The family of a college student killed in a Cybertruck car crash has sued Tesla, claiming the design of the vehicle’s doors were a “death trap.”
Krysta Tsukahara, 19, and two others were killed when the driver of the vehicle rammed into a tree in Piedmont, California in November 2024. The Savannah College of Art and Design student, riding in the backseat, was trapped inside the vehicle as it burst into flames, unable to find the manual door releases when the vehicle’s battery caught fire.
The doors are electronically powered, but when there’s no power, riders must use the manual door releases, according to the vehicle’s owner manual. To do this from the rear seat, the passenger must remove the rubber mat on the bottom of the rear door’s pocket, pull the mechanical release cable forward and then push the door open.
The Cybertruck “lacked a functional, accessible, and conspicuous manual door release mechanism, fail-safe, or other redundant system for emergency egress,” the filing, obtained by the The Independent states.
The Independent has asked Tesla for comment.
Carl and Noelle Tsukahara, the teen’s parents, are seeking damages against Tesla, which is owned by the world’s richest person Elon Musk.
“We’ve had to endure not only the loss of our daughter, but the silence surrounding how this happened and why she couldn’t get out. This company is worth a trillion dollars—how can you release a machine that’s not safe in so many ways?” Carl Tsukahara said in a statement.
Matt Riordan, a friend of the teens, told police that he was driving behind the Cybertruck and jumped into action when he saw it was ablaze, Bloomberg reported.
Although he tried pressing the buttons to open the doors, they didn’t open. Riordan then smashed the front window open with a tree branch, rescuing the passenger in the front seat. He unsuccessfully attempted to rescue Tsukahara from the back, the outlet reported.
Soren Dixon, the 19-year-old driver, and Jack Nelson, a 20-year-old also riding in the rear seat, also died in the crash. Nelson’s family also sued the automaker Thursday, Bloomberg reported.
“This case arises from catastrophic design defects in the Tesla Cybertruck that turned a survivable crash into a fatal fire,” the Nelsons’ complaint states.
“This is a case where two things can be true at the same time,” Matthew Davis, a lawyer for the Nelsons, told Bloomberg. “There can be people responsible for the crash and there is a company responsible for the fact that they couldn’t get out.”
The lawsuits come weeks after federal automobile safety regulators revealed they were investigating the door handles on another Tesla vehicle: the 2021 Model Y.
“At this time, NHTSA’s investigation is focused on the operability of the electronic door locks from outside of the vehicle as that circumstance is the only one in which there is no manual way to open the door,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration disclosed last month.
The automaker is developing new designs that will make it easier to open doors in the event a car loses power, Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s chief designer, said on Bloomberg’s “Hot Pursuit” podcast last month.
Tesla has known about the issues with the door handles for more than a decade before the crash, the Tsukaharas’ suit says.
In that period, “Tesla had repeated and direct notice that its reliance on electronic door systems created a serious risk of entrapment. Owners, bystanders, and first responders documented instances where Tesla occupants survived crash forces but could not escape when electrical power failed and fire ensued,” the filing alleges.
Tesla was added to the suit Thursday.
Earlier this year, the Tsukaharas filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Dixon’s estate. Toxicology reports showed Dixon, as well as other passengers, had alcohol and drugs in their systems, the family’s lawyer Roger Dreyer said in a statement in May.
“This young woman suffered the most horrifying death one could imagine,” the family’s lawyer, Dreyer said. “Her death was caused by her inability to get out of the car and being consumed in the fire that engulfed the vehicle.”
