CHINA. Millions of cars heading to service centers. Tesla, Xiaomi, Xpeng — practically everyone in the NEV sector

On Friday, August 21, China announced a requirement for mechanically operable door handles on all new cars, as well as mandates to modify already produced vehicles to meet safety standards. This triggered a massive recall campaign involving millions of cars across almost the entire NEV sector. Tesla, after all, pioneered the trend of using electric door handles and hiding the emergency opening mechanism deep inside, out of reach for ordinary users.

Mechanically Operable Door Handles, Clear Markings, Easy Use

The regulation was announced on Friday and will take effect for new models starting January 1, 2027. Vehicles that were approved earlier must be adapted to meet the new rules by January 2029. It can no longer be the case that there is only a button on the door that electronically unlocks the latch. Nor can it be the case that exterior handles must be electrically extended to be usable at all. Finally, it cannot be the case that an emergency door-opening button or lever is hidden somewhere, with the driver being told to “read it in the manual and learn how to use it.”

All of this is for safety reasons: there have been accidents where people were trapped in their cars when the electronics stopped working. Here, the handles on the rear doors failed, and passengers were miraculously rescued thanks to a stone found by the side of the road:

https://elektrowoz.pl/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Dongfeng-pozar.mp4

Since these “optimizations” have been implemented by manufacturers in the NEV sector (electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids), only they call for vehicles to be sent to service centers. Tesla handles the largest number of already sold cars, with 5.72 million units. The company will add stickers indicating the location of emergency access links and also modify the software (remotely) to lower the windows in case of an accident—since it has long used both electric and mechanical door handles. It will also improve the system for monitoring the driver’s eyes.

According to Chinese regulations, doors can be opened electrically (for example, using a button hidden on the inside of the handle), but when electricity fails, they must allow for manual unlocking of the doors. Illustrative photo (c) Scout / Volkswagen

Xiaomi has attached informational labels to 390,000 vehicles, Leapmotor to 371,000, Xpeng will add labels and modify software in 265,000 vehicles, Zeekr in 93,000, Chery in 58,000, and Dongfeng and BAIC together in 100,000 vehicles (source). Manufacturers have 2.5 years to modernize all sold vehicles that do not meet new safety standards, but they have already announced recall actions to show compliance.

Editor’s note from Elektrowozu: Western automakers did not fall for this trend. Even when they used external handles hidden in the body, these could operate in two ways—electrically or mechanically. The exception is perhaps only Ford with the Mustang Mach-E.

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