Tesla Is
Sued by Families Who Say Faulty Doors Led to Two Deaths
Two
Californians were trapped in a burning Cybertruck because electronic doors made
it difficult for them to get out or be rescued, lawsuits claim.
Jack
Ewing
By Jack
Ewing
Reporting
from Piedmont, Calif.
Oct. 2,
2025
The
parents of two college students killed in a car crash last year in California
claimed in lawsuits filed Thursday that the design of the doors in the
company’s Cybertruck pickup made it nearly impossible for their children to
escape the burning vehicle.
The
suits, filed in a California court by the families of Krysta Tsukahara, 19, and
Jack Nelson, 20, underline longstanding questions about how the doors in many
Teslas work, which is the focus of an investigation begun in September by
federal auto safety regulators. The lawsuits are another setback for the
Cybertruck, which has sold poorly and been recalled eight times since last
year.
Tesla
pioneered car doors that open or shut with the push of a button. Several other
automakers have imitated that design, usually on electric models. Electronic
doors give cars a high-tech aura and may modestly reduce wind resistance
because their exterior handles typically do not protrude from the door.
The
automaker’s door latches rely on a 12-volt battery that is separate from the
high-voltage battery that drives the vehicle’s electric motor. If the power is
cut off by a crash, the electronic door mechanism may not work.
Ms.
Tsukahara, a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, and
Mr. Nelson, a student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, were riding in
the rear seat of a Cybertruck driven by Soren Dixon that smashed into a tree at
high speed in Piedmont, Calif., a San Francisco Bay Area suburb. Mr. Dixon, 19,
also died in the crash.
The suits
claim that Ms. Tsukahara’s and Mr. Nelson’s injuries from the crash were minor
but that they died of burns and smoke inhalation after the Cybertruck’s battery
caught fire. They were unable to escape because the manual door releases were
too difficult to find, the suits say.
Ms.
Tsukahara “suffered unimaginable pain and emotional distress” because she could
not escape the fire, which ultimately led to her death, according to the suit
filed by her parents, Carl and Noelle Tsukahara.
If it had
not been so difficult to escape the burning Cybertruck, “she’d be alive today,”
Mr. Tsukahara said in an interview at the family’s home in Piedmont.
To open
the Cybertruck’s rear doors, the passenger must lift a rubber mat on the bottom
of the door’s storage pocket, then pull a cable underneath.
“Rear
passengers like Jack were left with only a concealed mechanical release that
was obscure, nonintuitive and highly unlikely to be located or operated in the
smoke and chaos of a post-crash fire,” according to the lawsuit filed on behalf
of Mr. Nelson’s parents, Todd and Stannye Nelson.
The New
York Times confirmed the filing of the lawsuit brought by the Nelsons on
Friday.
A friend
who was following in another vehicle saved a fourth passenger who was in the
front seat by smashing the Cybertruck’s window with a branch.
The suits
threaten another blow to Tesla’s reputation after a Florida jury decided in
August that the company should pay $243 million in damages for a crash
involving its driver assistance system. The jury found that the company’s
software had contributed to an accident in 2019 that killed one person and
severely injured another.
Tesla did
not respond to requests for comment this week and did not respond to a request
for comment after the suits were filed.
In the
Piedmont case, Tesla may seek to place blame for the crash on Mr. Dixon, the
driver of the Cybertruck. He was drunk and had consumed cocaine and
amphetamines that night, according to a coroner’s report. The company may also
argue that the doors might not have opened because of damage to the
Cybertruck’s body, rather than flaws in the company’s design.
Electric
vehicles are far less likely to catch fire than cars that run on gasoline. But
when the batteries do ignite, they burn intensely, and the flames can quickly
envelop cars, requiring quick escapes or rescues.
Tesla is
working on new designs that will make it easier to open doors if a vehicle
loses power, Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s chief designer, said in September on
Bloomberg’s “Hot Pursuit” podcast.
“That’s
something we are working on, and it’s in the car soon,” Mr. von Holzhausen said
on the podcast.
The
lawsuits filed this week claim that deadly flaws in the design of the door
latches have been obvious for years, yet Tesla failed to make improvements even
in the Cybertruck, its newest vehicle.
“For more
than a decade before the crash,” the Tsukaharas’ suit says, “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.”
“It’s
just absolutely unforgivable. You know people have died and you continue to do
it,” said Andrew McDevitt, a San Francisco lawyer who is representing the
Nelsons.
Last
year, Tesla settled a lawsuit brought by the family of Kevin McCarthy, the
chief executive of a software firm in Indiana, who died after a Tesla Model S
driven by one of his employees struck a tree and caught fire.
The
driver died on impact in that crash, which was in 2016 in Indianapolis. But
witnesses reported seeing Mr. McCarthy struggling to get out of the front
passenger side of the car before it was engulfed in flames.
“Ours is
not an isolated case,” said Mr. Tsukahara, who is represented by Roger Dreyer
of the Sacramento firm of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora. “This company is
worth a trillion dollars,” he added, referring to Tesla. “How can you release a
machine that’s not safe in so many ways?”
Tesla
doors are the focus of an investigation opened in September by federal
regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is examining
2021 Tesla Model Y sport utility vehicles after owners complained that, after
leaving the front seats and getting out of the car, they were unable to open
the rear doors. In four cases, owners reported that they had to break the cars’
windows to free children trapped inside.
Other
manufacturers, including Ford Motor, Toyota and Stellantis, the maker of Jeep
vehicles, have adopted electronic doors. Those companies have used various
designs that allow doors to be opened in the event of a power failure or
emergency.
Electronic
door handles on some Lexus models operate manually by being pulled twice, and
there is a manual release tab on the exterior handle. The handles on
Volkswagen’s electric ID.4 operate manually if simply pulled harder.
On Ford’s
electric Mustang Mach E and some Jeep models, electronic doors have a capacitor
near the door mechanism that retains enough power for it to open in case of a
battery failure, according to the companies.
The
Piedmont crash shattered the bedroom community set in hills above Oakland,
where streets wind past homes with carefully landscaped yards, many with Teslas
parked out front.
“The four
young people in the Cybertruck were close friends and outstanding individuals,
each on the verge of making meaningful contributions to the world,” Todd and
Stannye Nelson said in their statement. “They were all victims of Tesla’s
unsafe design.”
Mr.
Tsukahara said, “Our life is never going to be the same, and there are other
families just like us.”
Both
families have also sued the estate of Mr. Dixon, the driver, but the Nelsons
said that was for procedural reasons and they “do not seek to punish any
families.”
Jack
Ewing covers the auto industry for The Times, with an emphasis on electric
vehicles.
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