Six months of covering Tesla’s door handle safety crisis. Six EVXL articles documenting trapped children, fatal crashes, and a design flaw Elon Musk insisted on despite engineer objections. On Tuesday, Congress finally moved, Bloomberg reports.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce forwarded the Securing Accessible Functional Emergency Exit Act, or SAFE Exit Act, to the full committee during a markup session on February 10. The bill would require all vehicles with electrically powered door handles to include a clearly labeled, readily accessible mechanical latch and a means for first responders to access vehicles that have lost battery power.

Here’s what you need to know:

The fact: The SAFE Exit Act cleared the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee and now heads to the full committee. It still faces multiple legislative hurdles before becoming law.
The delta: This is the first federal legislative action on electric door handles, and it comes just eight days after China became the first country to ban concealed door handles outright, effective January 1, 2027.
The owner impact: If you drive a Tesla Model 3 or Model Y, locate your manual door releases today. Don’t assume Congress or Tesla will fix this before it matters to you.

The SAFE Exit Act creates the first federal standard for electric door systems

The SAFE Exit Act, introduced on January 6 by Representative Robin Kelly (D-Illinois), would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to establish performance and labeling requirements for vehicles with electric door systems. There is currently no federal standard governing how these doors must function in emergencies. The bill gives the Secretary of Transportation two years after passage to finalize the rules, and automakers another two years after that to comply.

Kelly didn’t mince words when she introduced the legislation.

“Profits and, least of all, style, should not come before people’s lives,” she said, naming Tesla and Musk directly. “When crashes or power loss leave drivers and passengers trapped inside their own cars, that is not innovation. It’s a safety failure.”

Michigan Representative Debbie Dingell brought the urgency during Tuesday’s session.

“People are dying right now,” Dingell said. “As more vehicles rely on electronic door latches, we have to make sure there’s always a clear manual backup when these systems fail.”

The bill has bipartisan interest, though not without caveats. Florida Republican Gus Bilirakis said he agreed with the intent but argued it should allow safety experts to conduct research and set flexible standards to avoid unintended consequences. That tension between urgency and caution will shape the bill’s path through the full committee.

Bloomberg’s investigation and two NHTSA probes built the case for legislation

The legislative push didn’t come from nowhere. Bloomberg News conducted a months-long investigation that identified at least 15 deaths in a dozen incidents where occupants or rescuers couldn’t open the doors of a Tesla that had crashed and caught fire. The reporting examined thousands of pages of police, fire, and autopsy reports, along with 911 audio and body-camera footage going back to 2012.

NHTSA responded with two separate investigations. In September 2025, the agency opened a probe into approximately 174,290 Model Y SUVs from the 2021 model year after receiving complaints about exterior door handles becoming inoperative. Four of those incidents involved parents smashing windows to rescue their trapped children. In December, NHTSA opened a second probe into 179,071 Model 3 sedans from the 2022 model year after a Georgia owner who had to kick his way out of his burning car filed a defect petition.

Combined, those probes cover more than 353,000 vehicles. Tesla’s two best-selling models.

China moved first, and the U.S. is playing catch-up

Kelly warned during the markup that the United States is falling behind on door safety compared to China and the European Union. She’s right. On February 3, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published rules banning concealed door handles entirely. Every car sold in China must include a mechanical release function on both interior and exterior door handles, effective January 1, 2027. Existing models get until 2029 to comply.

The Chinese regulation was prompted in part by a fatal October 2025 crash involving a Xiaomi SU7 where doors couldn’t be opened after a fire. More than 40 domestic automakers participated in the drafting process. The rule affects not just Tesla but BMW’s iX3, numerous Chinese EV brands, and any manufacturer using flush-mounted electronic handles.

The contrast is striking. China banned the design. The U.S. is still debating whether to require a label on the backup release.

Tesla says it’s working on a fix, but the timeline is vague

Tesla’s chief designer Franz von Holzhausen told Bloomberg back in September that the company is developing a new door handle that combines the electronic and manual release into a single mechanism.

“The idea of combining the electronic one and the manual one together into one button, I think, makes a lot of sense,” he said. “That’s something that we’re working on.”

That was five months ago. No timeline. No production date. No announcement of retrofits for the hundreds of thousands of vehicles already on the road.

Tesla vehicles built at its Shanghai Gigafactory since approximately February 2025 already include clearly labeled emergency door release markings on the mechanical release. U.S.-built vehicles do not. The refreshed Model 3 Highland has more accessible rear releases. But the 353,000+ vehicles under active NHTSA investigation don’t have these improvements.

In December 2025, Tesla updated its website with a “Safer Aftermath” section stating that doors would automatically unlock after a serious collision is detected. The fine print: the feature “may not be available in all regions or for all vehicles, depending on build date.”

EVXL’s Take

We’ve been covering this story since September 2025, when we first reported on how Tesla’s flush-mounted handles become traps when electrical systems fail. We followed up when NHTSA opened its Model Y investigation. We documented the Dennis wrongful death lawsuit. We covered the Model 3 probe expansion. And just last week, we reported on Samuel Tremblett’s death, a 20-year-old who survived his crash, called 911, and still died because his Tesla wouldn’t let him leave.

This is article seven in that series. The pattern hasn’t changed. The death toll has.

The SAFE Exit Act clearing its first vote matters, but let’s be honest about the math. Even if it passes both chambers and gets signed, NHTSA gets two years to write the rules. Automakers get two more to comply. That’s a four-year runway before anything changes on the production line. Meanwhile, China’s ban takes effect in less than 11 months.

The real pressure on Tesla isn’t coming from Capitol Hill. It’s coming from the courtrooms and from Beijing. The two active NHTSA probes, the mounting lawsuits, and China’s outright ban will force design changes faster than any U.S. legislation. My prediction from last week stands: expect a mandatory recall requiring visible labels on all manual release locations by mid-2026, driven by NHTSA’s investigations rather than the SAFE Exit Act.

In the meantime, the advice hasn’t changed. If you own a Tesla, find your manual door releases today. Front doors have a small lever near the window switches. Rear doors are the problem. Some models hide them under carpet or behind speaker grilles. Some don’t have them at all. Teach every passenger who rides in your car. Practice in daylight. Don’t wait for Congress.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.