15 People Are Dead. Tesla Was Warned About Door Traps

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And the only way that we can continue doing this is with your support. So one second of your time to hit the subscribe button right now would help this show tremendously. Thank you so much. Elon Musk was warned in early 2016 that Tesla's electronically powered door handles could trap people inside vehicles if the power hits failed. That warning came during development of the Model 3, according to Bloomberg, when engineers raised concerns about scenarios where a loss of vehicle power could prevent doors from opening. Now, the Model 3 was supposed to be the mass market sedan that would turn Tesla from a niche luxury brand into the world's most valuable automaker. Tesla press forward with the design anyway. And now federal regulators have opened a new investigation, the second in three months into Tesla's door really systems. Now, we've identified at least 15 deaths in crashes where Tesla doors would not open after impact. More than half of those deaths occurred since November of 2024. Now that is crazy. And how does a known design risk go unaddressed for nearly a decades while fatalities accelerate? Now, the new NHTSA investigation covers nearly 8,180,000 Model 3 sedans from the 2022 model year. The agency received a defect petition alleging the mech door release is hidden, unlabeled and not intuitive to locate during an emergency. This investigation is separate from the September probe into Model Y door handles, given how similar Tesla's handles are across its whole lineup. The Model S Model X and Cybertruck could face more scrutiny next. Now we're going to walk through what we found in months long investigations, how Tesla responded, what federal regulators are doing about it, and why. This story extends beyond just Tesla, and we'll get right into that after this very short break. Now, Tesla's signature flush door handles have become a serious regulatory and legal problem. The design uses electronic latches instead of mechanical ones. And with you press a Tesla door handle, it sends an electronic signal that triggers the door to open. Now, if the car loses power, the normal handles completely stop working. Tesla has two battery systems. A high voltage pack propels the car. A low voltage 12 volt battery operates the windows and the doors. And if that 12 volt battery dies or gets disabled in a crash, the doors may not unlock at all and you're trapped inside. Now, Tesla does include manual backup releases, but they're located in different places depending on the model in the year. Some are even under carpets and hidden. Some are behind speaker grilles. And if you're in an emergency, you don't know where they are. Some are small levers near the window latches. And in some Model 3 and Model Y vehicles sold between 2014 and 2024, there were no manual releases for the rear doors at all. Now that's worth repeating at all. There's no manual releases for the doors now. For years, Tesla sold cars where rear passengers had no mechanical way to exit if the electronics fail. The owner's manual explains the backup system. But most people don't read their own manual. In emergency, you do not have time to consult a diagram. You don't rifle through a book while you're trapped inside your car and risking or expecting to not make it out. Right now we've seen every fatality of electric vehicle crashes in the United States between 2012 and 2023 that involve fire. Bloomberg has identified independently additional crashes in 2024 and 2025. And there's thousands of pages of police reports, fire reports and autopsy records. They listened to 911 calls and watch police body camera footage at Bloomberg. The investigation focused on cases where there was documented evidence that victims survived the initial crash impact but were trapped inside burning vehicles because doors wouldn't even open. How do you get to the latch if it's burning? It doesn't make any sense. You should just be able to pull that thing open right now. The methodology produced a count of 15 deaths in 12 separate incidents over the past 10 years. I should note that Tesla is not the only automaker with electronic door handles. Around 70 models on sale today use them, including vehicles from Ford, Lucid and BMW. But Tesla accounts for the largest number of consumer complaints. One recent rescue in Virginia captured the problem on dash cam video. A state trooper responded to a burning Tesla Model Y and found the driver unable to open the doors. The officer bashed through the window and pulled the driver to safety. That scene, someone smashing glass because the door handle doesn't work because the battery died or was destroyed in the crash. It's becoming a pattern with Tesla. Parents have had to break windows to reach children trapped in Model Y's after the 12 volt battery died. In one California incident, an eight month old was struck in a car seat or stuck in a car seat for 30 minutes while the interior temperature exceeded 104 degrees. Police and firefighters arrived and smashed the window to get the baby out. It survived. There's more lawsuits. They're piling up. A Texas family sued Tesla after Michael Sheehan burned to death in a cyber truck in August of 2024. According to the lawsuit, Sheehan purchased the vehicle in April 2024. Just 120 days later, he crashed into a culvert in the vehicle, caught fire. The crash itself was survivable, but once the truck lost power, the electronic doors would not open. The emergency manual releases were