How to Escape Your Car If the Electronic Door Handle Fails

Concern about these handles is growing after a series of high-profile crashes, some resulting in fatalities. Canadian authorities are investigating an October 2024 Tesla crash in Toronto in which witnesses reported they were unable to open the vehicle’s doors from the outside. According to the CBC, four people were killed inside the vehicle, but one person was saved by a passing driver who was able to break the rear window glass.

In 2022, the owner of a Tesla Model Y that caught fire in North Vancouver, British Columbia, told a local CTV News station that its electrically operated doors wouldn’t open, trapping him inside. He said that in his panic, he couldn’t figure out how to operate the emergency interior door release and kicked through the window to escape. And in 2018, the 75-year-old owner of a 2006 Cadillac XLR was trapped inside his vehicle for 14 hours after its battery died, leaving the electronic door releases inoperable. He could have immediately released himself had he known the location of the manual door release.

“While it’s rare, in certain types of car crashes, the interior electronic door latch may not operate. So if you have a car without a conventional handle, you need to learn how to operate the emergency release,” says Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. “Automakers should make it easy and obvious how to exit the vehicle in an emergency, but unfortunately that’s not always the case. Your owner’s manual will tell you where to find the mechanical lever and how to use it. Give it a try. An actual emergency is not the time to figure it out.”