The parents of a young woman who died in a Tesla vehicle are suing the company, claiming the incident was caused by a “known” design flaw in the vehicle.
Krysta Tsukahara, 19, died last November in a high-speed Tesla Cybertruck being driven by 19-year-old Soren Dixon. According to People magazine, Dixon’s vehicle struck a tree in Piedmont, California.
Now, nearly six months after filing their first lawsuit in an attempt to get answers, Tsukahara’s parents, Carl and Noelle Tsukahara, filed an amended wrongful death lawsuit last Thursday (2).
The New York Times reported that the 36-page lawsuit alleges that the Tesla design of the Cybertruck doors made it nearly impossible for Tsukahara to exit the vehicle, despite sustaining minor injuries when the accident occurred.
So, even though she suffered non-life-threatening injuries, when the Cybertruck’s battery caught fire, she died from burns and smoke inhalation, according to The Times.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Cybertruck doors are powered by a 12-volt battery, which can fail if the vehicle loses power due to a collision.
The plaintiffs claim that Tsukahara, Dixon, and a third passenger, 20-year-old Jack Nelson, were prevented from exiting the vehicle due to this flaw. The fourth passenger, Jordan Miller, only escaped after a passerby broke the windshield with a tree branch.
In the lawsuit, Tsukahara’s parents stated that their daughter suffered “unimaginable pain and emotional suffering” being trapped in the back seat amid the vehicle fire.
“Krysta was a bright, kind, accomplished young woman with her whole life ahead of her. We had to endure not only the loss of our daughter but also the silence about how this happened and why she couldn’t get out,” Carl Tsukahara told KTVU Fox 2.
“Our lives will never be the same, and there are other families like ours. This company is worth a trillion dollars — how can you release a machine that is unsafe in so many ways?” he added to The Times.
Roger Dreyer, the family’s attorney, said the Tesla vehicle “failed” his client’s daughter. “There was no functioning manual release or emergency mechanism accessible for her to escape. Her death could have been prevented,” he explained to KTVU Fox 2.
“Tesla knows this has happened and will happen, and they are doing nothing but selling a car with a system that traps people and offers no way out,” he said, adding that the recently filed lawsuit is about “truth and accountability.”
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