The parents of a college student who died in a Tesla Cybertruck crash last year are suing Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle company, alleging the truck’s electronic door design trapped their daughter in the burning vehicle and prevented her escape. The lawsuit highlights ongoing safety concerns about Tesla’s door systems: Just last month, a man and his two 9-year-old kids burned to death after their Tesla slammed into a tree and they couldn’t get the doors open, despite someone rushing to help them with a fire extinguisher.
Krysta Tsukahara, 19, was killed last November when the Cybertruck she was riding in crashed into a tree in Piedmont, Calif., and caught fire. Tsukahara, a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia who had flown home for Thanksgiving break, was one of three people who died in the crash, along with the driver, 19-year-old Soren Dixon, and another passenger, 20-year-old Jack Nelson. A fourth passenger was rescued when a witness broke the vehicle’s window with a tree branch.
The wrongful death lawsuit, filed Thursday in Alameda County Superior Court by Carl and Noelle Tsukahara, claims their daughter survived the initial collision with only minor injuries but died from smoke inhalation and burns after becoming trapped inside the vehicle. The suit alleges the Cybertruck “lacked a functional, accessible, and conspicuous manual door release mechanism, fail-safe, or other redundant system for emergency egress”.
