Elon Musk ’s Tesla is facing a lawsuit for the death of a teenage girl. The parents of a 19-year-old college student killed in a Cybertruck crash have sued the electric vehicle maker. They claimed that the design of the vehicle's doors made it a "death trap” for which, Krysta Tsukahara , a passenger in the backseat, was trapped inside the vehicle when it burst into flames. Her parents claimed that their daughter got trapped allegedly because she could not find the manual door releases after the vehicle’s battery caught fire. The incident which occurred in November 2024 in Piedmont, California, killed Tsukahara and two others when the driver crashed into a tree.
According to a report by The Independent, the lawsuit, filed by her parents, Carl and Noelle Tsukahara, claimed the Cybertruck “lacked a functional, accessible, and conspicuous manual door release mechanism, fail-safe, or other redundant system for emergency egress.” Meanwhile, Tesla's owner manual states that in the event of a power failure, rear-seat passengers must remove a rubber mat, pull a mechanical release cable, and then push the door open.
What Krysta Tsukahara’s parents said about their daughter’s death in a Cybertruck
In a statement, Carl Tsukahara said: “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. This company is worth a trillion dollars—how can you release a machine that’s not safe in so many ways?”
The report also claimed that a friend of the teens, Matt Riordan , tried to rescue them after the Cybertruck caught fire, smashing the front window with a tree branch to save the front-seat passenger.
However, he was unable to reach 19-year-old Tsukahara in the back. The crash also reportedly killed driver Soren Dixon, 19, and passenger Jack Nelson , 20, whose family has now sued the automaker.
“This case arises from catastrophic design defects in the Tesla Cybertruck that turned a survivable crash into a fatal fire,” the Nelsons’ complaint added.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Matthew Davis, a lawyer for the Nelsons said: “This is a case where two things can be true at the same time. There can be people responsible for the crash and there is a company responsible for the fact that they couldn’t get out.”
The lawsuits were filed just weeks after federal auto safety regulators announced an investigation into the door handles of another Tesla model, the 2021 Model Y.
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According to a report by The Independent, the lawsuit, filed by her parents, Carl and Noelle Tsukahara, claimed the Cybertruck “lacked a functional, accessible, and conspicuous manual door release mechanism, fail-safe, or other redundant system for emergency egress.” Meanwhile, Tesla's owner manual states that in the event of a power failure, rear-seat passengers must remove a rubber mat, pull a mechanical release cable, and then push the door open.
What Krysta Tsukahara’s parents said about their daughter’s death in a Cybertruck
In a statement, Carl Tsukahara said: “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. This company is worth a trillion dollars—how can you release a machine that’s not safe in so many ways?”
The report also claimed that a friend of the teens, Matt Riordan , tried to rescue them after the Cybertruck caught fire, smashing the front window with a tree branch to save the front-seat passenger.
However, he was unable to reach 19-year-old Tsukahara in the back. The crash also reportedly killed driver Soren Dixon, 19, and passenger Jack Nelson , 20, whose family has now sued the automaker.
“This case arises from catastrophic design defects in the Tesla Cybertruck that turned a survivable crash into a fatal fire,” the Nelsons’ complaint added.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Matthew Davis, a lawyer for the Nelsons said: “This is a case where two things can be true at the same time. There can be people responsible for the crash and there is a company responsible for the fact that they couldn’t get out.”
The lawsuits were filed just weeks after federal auto safety regulators announced an investigation into the door handles of another Tesla model, the 2021 Model Y.
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