Parents of woman killed in Cybertruck crash sue Tesla

The parents of a young woman who died due to a Tesla Cybertruck crash in California last year are targeting the popular electric vehicle manufacturer in an amended complaint in a lawsuit.

Attorney Roger Dreyer — with the firm Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora, LLP — who is representing the Tsukahara family, provided Fox News Digital with a copy of the document, which asserts that Krysta Tsukahara and others were trapped inside the burning vehicle.

“Due to the defective design of the subject vehicle, the collision and subsequent loss of electrical power caused the electronic door release system to fail. As a direct result, Decedent Krysta Michelle Tsukahara and the other occupants were unable to open the doors and were trapped inside the vehicle,” the complaint states.

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Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk gestures while introducing the newly unveiled all-electric battery-powered Tesla Cybertruck at Tesla Design Center in Hawthorne, California, on Nov. 21, 2019 (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

“She attempted to get out of the subject vehicle through efforts of a person who was attempting to extract her through the front passenger window due to the failure of the electrical system of the TESLA Cybertruck.  She was unable to open her door due to this electrical failure, as was the Good Samaritan who was attempting to rescue her.  Krysta Michelle Tsukahara was then pushed back by fire and heat and unable to be extracted from the TESLA Cybertruck,” the document declares, adding that she died “from smoke inhalation and thermal injuries.” 

The suit takes aim at the design and operation of the vehicle doors.

“Inside the Cybertruck, normal door operation also depends on low-voltage electronic buttons mounted on the door handles. Once a crash or fire occurs, the buttons became useless due to power loss or other crash damage. 

“For the right rear passenger door, the only remaining option was a concealed wire loop hidden beneath the lining of the map pocket at the bottom of the door. A passenger would have to remove the liner, locate the loop, and pull it forward — an obscure and impractical maneuver in an emergency. These design choices created a highly foreseeable risk that rear-seat occupants who survived a crash would nevertheless remain trapped when the vehicle caught fire.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Tesla for comment.

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A Tesla Cybertruck is displayed at a Tesla dealership on Dec. 20, 2024, in Corte Madera, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Elon Musk co-founded and helms the company.

“Krysta was a bright, kind, and accomplished young woman with her whole life ahead of her,” her father, Carl Tsukahara, said, according to a press release Dreyer provided to Fox News Digital.

“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?”

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Tesla Cybertruck electric vehicles sit parked in a storage lot in San Diego, California on April 11, 2025. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

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The estate of Soren Mangseth Dixon and the estate of Charles Patterson, both deceased, are also named as defendants in the suit. Dixon had been driving during the crash. The suit describes the vehicle as Patterson’s Cybertruck. 

Dixon, Tsukahara, and another individual, Jack Nelson, died due to the crash, while another passenger was transported to the hospital. Autopsy reports revealed the presence of alcohol, cocaine, and meth in Dixon’s system, KTVU reported, adding that Tsukahara and Nelson each tested positive for alcohol and cocaine.