Two Bay Area families are suing Tesla over the death of their 19-year-old daughter and 20-year-old son after a crash which left them and one other teenager dead, trapped inside the vehicle due to what the lawsuit alleges is poor door handle design.

The lawsuit traces back to a 2024 crash on Thanksgiving Eve in Piedmont, California, where a Cybertruck carrying four college students crashed into a tree and a wall, causing a fire. As a result of the crash, the Cybertruck’s electronic door handles no longer worked, and the passengers were trapped inside.

A surveillance video released by the California Highway Patrol showed the Cybertruck’s final moments, rounding a curve at high speed and seeming to lose control of the rear of the vehicle as it crested a hill, with a large flash seen in the video after the Cybertruck leaves the frame.

A friend in another vehicle that had been following the Cybertruck stopped and managed to break the front passenger window after “ten to fifteen hits” with a fallen tree branch and pull one passenger out of the vehicle, but the other three passengers died inside of asphyxia from smoke inhalation and had burns on their body.

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Tesla vehicles typically do receive high scores for passenger safety in crash tests, and Tesla has touted its “armor glass” as being hard to break (despite a famously failed demo at the Cybertruck’s introduction). And it appears that the occupants did not die from the crash impact itself, but rather from being trapped inside and the resulting smoke and burns.

The three college students who died were 19 year old Krysta Tsukarahara and Soren Dixon, and 20 year old Jack Nelson. Dixon had been driving the vehicle, and post-crash investigations discovered that all three had been under the influence at the time of the crash. All were high school friends home from college for Thanksgiving and had spent the night out together on what is known to be one of the worst drunk driving nights of the year.

After the crash, Tsukahara’s family filed a lawsuit against the estate of Dixon, the driver of the car. The car belonged to Dixon’s relative.

The Tsukaharas have now amended their case to include Tesla as a defendant after post-crash investigations suggested the car’s design contributed to the deaths, blaming door handles that are difficult to operate and doors and windows that are hard for rescuers to access for their child’s death. Nelson’s family filed a separate lawsuit, with the same allegation.

Tesla’s door handles in focus

Tesla vehicles have electronic door handles, with outer door handles that are flush against the vehicle. This enhances the sleek look of the exterior, and also leads to small aerodynamic gains.

However, it also leads to confusing operation, as each car the company has released so far has had a different door handle in a different place on the vehicle with a different method of operation than the last.

This also means that the outer door handles can be hard to operate in an emergency situation. In the crash described above, the rescuer had to bash at the Cybertruck’s window “ten to fifteen” times, after having failed to punch it out with his fist. An externally operable door handle would have perhaps resulted in a different outcome.

Further, the interior door release can be confusing in an emergency situation. Normally one just presses the interior door release button, which operates electronically. However, when there’s a problem with the vehicle, that system can become disconnected and require a manual release.

Every Tesla has a manual release, but it’s often hidden in a place that passengers may not know to look, or may have difficulty finding in an emergency scenario, especially for rear seat passengers.

On the Cybertruck, the front manual door release is relatively easy to access, just in front of the window switches. Indeed, sometimes passengers will accidentally pull this lever rather than the electronic door release (which is not recommended, as it can damage the window trim). In the event of this crash, at least one passenger was described as “barely conscious,” and thus operation of the door handle may not have been an option.

But the rear release is much harder to find. To access it, one must remove a rubber mat from the map pocket, revealing a mechanical release cable with a loop on the end, then pull it forward.

Tsukahara’s parents say that she “was alive after the crash. She called out for help. And she couldn’t get out.” It is conceivable that simpler door handles may have resulted in a different outcome, though three of the vehicle’s doors were obstructed by the wall and tree that it had crashed into. The right rear door, the seat occupied by Nelson, was unobstructed, according to the Nelsons’ lawsuit.

Tesla’s other cars have similarly hidden mechanical door releases in the rear, under carpet under the seat in the Model S, under the map pocket in the Model 3 and Model Y, or behind the speaker grille in the Model X.

These designs have resulted in criticism, and have been the focus of government agencies recently. Tesla is currently being investigated by the NHTSA over its door handle design, and Tesla has confirmed that it is finally redesigning its handles.

Elsewhere in the world, Chinese auto regulators are mulling a ban on retractable door handles, as many sleek new EVs have taken on the trend that Tesla started with its flush door handles.

There have been several lawsuits against Tesla for deaths in its vehicles, often associated with the company’s Autopilot or Full Self-Driving systems. The company typically chooses to settle these lawsuits out of court, despite CEO Elon Musk stating “we will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose,” though it did refuse to settle a recent case and ended up with a $243 million judgment against it, in the first Tesla ADAS case that reached trial.

While this crash had nothing to do with the company’s driver assist systems, it will be interesting to see how Tesla responds to this lawsuit.

The two cases are Nelson v Tesla Inc. and Tsukahara v Dixon, both filed in the California Superior Court in Alameda County. Tsukahara’s case has been set for trial in February 2027.

Electrek’s Take

When I was in high school, a very similar accident happened. A large SUV was speeding around a curve, lost control, and rolled. The teenagers inside were under the influence, though the driver wasn’t in this case. It was national news, and significantly affected our community.

Many other communities have felt the same. It’s a common story. And yet, we still keep building these giant, lumbering land yachts, thinking that it enhances safety when it does not.

But that’s somewhat of an aside here. If the Cybertruck were more nimble or less “impenetrable,” maybe the crash results would have been different. But the focus on door handles is one simple, clear change that would have saved lives in this instance.

Tesla has always had weird door handles, and the door handles have always ended up causing some sort of problem. Whether it be overly complicated latches which make repair costly as in the Model S, overly complicated door which delay release like the Model X, oddly-placed manual door releases that can cause abnormal wear on the Model 3 and Y, or even the svelte door handles on my original Roadster which are currently giving me a weird problem I can’t even explain here, this is a pattern.

And the pattern doesn’t just apply to door handles, but to much of how Tesla works as a company, with the “move fast and break things” approach common in technology. While Tesla has been innovative, those innovations sometimes have come with less consideration for safety than they perhaps should have.

Now, with these Cybertruck deaths, maybe we can finally get a little reason and have Tesla be more normal with its door handles, at least.

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