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Parents sue Tesla after their 19-year-old daughter died in her Cybertruck, alleging faulty door design made it impossible to escape the burning car
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”.
“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,” Carl Tsukahara said in a statement. “This company is worth a trillion dollars—how can you release a machine that’s not safe in so many ways?”
According to the lawsuit, Tesla’s electronic door system relies on a 12-volt battery that can fail during crashes, leaving occupants unable to open doors electronically. While the Cybertruck does include manual door releases, the rear door releases are located under a rubber mat in the door storage pocket and require occupants to remove the mat, pull a mechanical release cable forward, and then push the door open. Tesla has a whole page on its website about how to open Cybertruck doors when the car has no power. The lawsuit argues these manual releases are difficult to locate and operate, especially during an emergency.
“It’s just a horror story,” Roger Dreyer, attorney for the Tsukahara family, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “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.”
The case adds to mounting safety concerns about Tesla’s door designs across its vehicle lineup. In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into Tesla’s 2021 Model Y vehicles after receiving reports that electronic door handles stopped working, trapping children inside. The probe covers approximately 174,300 vehicles and follows complaints where parents had to break windows to free their children from vehicles after the electronic door systems failed.
Tesla’s door design problems have been linked to multiple incidents beyond the Piedmont crash. Bloomberg News documented a series of cases where Tesla occupants were injured or killed after being unable to open doors following power loss, particularly after crashes. The NHTSA database contains more than 140 consumer complaints since 2018 related to Tesla doors getting stuck, not opening, or otherwise malfunctioning.
The Cybertruck itself has faced significant challenges since its launch. Tesla has issued at least eight recalls for the vehicle, including a recall in March affecting every single Cybertruck ever delivered through February 2025—some 46,000-plus vehicles—due to adhesive failure causing body panels to detach. Sales have also lagged initial projections, with industry analysts describing the truck’s commercial performance as disappointing.
In response to the growing scrutiny, Tesla’s chief designer Franz von Holzhausen said in September the company is working on combining electronic and manual door releases into a single mechanism to make them more intuitive during emergencies.
The Tsukahara family’s lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive damages and comes as Tesla faces multiple legal challenges regarding its vehicle safety designs. In August, a Florida jury awarded more than $240 million to victims of a 2019 fatal crash involving Tesla’s Autopilot system. The company also settled a separate lawsuit filed by relatives of a man who died in a 2016 crash after being unable to escape from a burning Tesla.
China is reportedly considering a ban on fully concealed door handles due to safety concerns, while European authorities have taken some measures to improve rescue protocols after a crash.
The Piedmont crash investigation revealed that Dixon, the driver, had alcohol, cocaine, and methamphetamine in his system at the time of the collision. However, the Tsukahara family’s attorney emphasized that multiple factors can contribute to crashes while highlighting Tesla’s responsibility for occupant safety systems.
“This is a case where two things can be true at the same time,” Matthew Davis, a lawyer representing the Nelson family in a separate lawsuit, told Bloomberg. “There can be people responsible for the crash and there is a company responsible for the fact that they couldn’t get out.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
