Tesla Recalls Nearly 3 Million Cars in China Over Hidden Door Handles Linked to Multiple Deaths Amid New Ban

BEIJING — Tesla is voluntarily recalling nearly 3 million vehicles in China to address safety concerns with its electronically operated door handles, which have been linked to multiple deaths after rescuers were unable to open car doors following crashes, according to notices published Friday by Tesla and China’s product safety regulator.

The recall covers 2,975,910 vehicles spanning Tesla’s entire lineup, including the Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X, built between March 4, 2019, and April 29, 2026, according to CNBC, marking Tesla’s largest-ever recall in China. The action stems from a design flaw in which severe collisions can cause a vehicle’s low-voltage electrical system to fail, disabling the electronically controlled exterior and interior door buttons that Tesla popularized across the auto industry.

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation described the safety hazard in stark terms in its recall notice, saying the malfunctioning door handles “could hinder occupants from quickly opening the doors to escape and impede rescue efforts by those outside the vehicle, posing a safety hazard,” according to Insurance Journal. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has separately opened its own investigations into the issue, characterized the mechanical backup releases even more critically as “hidden, unlabeled, and not intuitive to locate during an emergency,” according to Yahoo Autos.

The practical difficulty of using the backup mechanism has been a central concern for regulators. According to Yahoo Autos, Model Y rear passengers facing a power failure must remove a cover from a door pocket and pull a concealed cable to manually exit the vehicle, a process regulators have warned becomes significantly more difficult for occupants under the stress of an emergency, in darkness, or amid a vehicle fire. Bloomberg reported that the door handle flaws have been linked to vehicle entrapment and multiple fatalities, though the exact number of deaths specifically tied to the Chinese recall has not been detailed in the regulatory notices.

Tesla’s remedy for the recall does not involve a hardware redesign of the door mechanism itself. Instead, according to CNBC, the company will affix warning labels to recalled vehicles identifying the location of emergency door releases and will push an over-the-air software update to its window control system, allowing windows to automatically lower after an accident is detected, providing an alternative escape route even if the doors themselves remain difficult to open. According to Electrek, the recall is scheduled to take effect Sept. 25, 2026.

Tesla was not alone in Friday’s recall action. According to TechCrunch, Reuters reported that 11 automakers in China issued related recalls addressing the same hidden emergency door release problem, with nine manufacturers, including Tesla, agreeing to install warning labels helping occupants locate the releases. Xiaomi, Xpeng, and Geely-owned brands Zeekr and Lynk & Co. were among the other manufacturers issuing recalls. Electrek separately reported that eight other automakers filed recalls with China’s market regulator on the same day for the identical interior-release problem, including Leapmotor, Chery, Dongfeng, BAIC BluePark and FAW, describing the coordinated action as one of the broadest safety interventions Chinese regulators have taken on the issue, with Tesla’s nearly 3-million-vehicle recall dwarfing the scope of the other manufacturers’ actions. Bloomberg reported that more than 4 million vehicles in total were affected across the full scope of the crackdown.

China is also moving to prevent similar problems in future vehicle designs. According to Yahoo Autos, a new national standard, GB 48001-2026, takes effect Jan. 1, 2027, and will ban fully hidden door handles outright, making China the first country to explicitly prohibit the flush-handle design Tesla popularized across the industry. Under the new standard, new vehicles must feature mechanical exterior handles with a minimum grippable space of 60 by 20 by 25 millimeters, while previously approved models will be given until Jan. 1, 2029, to come into compliance.

Regulatory scrutiny of the design has extended beyond China’s borders as well. According to Yahoo Autos, NHTSA has opened preliminary investigations into roughly 179,000 Model 3 vehicles and approximately 174,000 Model Y units in the United States, and has signaled it intends to develop new intuitive-access requirements specifically governing emergency door releases across the broader auto industry.

Alongside the door handle recall, Tesla issued a separate, unrelated recall affecting its driver monitoring systems. According to Not a Tesla App, the company issued an immediate recall covering more than 2.74 million domestically produced Model 3 and Model Y vehicles built between March 2019 and December 2025, rolling out a free over-the-air update that enables active cabin camera tracking alongside steering wheel torque sensors to help ensure drivers keep their eyes on the road while the company’s Autosteer driver-assistance feature is engaged.

Friday’s recalls arrive at a challenging moment for Tesla’s position within China, the world’s largest auto market. According to CNBC, the Model Y remains one of the best-selling vehicles in the country, but Tesla continues to face intensifying competitive pressure from domestic Chinese automakers, including BYD and Xiaomi, which have introduced increasingly affordable and technologically innovative electric vehicles of their own. Electrek noted that flush door handles similar to those Tesla popularized have also been adopted by several of its Chinese competitors, including Xiaomi, Geely and others, several of which issued their own recalls addressing the same underlying safety concern on the same day.

TechCrunch noted that Tesla is not the only automaker to have relied on a hard-to-locate manual door release as a backup to electronic latches. Rivian customers and employees previously raised similar concerns regarding the manual release mechanism on the company’s R1 vehicles, which required passengers to remove a panel and pull a cord to exit manually; Rivian subsequently said it would relocate that release to a more accessible position on its newer, lower-cost R2 model, which launched this year. Separately, Ford briefly halted sales of its Mustang Mach-E in 2025 and issued its own recall aimed at reducing the risk of its electronic door latches malfunctioning in the event of a power loss.

Tesla has said it is working on redesigning its door handles for future vehicles, according to TechCrunch, though the company has not provided a specific timeline for when that broader hardware redesign might be implemented across its lineup. As Chinese regulators move forward with the new national ban on fully hidden door handles ahead of its January 2027 effective date, automakers across the industry, including Tesla, are likely to face continued pressure to reconsider flush-handle designs that have become a signature aesthetic feature of modern electric vehicles, even as the safety concerns tied to those designs draw increasing regulatory scrutiny in markets well beyond China alone.