When firefighter Max Walsh saw smoke rising in the distance, he figured he was sprinting toward yet another car fire. As a firefighter, he’d seen plenty of them, but this time, he was actually headed into a nightmare. The Tesla Model Y engulfed in flames after a crash didn’t have damage to its door latch, but it wouldn’t open anyway. The dead electrical system meant that even the conscious passenger in the front seat couldn’t unlock the doors.

The quirks of Tesla’s flush handles, and the risks when they fail, have been examined in detail by Bloomberg journalist Dana Hull, who reported extensively on how the design can turn dangerous when the car loses power.

Tesla didn’t pioneer flush, power-operated door handles, but it certainly helped them push into the mainstream. EV automakers often tout that they look better and reduce drag and the design has spread across the market from the Ford Mustang Mach-E to the new Nissan Leaf and the Kia EV6. The tricky bit is that when the low-voltage battery dies, whether it’s because of a crash, a fire, or something else, the electric door poppers die too.

Read: How To Get Out Of A Tesla If It Loses Power And You Become Trapped Inside

Carscoops has brought you countless examples of this issue across several different brands. Something kills the power to the car in question, and it leaves occupants, owners, and sometimes rescue workers scrambling to get the doors open. In multiple crashes, from a deadly Cybertruck fire in California to a Model S blaze in Wisconsin, victims have allegedly been unable to escape. Again, the real kicker is that Tesla isn’t alone in this issue.

Not Just A Tesla Problem

Ford recently recalled the Mustang Mach-E for handle-related defects, and we’ve reported several cases of owners getting locked out, or in some cases locked in, because of dead batteries. Fisker faced a similar issue with the Ocean before going belly up. A woman in a Rivian R1S called 911 and was ‘stuck’ in her SUV for 45 minutes when it bricked on the side of the road while smoke wafted into the cabin. In fact, the issue dates back over a decade.

In 2015, 72-year-old James Rogers and his pup, Leia, both passed away while in a Chevrolet Corvette. According to reports from the time, it was Rogers’ dream car. Once again, the battery died. Those who found Rogers and Leia tried to get in but couldn’t. When they finally did, both had succumbed to the heat inside the car. Making things even more tragic is the fact that the man evidently didn’t realize that the manual release for the door handle was inches away…

Manual Releases Are A Perfect Solution

In most of these cases with coherent occupants, the reality is that, just like in the case of Mr. Rogers, safety is usually one very close manual door handle pull away. There are still big issues to overcome, though. First, so many individuals have no idea where the manual door release is or how to access it. But knowledge isn’t the only concern. What happens when the occupant is incapacitated, say after a crash, as was the case when Walsh arrived at the burning Model Y?

Also: New Lawsuit Might Force Ford To Change Mustang Mach-E Door Handles

The front passenger, Susmita Maddi, was pinned by the airbags that had gone off. “It’s the most horrible thing, to see a human burning,” Walsh told Bloomberg. “If I was able to open the doors, I could have gotten them both out before the fire department even got there.” Maddi made it out alive but not without first suffering life-changing injuries. She inhaled fumes that did permanent damage to her lungs, but worse yet, she received third-degree burns to her face.

“Sometimes it is very depressing to see my face,” she says. “Who is this? I wouldn’t recognize myself. Is this what I am now? It took many months and many nights of crying to come to this stage.” She’s suing Tesla and claiming that the doors pose an unreasonable safety risk. “Buying a Tesla was the worst decision of our life,” Maddi says.

A Push For Change

Right now, China is reportedly considering a ban on flush door handles. The nation says that they’re unsafe and could soon require automakers to have at least partially exposed exterior handles and manual releases inside the car. Again, it’s not a perfect solution, but it could influence cars everywhere since several automakers consider China to be one of their biggest available markets.

QOTD: Should Governments Mandate Turn Signal Stalks And Intuitive Manual Door Handles?

Design can be deadly, as is clearly the case here. No doubt, even mechanical door latches can fail, but electric ones can add a layer of complexity when every second counts. Whether or not China‘s potential intervention ends up happening is yet to be seen. For now, anyone with electric door poppers should make themselves well aware of the manual release and how to use it in an emergency. It could very well make the difference between life and death.

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