As has been the case for years with Tesla, in a nod to clear regression into defects known from 1970s-era door designs that don’t open in a fiery crash, the recent Piedmont Cybertruck tragedy is investigated best and explained clearly by local journalism.
The Highway Patrol’s investigation into a November Cybertruck crash in Piedmont where three college kids died is finding two very Tesla problems: the vehicle immediately caught fire, and its doors would not open.
…the Bay Area News Group has been going through the testimony of the CHP investigation. And the deaths appear to be more the result of the vehicle fire… troublingly, that testimony also showed the Cybertruck’s doors could not be opened in the aftermath of the crash, preventing Riordan from pulling the other three victims from the flaming wreckage.
Roirdan said that when he approached the burning vehicle, and tried to open the doors, they would not open. He said he “pulled for a few seconds, but nothing budged at all.” He also said “I then tried the button on the windshield of [survivor Jordan Miller’s] door, then [victim Krysta Tsukahara’s] door.”
He said he then pounded the windows with his fists, which did not work, and then struck the windows with a thick tree branch around a dozen times until he was able to crack and dislodge a passenger-side window. That was how he was able to pull Jordan Miller out of the vehicle.
But when he attempted to pull Tsukahara from that same window, Riordan testified, “I grabbed her arm to try and pull her towards me, but she retreated because of the fire.”
“Two very Tesla problems” is exactly right.
There’s no other negligence like we see in an obviously flawed and regressive Tesla design. And we know this because past lessons and litigation were supposed to permanently change the car industry in a way that nobody would attempt such deadly “efficiency” again.
Here’s typical Ford Pinto analysis, which for decades exposed deadly management design decisions. Note “doors jam shut” right at the top of the image. 
The fact that Tesla can do this known wrong thing intentionally, can ignore industry standards and instead kill so many people with fire due to management decisions (as if the Ford Pinto lessons never happened), is truly shocking.
The uniquely Tesla fire deaths are being reported all the time in local news, and yet… somehow the court systems around the world aren’t able to prevent the very clearly preventable deaths.
Although the fire brigade arrived quickly and extinguished the fire within 10 minutes, the male driver in his 30s inside the car was already buried in the flames. Korean media reported that the driver seemed to have tried to open the door several times, but failed for unknown reasons.
Immediate response. Witnesses on scene helping. Fire doused in 10 minutes. And then… for “unknown reasons” Tesla “failed” repeatedly. Many people are dead because of this sequence repeating. The bottom line seems obvious, as a question of whether any other brand of car would have meant these people survived, or maybe not even crashed at all.
German courts called out negligent homicide by a Tesla driver, and yet called the car a “death trap” design while not holding Tesla itself accountable?
In the dock, the awful shadow of a car manufacturer loomed large. The expert’s verdict was damning: Tesla’s automatic door unlocking system failed in the crash. The result? The rear doors were incapable of being opened either from inside or out in the crucial moments after the crash. Laura and Noel, both aged 18, were alive yet tragically were trapped and burned to death as first responders could only watch in horror.
The awful shadow of a car manufacturer loomed large. Expert verdict was damning. That’s the German press for you. So dramatic. Still not enough to get a Tesla CEO convicted.
There are dozens of cases with similar tragedy. We still don’t see the kind of necessary attention the Ford Pinto generated even though it had far fewer deaths over a much longer period.
