Elon Musk's Tesla Faces US Door Probe After Driver Breaks Window to Escape Burning Model 3 in Georgia

US safety regulators have opened an investigation into Tesla Model 3 emergency door handles after a Georgia driver had to smash his way out of a burning vehicle.

Kevin Clouse's 2022 Model 3 caught fire following a collision, but the electronic doors would not open. He broke a rear window to escape, with a bystander assisting in extracting him.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched the probe on 23 December, CBS News reported. About 179,000 Model 3 cars from the 2022 model year are now under scrutiny.

Clouse's complaint to federal regulators was forthright. The manual door release, he said, is 'hidden, unlabeled, and not intuitive to locate during an emergency.'

Manual Releases Hidden in Rear Seats

Front doors are not the problem. These manual releases are so conspicuous that passengers frequently pull them inadvertently instead of the electronic button.

The back seats are where things get dangerous. The emergency latch is concealed inside the door map pocket, requiring occupants to lift a mat, insert their finger into an opening, and pull upwards on a cable they cannot see, Electrek noted.

'You have to pull up a mat, and then you have to reach your finger in and pull up on it,' Clouse told WSB-TV Atlanta. It is challenging to figure that out whilst flames are spreading through your car.

Michael Brooks from the Centre for Auto Safety stated that regulators need to intervene. 'You do not have time to refer to an owner's manual,' he said. 'I think there needs to be a federal safety standard that standardises the placement of manual releases for emergency exit.'

Bloomberg Investigation Links 15 Deaths to Door Failures

This is not an isolated incident. Bloomberg News spent months investigating fatal Tesla crashes where doors would not open, finding at least 15 deaths over the past decade in which people or rescuers could not open the doors after crashes and fires.

More than half of those deaths have occurred since November 2024, indicating the trend is worsening.

Bloomberg's reporters examined thousands of pages of police reports, fire department records, and autopsy files, scrutinising 911 recordings and police body-camera footage. They compiled their own database because, shockingly, no federal agency maintains official statistics on individuals trapped by malfunctioning car doors, Autoblog reported.

In Easton, Massachusetts, a Model Y driver survived the initial crash and even managed to call emergency services, but he could not get out. The police report was blunt: 'He was trapped inside the vehicle after a crash, and the vehicle was now on fire.'

Earlier this month in Virginia, a state trooper had to break through a burning Model Y's window when the doors failed, with the dramatic rescue captured on dashcam footage.

Fatal 2023 Crash Killed Washington Woman

Federal regulators were already aware of these problems. Back in 2023, a Model 3 in Tacoma, Washington, accelerated out of control due to a design flaw, court filings showed. The car crashed, and then the door handles failed.

Bystanders could not help rescue the couple. Wendy Dennis died in the crash, whilst her husband Jeff Dennis sustained severe injuries.

Similar stories continue to emerge of individuals trapped in burning Teslas after the electronic doors malfunctioned during collisions, frantically searching for manual releases that are either concealed or absent.

Tesla Says It's Working on Door Redesign

Franz Von Holzhausen, the company's head of design, discussed door changes on a podcast back in September. 'The idea of combining the electronic one and the manual one together into one button, I think, you know, makes a lot of sense,' he said.

Tesla also discreetly launched a safety page on its website titled 'Safer Aftermath: Emergency Response', asserting doors unlock automatically in collisions. Then comes the footnote: this feature 'may not be present on all models' and depends on when your car was built.

Tesla is not alone in using electric door handles. About 70 models sold in North America have them now, including the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Cadillac Vistiq, and various Rivian models. But Tesla leads in consumer complaints, Bloomberg found.

NHTSA has recorded 140 cases of door handle malfunctions in the Model Y alone.

China and Europe are already drafting new rules to address the problem, whilst in the US, this investigation marks the first step towards potential federal action.