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A deadly accident involving a Xiaomi electric car has sparked fresh concerns about modern door handle designs and is expected to speed up China’s efforts to introduce stricter safety rules.
The driver of a Xiaomi SU7 sedan died after the vehicle caught fire following a crash on Monday. People at the scene tried to help but could not get the doors open to pull the driver out. Police believe the driver had been drinking before the accident.
The incident has brought attention back to a problem Chinese officials started looking at earlier this year. In March, another crash killed three people, prompting government agencies to begin working on new safety requirements for car door handles.
The topic quickly became popular on Weibo, a social media platform in China, where a related hashtag was seen more than 1 million times.
Last September, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology put forward new rules that would make all passenger cars have door releases that work manually. These releases would need to be reachable from both inside and outside the vehicle according to Bloomberg.
The proposed standards target the type of handles that sit flat against the car body, which Tesla made popular in recent years.
Industry leaders call for swift changes
Li Yanwei, who advises the China Automobile Dealers Association, said the recent Xiaomi accidents will push the new standards to happen faster. Companies that make cars with flat handles “need to improve their products to comply with the new standards,” he said.
These smooth, flat door handles first appeared on electric vehicles as a modern-looking design feature. While China’s planned rules would only apply to cars sold within the country, the nation buys more cars than anywhere else in the world. This means car companies from other countries will probably have to change their designs to follow the new standards, which could change how cars look everywhere.
In the United States, Tesla is also facing questions about its door handles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started looking into problems with some Model Y door handles.
This happened just days after a report about several cases where people got hurt or died because they could not open car doors after the vehicles lost power.
The draft rules China has proposed would allow door handles that use electricity to work, but they must still be able to open from the outside without any tools. This has to work even if the lock is on or if the battery gets too hot.
Under these rules, a mechanical release means a system that works only through physical parts, with no electrical signals needed. The handle also has to have enough room for a hand to grip it – at least 6 centimeters by 2 centimeters.
China EV safety rules give carmakers 19-month window
The proposed standards also call for testing the handles under different conditions. People can give their opinions on the draft until November 22. Once the rules become final, car manufacturers will get 19 months to update vehicles they are already planning to make. The standards are set to start in 2027.
Some companies are already making changes. The Zeekr 9X sport utility vehicle has traditional-style handles that use electricity but still meet what the draft rules ask for.
Yale Zhang, who runs Automotive Foresight, a consulting company in Shanghai, called the draft safety standard “a return to common sense.”
As reported by Cryptopolitan earlier, Xiaomi’s stock price dropped more than 5% on Monday after news spread about the crash. The shares fell as much as 8.7% in Hong Kong, the biggest drop since April, before recovering somewhat.
The incident adds to ongoing safety challenges faced by Xiaomi and other electric vehicle makers as Chinese regulators intensify safety oversight of the rapidly growing EV market.
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