China is banning Tesla-style concealed door handles on electric vehicles to address safety concerns regarding people getting trapped inside their cars. The ban will take effect on January 1st next year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s announcement, and will require all vehicles sold in China to have mechanical release door handles on the inside and outside.

The ban specifically targets hidden handles that retract to sit flush with vehicle doors, a design popularized by Tesla and has since been adopted by other EV makers. According to China Daily, more than 60 percent of the top 100 hybrid and electric vehicles sold in China in April 2025 featured hidden handles.

China proposed these new rules in December last year, following a string of reports in which people struggled to open vehicles with electronically operated door handles during an emergency. One high-profile incident was a fatal Xiaomi SU7 Ultra collision in Chengdu, China last year, in which the electronic door handle system malfunctioned after impact and trapped the driver inside as the vehicle burst into flames.

Tesla’s electronic door handles are also under a safety investigation in the US for locking people inside the vehicle, and are being redesigned to combine the electronic and manual door-release mechanisms into one button. An investigation by Bloomberg in September last year found more than 140 US reports related to Tesla’s doors getting stuck since 2018.