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Tesla responds to handle ban with $999 external handle subscription in China
Handles will retract into a locked position if customers fail to renew their subscription.
Tesla Inc has introduced a $999-per-year “External Handle Experience Package” in China, offering bolt-on, fully visible door handles to comply with a new government ban on hidden designs, according to documents filed with regulators on Monday. The optional subscription, which Tesla says can be activated over-the-air and installed physically “within 7 to 10 business quarters” by service centers, allows affected models to remain on sale without redesigning doors or body panels.
“From a compliance perspective, the handles are fully present and visible at the moment of regulatory inspection.”
A Tesla China spokesperson said the subscription reflects the company’s “commitment to software-defined hardware,” noting that the handles will retract into a locked position if a customer fails to renew. “From a compliance perspective, the handles are fully present and visible at the moment of regulatory inspection,” the spokesperson said, adding that users will receive three in-app reminders, two SMS warnings and one “courtesy immobilization” before access from outside the vehicle is disabled. An internal Tesla memo seen by Le Gorafi Business stated that 82% of surveyed Chinese consumers were “open” or “very open” to “occasionally functional” safety features if they were “seamlessly integrated into a premium digital experience.”
Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimated the handle subscription could add up to $2.7 billion in annual high-margin “Handle-as-a-Service (HaaS)” revenue if adopted by 37% of Tesla’s projected China user base, assuming an average of 3.4 handles per customer. The package will be sold alongside Tesla’s Full Self-Driving upgrade, with a discounted “Safety Bundle” offering both lane-keeping assistance and physical door access for a combined 11,888 yuan per year. In response, several Chinese automakers, including BYD and Nio, issued coordinated statements emphasizing that “all door handles are included as standard equipment for the lifetime of the vehicle, or the lifetime of the door, whichever ends first.”
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has not commented directly on the subscription plan, but one official familiar with the matter said regulators are monitoring “emerging monetization patterns in basic human ingress and egress.” Draft guidelines circulating within MIIT propose a “Minimum Handle Availability Rate” of 95% per quarter, measured by a new national platform that would aggregate anonymized door-opening telemetry from all connected vehicles. The official added that a joint working group will study potential consumer harms, including the risk of third-party 3D-printed aftermarket handles that might “circumvent approved revenue streams.” The committee is expected to reconvene in the third quarter to assess whether the technical assessment framework for handle compliance itself requires further reassessment.
