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The family of a college student is suing Tesla after claiming that the doors on the Cybertruck led to their daughter’s death.
The car manufacturer, which is headed up by Elon Musk, is being sued over the death of 19 year old Krysta Tsukahara.
The teenager was killed in a car crash in November 2024 along with two other people after the driver rammed the vehicle into a tree.
Tsukahara, who was in the backseat, became trapped inside the car after she was unable to find the manual door releases when the car’s battery caught fire.
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Because the doors are powered electronically, when the power goes out, passengers will need to use the manual releases to escape.
In the backseat, this involves removing the rubber mat at the bottom of the rear door’s pocket and pulling the release cable forward to then push the door open.
According to the lawsuit, the vehicle ‘lacked a functional, accessible, and conspicuous manual door release mechanism, fail-safe, or other redundant system for emergency egress’.
Now, Tsukahara’s parents are seeking damages from the EV company behind the Cybertruck.
In a statement, the teen’s father, Carl Tsukahara, said: “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?”
The other two people in the car, 19 year old Soren Dixon, who was the driver, and 20 year old Jack Nelson, also died in the Crash.
The family of Nelson are also suing Tesla, with their complaint stating: “This case arises from catastrophic design defects in the Tesla Cybertruck that turned a survivable crash into a fatal fire.”
Speaking to Bloomberg, Matthew Davis, who is a lawyer for the Nelson family, said: “This is a case where two things can be true at the same time.
“There can be people responsible for the crash and there is a company responsible for the fact that they couldn’t get out.”
The Tsukahara family’s filing goes on to argue: “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.”
Speaking on Bloomberg’s Hot Pursuit podcast last month, Franz von Holzhausen, who is Tesla’s chief designer, said that the manufacturer is working on new designs to make it easier for people to manually open the doors.
