【Autohome Industry】On August 21, the State Administration for Market Regulation of China released a series of enterprise recall announcements. Nine automakers including Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) launched a large-scale recall, involving a total of 4.276 million vehicles. Tesla accounted for more than half of the recalled quantity, reaching 2.976 million units.
According to the announcements, the reason for the recall of the nine automakers is that the color of the in-vehicle emergency mechanical door handles is close to the interior trim color, which makes them difficult to identify and operate. In extreme cases such as the failure of the vehicle's low-voltage power supply system caused by a severe collision accident, it is difficult for drivers and passengers to quickly open the door to escape and for rescuers outside the vehicle to carry out rescue, which poses safety hazards.
Automakers will add and paste warning signs for in-vehicle emergency mechanical door handles for the recalled vehicles free of charge. Some automakers such as Tesla will also remotely upgrade the window control software to add the function of rolling down the windows after an accident.
In recent years, Tesla and domestic automakers have widely used hidden exterior door handles. For the sake of aesthetic interior design, automakers generally install electronic door handles and emergency mechanical handles separately, and there is no matching obvious prompt sign.
Some extreme safety accidents have exposed the safety hazards of door handles. For example, the opening and closing of hidden door handles completely rely on the power supply of the vehicle's low-voltage system. When the vehicle encounters a serious accident and the low-voltage system is damaged, it is very difficult for external rescuers to open the door. Even if they break the window, it will be useless if they cannot find the in-vehicle mechanical handle.
In December 2025, the competent authority issued the national mandatory standard *Safety Technical Requirements for Automobile Door Handles*, which is scheduled to be implemented on January 1, 2027. Brand-new models must stop using fully hidden exterior door handles when the standard comes into force. For other requirements, new models must all meet the requirements before January 1, 2028. Models that have completed product certification at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will be given a two-year transition period.
The standard has made clear provisions on both interior and exterior door handles, requiring the retention of traditional mechanical door handles as the last emergency way to open the door. At the same time, the exterior door handle shall have sufficient hand operation space, which means fully hidden door handles will be banned.
For in-vehicle door handles, the standard requires that each door shall be equipped with an emergency mechanical handle. The standard also specifies the installation area of the emergency mechanical handle to ensure that it is intuitively visible to the occupants in the vehicle. The standard also requires that the in-vehicle emergency mechanical handle must be equipped with permanent signs, whose color must be in sharp contrast with the background color and easy to identify.
The above-mentioned new national mandatory standard has not yet been implemented, and the large-scale recall of the nine automakers this time may be affected by the standard. Industry experts said that the redesign of door handles takes a long time, but it is not difficult to post signs for in-vehicle emergency mechanical handles, and this improvement alone may improve the safety level of vehicles. In addition, automakers develop and push the function of rolling down windows after a serious accident, which is expected to further reduce the difficulty of escape for in-vehicle occupants and external rescue.
With the popularization of intelligent electric vehicles, the application of new technologies has brought new risks, and domestic competent authorities have comprehensively strengthened safety supervision.
On July 1, 2026, the revised national mandatory standard of China *Safety Requirements for Power Batteries for Electric Vehicles* was officially implemented. The new standard requires that the battery system "does not catch fire or explode" when thermal runaway occurs under test conditions. The national mandatory safety standards for assisted driving and autonomous driving will be implemented on January 1, 2027 and July 1, 2027 respectively, and relevant systems can only be installed and applied after completing strict testing and certification.
Some automakers take precautions in advance and start to make improvements before the implementation of the standard. On August 21, due to the insufficient driver attention monitoring and prompt mechanism when the assisted driving system is turned on, Tesla voluntarily recalled 2.741 million vehicles. Tesla will add in-cabin camera monitoring functions through remote software upgrade.