Two students reportedly ‘burned alive’ after the doors to a Tesla Cybertruck ‘malfunctioned and trapped them inside’.
Krysta Tsukahara’s parents are suing the company as onlookers were unable to remove her from the car up in flames. The 19-year-old was riding in the backseat of a Cybertruck along with Jack Nelson, 20, while Soren Dixon, 19, was driving.
Tragically, the Tesla vehicle smashed into a retaining wall and a tree at high speed in a San Francisco Bay Area suburb and burst into flames on 27 November last year.
All three of the college students died while a fourth passenger managed to escape after an onlooker smashed the windscreen with a tree branch.
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The family of Nelson also filed a lawsuit on Thursday (2 October) as both claim the design of the doors of the electric vehicle from Elon Musk's company made it nearly impossible for their children to escape.
Tesla is the pioneer of car doors that open or shut with the push of a button and its latches rely on a 12-volt battery separate from the high-voltage battery that drives the Cybertruck’s electric motor.
So, if a crash cuts off the power, the electronic door might not function.
The lawsuits claim that Nixon and Tsukahara survived the crash with minor injuries but then couldn’t escape the burning vehicle as it had lost power and the electronic door release system failed.
The students are said to have died of burns and smoke inhalation from being trapped inside, with the suits claiming the manual door releases were too hard for them to locate.
Tsukahara’s family attorney, Roger Dreyer, told the San Francisco Chronicle: “It’s just a horror story. Tesla knows that it’s happened and that it’s going to happen, and they are doing nothing but selling the car with a system that entraps people and doesn’t provide a way of extraction.”
Their lawsuit also said the 19-year-old ‘suffered unimaginable pain and emotional distress’ in her final moments as she could not escape the blaze.
And the parents of Nelson’s lawsuit said: “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.”
Both of the wrongful death suits are seeking unspecified punitive damages against Tesla.
All of the victims had cocaine, alcohol and other substances in their systems at the time, with the California Highway Patrol having also stated that impaired driving and speeding were both factors in the crash.
“They [Tesla] will want to blame Mr. Dixon, anybody but themselves. But this vehicle absolutely should not have entombed these individuals and my clients’ daughter. It’s our way of holding the wrongdoer accountable and correcting bad conduct,” Dreyer said.
LADbible has contacted Tesla for comment.
Jess Battison