On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rejected a request to investigate the Tesla Model 3’s emergency door handle because it was difficult to locate and therefore unsafe in the event of a crash. However, in that determination, he also vowed to write new rules around the handle mandating that “a strong and clear door exhaust system be mandatory in all motor vehicles.”
These rules will take some time to develop; an expert he bloomberg It is estimated that they may not be codified into a new federal motor vehicle safety standard until 2030 at the earliest. But this is a start and it is not coming so soon.
In recent years, many travelers have found themselves trapped in crashed or burning vehicles and unable to escape, due to the failure of their cars’ electronic door handles and mechanical failure—the inability to locate safes that are often hidden from view. To make matters worse, those failsafes exist only Inside Vehicles make the job of first responders more difficult.
Take Rivian, for example. In order for a rear-seat passenger to access the emergency handle in the new R1s or R1ts, they must first remove a plastic panel that covers a pull cord. Rivian was reportedly aware of the potential for problems this decision would cause, as it decided not to hide the secondary handle in a similar manner in the newer, smaller R2. But the R1 series still works that way, and there’s nothing forcing the company to change it at the moment.
Ideally, this will not happen after this rule-making process. NHTSA rejected the petition to investigate the defect as it specifically related to Tesla because, clearly, Tesla’s system was not defective; It operates as designed, which unfortunately, leaves a lot of potential for danger in an emergency. Instead, it is moving forward to setting a standard.
The department says, “NHTSA does not believe that the issues presented by petitioner demonstrate the potential for a safety defect that would require a defect investigation, and this issue can best be addressed through the rulemaking process.” list of decisionsFiled on Friday, reads.
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