The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced it will begin developing a new federal safety standard requiring a “robust and obvious door egress system” in all new vehicles, not just those made by the automaker (Tesla) whose incidents prompted the move. The decision, confirmed in a regulatory filing, would cover any OEM still fitting flush, electronically-operated door handles.

The filing arrived alongside a separate, more narrowly targeted decision: NHTSA denied a petition filed in November 2025 by a private citizen seeking a formal defect investigation into the emergency mechanical door release on 2022 Tesla Model 3 vehicles. The complainant argued that the release was neither readily accessible nor clearly identifiable, and as such failed to meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 206. However, the agency’s Office of Defect Investigations found only a single matching consumer complaint in its database, which falls well short of the pattern typically required to justify opening a formal probe.

What makes the denial notable is the gap NHTSA admitted while issuing it: FMVSS 206 does not currently regulate the labelling or placement of manual door releases in any way, so there is no existing rule for any automaker’s design to have breached. That absence of a governing standard is why the agency chose rulemaking over enforcement, and why the broader egress petition was granted in the same breath as the narrower one was refused.

The incidents behind the move are serious and well documented. Bloomberg reporting indicates that there are at least 15 deaths across a dozen crashes in which occupants or rescuers were unable to open a Tesla’s doors after the vehicle lost power, in several cases after occupants survived the initial impact only to die in a subsequent fire. It is already known that Chief Executive Elon Musk pushed ahead with electronic doors despite internal safety concerns being raised. 

Tesla was a pioneer is popularising electronically-controlled door handles in EVs

NHTSA had already opened a narrower investigation in September after nine complaints involving Model Y owners unable to free children trapped inside. However, it was China that moved first to implement rules on electronically-powered handles: in February 2026, it mandated automakers to install a mechanical release on both the inside and outside of every vehicle door, save for the boot. Similar regulatory movements are pending in the EU, but nothing has yet been passed into law.

Beyond NHTSA, there is also movement in the US Congress to pass laws governing door handle safety. US Representative Robin Kelly introduced legislation earlier this year that would mandate manual door releases and guaranteed first-responder access in new vehicles. The one available pathway for action on existing road vehicles was the private citizen complaint, which was dismissed.

Progress from here will be slow by design. Michael Brooks of the Center for Auto Safety expects no compliance date for manufacturers before 2030, even if the rulemaking proceeds without delay. Furthermore, industry pushback against costly new mandates is an increasingly common and permitted occurrence in congressional lobbying. 

Still, some automakers are not waiting to find out what the eventual standard requires. Tesla’s Chief Designer said last year that the company was already reworking its handles, and Rivian has said it is repositioning the manual release on its R2 SUV closer to the powered handle for easier access in an emergency.

The more revealing story here is regulatory rather than automotive. By closing the enforcement route, NHTSA has found a way to register a genuine, well-evidenced safety problem without exposing any single automaker to recall liability. Instead it is opening the rulemaking route, which will spread eventual compliance costs across every automaker using flush handles.