GLENDALE, ARIZONA - SEPTEMBER 21: Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the memorial service for political activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium on September 21, 2025 in Glendale, Arizona. Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on September 10th while speaking at an event during his "American Comeback Tour" at Utah Valley University. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The family of a California college student who perished last year inside a Cybertruck that crashed and burst into flames is now suing Tesla for flawed doors they claim kept their daughter locked inside the steel death trap, according to The New York Times.
“I never want this to happen to any other family,” said Carl Tsukahara in an earlier interview about his daughter, 19-year-old Krysta, who died along with two others in the Cybertruck crash in November last year. “The pain and shock and horror were unbelievable.”
This lawsuit — and a similar incident in Texas in which a man died trapped inside his fiery Cybertruck — further darken the reputation of Tesla, which has been lambasted for the door design on many models. It also piles on the woes of the flawed Cybertruck, which has been beset with lagging sales and criticism for poor workmanship and design.
Tesla is under intense scrutiny for its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems, which have been at the center of several wrongful death lawsuits, including one in which a Florida federal jury ordered the car company to pay $243 million for a horrific crash that killed a 22-year-old pedestrian in 2019.
It all comes at a delicate time for Tesla and CEO Elon Musk in his controversial push for Tesla robotaxis, which have already gotten into their own accidents.
In the case of Krysta Tsukahara, she was riding in the rear seat of the Cybertruck with another passenger, Jackson Nelson, 20, when the driver, 19-year-old Soren Dixon, crashed into a tree, according to NYT, killing the two young men.
The lawsuit from Tsukahara’s family claims that she initially suffered from minor injuries and could have escaped if it weren’t for the faulty Cybertruck doors that are hard to open during an emergency. She ultimately died from burns and smoke inhalation.
The Tesla vehicle’s doors are linked to a battery separate from the main vehicle’s power source, so the door batteries can become inoperable after a crash. When the power is cut off, a passenger in the rear would need to fish around in a rear door’s storage compartment and lift a cable in order to escape — a process that critics say is neither intuitive nor safe.
Tesla representatives have said they are working on a new design to make the doors on its models easier to open in case power cuts off, according to the NYT — though it’s anyone’s guess why the issue wasn’t handled years ago.
On this matter, the father of Tsukahara had some stern words for the car company.
“Ours is not an isolated case,” Carl Tsukahara told NYT. “This company is worth a trillion dollars. How can you release a machine that’s not safe in so many ways?”
More on the Tesla Cybertruck: The Cybertruck Is Turning Into a Complete Disaster