allegedly difficult to locate, and the battery went into thermal runaway, a chain reaction where damaged lithium ion cells overheat and ignite. The fire reached approximately 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Sheehan's attorney said the heat was so intense that his lion's bones experienced thermal fracture. He was 8 inches shorter in length after the fire than before. That's horrible. And the family is taking more than a million dollars in damages, as they should, in my opinion. If you can't find your way out because the door handles are busted, because the battery doesn't work. Look, man, it's. It's a scary thought. A separate lawsuit involves three teenagers who died in a cybertruck crash in Piedmont, California in November 2024. A friend who witnessed the crash said he ran and tried the push button door release didn't work. He tried the rear door also didn't work. He picked up a tree branch and struck the window roughly a dozen times. Now, the cyber truck has armor glass in a stainless steel frame. And Shell and Musk once called it the finest in apocalypse protection technology. The same protection made rescue nearly impossible. The victim's autopsy showed they died from smoke inhalation and burns, not the impact. They survived the crash. They did not survive the doors not opening Now Tesla launched a new safety website this month. It says doors will automatically unlock for emergency access after a serious collision. It's a new feature, and the website includes a footnote saying the feature may not be available on every model, depending on build date. Tesla design chief Franz Van Holzhausen told Bloomberg in September that the company is working on a redesign. The plan is to combine the electronic and manual door release mechanisms into a single button. Now, they said the goal is to make the system more intuitive for occupants in a panic situation. Did not say when the redesign would be ready or whether older vehicles would receive a retrofit in a recall. Now the NHTSA now opened two investigations into Tesla door systems September probe covers about 174,000 Model Y vehicles from the 2021 model year. The new December probe covers about 179,000 Model 3 vehicles from the 2022 model year. In the September investigation was prompted by complaints from owners who could not enter or exit vehicles after the batteries died. Now, in several cases, children were locked inside. NHTSA sent Tesla a letter demanding extensive records about consumer complaints, crashes, injuries, fatalities, fires, lawsuits and warranty claims related to door operation ability. Now the agency warned Tesla it could face fines of nearly $28,000 per violation per day if it failed to respond completely and on time. Don't mess with them now. This issue is not limited to the United States, though. China's auto safety regulators are considering a ban on fully concealed door handles. If implemented, that rule could take effect as early as July 2027. All of Tesla's vehicles are concealed, and they use concealed handles for aerodynamic efficiency. A change in China would force Tesla to redesign. The European Transport Safety Council has called for clearer emergency opening rules for electronically activated doors. Tesla has said any safety issues with doors are industry wide and not unique to its vehicles. That's true in the sense that other automakers use similar technology. But the complaints, lawsuits and fatality count are concentrated on Tesla, and owners are taking matters into their own hands. Some are buying glass breakers and seat belt cutters to keep in their vehicles. Rideshare drivers are proactively showing passengers where to find the manual releases. Third party sellers on Amazon and Etsy are listing emergency pull cords and accessories to make the releases easier to use. TikTok videos and Reddit threads explain how to install them. Nearly 35,000 people have signed a Consumer Reports petition calling on automakers to fill fix their electric doors. Now. A Tesla owner in Los Angeles made an informational video about reading about college students who died in a crash she realized she did not know how to exit her own car in an emergency. That, my friends, is a design failure. Now Tesla introduced flush door handles with the Model S in 2012. The company made them a signature styling element. The handles look similar, sleek. They reduce aerodynamic drag. They also hide the mechanism that gets you out of the car. Now von Holen has led Tesla's design team for 17 years. He acknowledged in his Bloomberg interview the muscle memory matters in a panic situation. If the door handle you reach for doesn't work, need to find an alternative, possibly within a second or you're done. That alternative should not be hidden under a rug, should not require reading an owner's manual. The Ford Mustang Mach E already uses the system where pulling the electronic latch further engages the mechanical release. Now Tesla is now exploring something very similar. Tesla taking a page out of the Ford Playbook. And the question is whether the fix will come soon enough and whether it will cover the millions of vehicles that are already on the road and will save lives. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your support. If you could take a second and hit this subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll know and each episode is about 10 minutes to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you support the show even more.com stage zero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.