When showing off your new Model 3 or Model Y to friends and family, you’ll inevitably need to educate them about door handles.
This is both true externally, with the flush door handles, but also when your inside the car and try to get out. While the Model S and Model X use fairly conventional internal handles, this was another area that Tesla rethought when re-imagining what a modern, minimal interior would look like.
The Model 3 and Model Y moved to a button to open the door. This button is integrated into the handle on the door and is finished in the same gloss black plastic as the top of the arm rest that also integrates the window controls.
This button is not immediately obvious and quite new for people who jump in a Model 3 or Y for the first time. Once you’ve been shown how to open the door, its really easy and actually really natural to press the button and force the door open with your elbow.
Today, a new photo has emerged online from a new Model Y owner that shows Tesla are addressing this issue.
The new door open button not only has an icon to indicate the button’s function (to open the door).
This challenge had been solved by 3rd party’s who would sell you a sticker kit to apply to the buttons on each door, but it’s great to see Tesla’s continuous improvement now extending to deal with this from the factory.
Going one better than the sticker, Tesla is also backlighting the icon to make it easy to locate at night.
As with many improvements to the Model Y (like USB-C ports), we’d expect to see this filter back into the Model 3 production line soon.
