr Bill Russo.
“By moving first, Beijing can use its huge domestic market to lock in safety standards that both Chinese and foreign automakers must follow at home – and that may ultimately travel with Chinese EV exports and influence global norms.”
The impact of the change is likely to be uneven and it is not clear how expensive it will be to implement. One person familiar with the design process at a Chinese EV manufacturer said it could cost more than 100 million yuan (S$18.3 million) per model.
About 60 per cent of the top 100 selling new-energy vehicles in April feature concealed handles, the China Daily has reported. Redesign efforts will be heavily tilted towards carmakers’ higher-margin luxury models, which typically have the sleek, futuristic construction that will soon be banned.
That includes Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3, and BMW’s iX3, which is set to see a China version debut in 2026. Nio’s ES8, Li Auto’s i8 and Xpeng’s P7 also feature the handles.
Xiaomi’s popular YU7 sport utility vehicle, launched in June 2025, will also need an overhaul. The carmaker propelled door handle safety into the public eye after two of its SU7 electric sedans were involved in fatal crashes in 2025 – one in March and one in October.
That accelerated the push to regulate handles, but their safety has long been a topic of debate in the industry. China’s examination of standards began in July 2024 following at least two fatal EV crashes in which people were trapped in their cars due to issues opening doors.
The new rules are very specific: On the door’s exterior, there must be a recessed space measuring at least 6cm by 2cm for a hand to grasp a handle. Inside, cars must have signage no smaller than 1cm by 0.7cm to indicate how to open the door. The regulation also delineates where the handles and signs should be placed.
That one-size-fits-all approach may also risk stifling innovation in a country that leads the world in EV technology.
The new rules mean existing safety features, including mechanical pull-cables and backup door batteries that allow for opening even when other power is lost, will be rendered redundant, according to a person familiar with the design process.
In other markets, some models combine electric and manual systems in the same handle – allowing people to open a door with a hard yank, which foreign carmakers argue is more intuitive in an emergency situation.
Chinese carmakers, having read the writing on the wall as the early stages of the regulatory overhaul unfolded, are leading revamp efforts. Already some models like the Geely Automobile Holdings Galaxy M9 and BYD’s Seal 06 have reverted to traditional, exposed handles.
Most foreign carmakers are yet to reveal details on how they will change their doors for the China market.
Tesla has said it will make necessary changes for China and its comment in relation to regulatory scrutiny in the US, where door safety issues have dogged it for years, offer other potential clues.
The company will make the manual release mechanism more intuitive and chairman Robyn Denholm has said Tesla is considering programming the locks to open automatically when the battery’s voltage is low.
For carmakers, the door handle rules represent a historic shift in global safety standards, where China – not Europe and the US – will increasingly be the dominant force. The Asian nation’s powerful position in EV manufacturing and smart driving technology means the regulations it sets are likely to be followed by the rest of the world, according to Mr Russo.
While door handles have caught much of the public’s attention, the Ministry of Public Security also plans to limit how quickly cars can accelerate from a standstill, and the authorities are ramping up their oversight of advanced driver-assistance systems.
“China’s far ahead in the commercialisation of some of these advanced technologies. It’s far ahead in electrification and, I would argue, will be further ahead in self-driving technology,” Mr Russo said. “China’s going to play an outsized role in stepping ahead of the rest of the world in setting the regulatory standards.” BLOOMBERG
