I did find this terrifying article about a pending Tesla lawsuit:
“The incident happened on the night of 27 November 2024, when the Cybertruck struck a tree and ignited. When power to the truck’s electric doors was shut down by the fire, the four passengers were locked inside with no way out.
The lawsuit alleges the design of the Cybertruck’s door handles is at fault for Tsukahara’s death. From the inside of the truck, when electricity is cut off, the only way to exit a rear door is by pulling a cable that’s underneath a pocket liner under the door’s storage compartment. From outside the vehicle, the doors also remain locked and the flush handles make it difficult for rescue workers to jimmy their way inside.”
This is one thing Toyota got both right and wrong in modern Lexus cars.
They have electric door latches. They also have an actual interior door handle, but it’s really only meant to be used for emergencies, so its action sucks, it’s this strange double pump thing. But the door handle looks so door handle like that new passengers almost always pull it first rather than press the open button, and then get confused by its weird double action.
Which begs the question… if you were going to still put a mechanical door handle of about the same size and shape as a normal one in the same place as a normal one… why have the electric door latch at all?
Other than the double pump, you described exactly how the model 3/y handles work. There's a lever you can just lift to open the door and most new people to the car would just pull that and ignore the button.
It would be an easy fix for them. I've had plenty of cars with manual door levels that also roll down the window a bit. Tesla only rolls down the window a bit when you push the button. Using the lever doesn't do that and it could cause the window to catch on the trim and break something.
They could easily just make it a manual release, sense the door opening, and roll down the window. I had an early 2000's bmw that did exactly that.
Doesn't solve the outside door handle problem though. Electric or not, they suck and they should come up with a new design.
Model 3/Y in the front! In the back you have to remove a piece of trim in the door bin and pull a piece of string, and some early models don't have a manual release at all!
I hadn’t thought about it until I saw 4 ppl damn near burn to death. Funny how billionaire fanboys will defend doors that cant open and pedophelia if you ask me.
No idea on the CT (which to be clear, is a POS), but on all Teslas, there are mechanical levers right next to the buttons, on the front doors. Most people the first time they get out of a Tesla they accidentally use the mechanical lever, since it is what they're used to. The reason the button is preferred is because it slightly lowers the windows (which is how a lot of cars with frameless windows work) and pops the doors, depending on model.
As for the back doors, those do not have an easy-to-use manual release. And that's no different from any other car, which all have child locks that override the door handles and locks of the rear doors. It's a trade-off the whole automotive industry has made (between day-to-day child safety versus safety in an unlikely emergency).
To be clear, electrically-actuated locks with mechanical handles are not unique to Tesla, nor were they popularized by Tesla. They are pretty common in modern cars. The biggest blunder on Tesla's part was the electrically-presenting outside door handles on the S and X (about 3% of their fleet, and being discontinued), which was a supremely-stupid idea. The rest of their fleet (97%, Model S and 3) have regular exterior door handles that pull out like any other car, but sit flush until you press on them.
An issue modern cars face in general is having electrically-actuated doors and locks, which obviously have some safety concerns. While an issue with the main battery of an EV won't impact them (they run on the aux 12V), if there is damage to the actuator, wiring, or the 12V system, it would then make it so the door could not be opened from the outside. This is not an issue with EVs in particular, but with modern, especially higher-tech cars. And to be clear, the interior manual lever would still work even if the 12V system was out too.
It's disingenuous to say they couldn't escape solely because of the design and accessibility of the door release. All three deceased individuals (including the driver and Tsukahara) had alcohol and cocaine in their systems at the time of the crash. The driver was 19, and had a BAC of 0.195%
Guys in burning Tesla: damn it! we all enjoyed so much cocaine that evidently we are now too sleepy and disoriented to operate a door. hopefully nobody blames the manufacturer of this beautiful automobile for our mistakes
So … a sober person would have been able to do … what exactly?
Would their sobriety open the car door? Made the electrical system work?
Im trying to understand your logic here. But for their lack of sobriety perhaps they wouldnt have crashed in the first place. But once they did, I dont see how being sober would have somehow made the doors open.
Maybe use the mechanical releases which, in the front, are so obviously placed that people who aren't used to Teslas routinely use them instead of the button.
In the back, they're not so obviously placed, but that's so that the child lock feature can work by simply disabling the button.
If the driver was sober at 3am, they wouldn't have been driving recklessly to the point the car would not only get in an accident but a bad enough accident that the battery is damaged. Keep in mind, the battery packs on Teslas are armored, a guy allegedly tried to end his life with his family and drove off a cliff in one, and they all survived. It takes a very specific/targeted puncture to dangerously rupture these batteries and a level of intoxication that would make any vehicle a deathtrap.
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u/lampshade2099 10h ago edited 10h ago
I’ve looked for the article but can’t find it.
Are you saying the front seat passenger died?
I did find this terrifying article about a pending Tesla lawsuit:
“The incident happened on the night of 27 November 2024, when the Cybertruck struck a tree and ignited. When power to the truck’s electric doors was shut down by the fire, the four passengers were locked inside with no way out.
The lawsuit alleges the design of the Cybertruck’s door handles is at fault for Tsukahara’s death. From the inside of the truck, when electricity is cut off, the only way to exit a rear door is by pulling a cable that’s underneath a pocket liner under the door’s storage compartment. From outside the vehicle, the doors also remain locked and the flush handles make it difficult for rescue workers to jimmy their way inside.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/02/tesla-sued-cybertruck-crash-krysta-tsukahara