2 months ago
When sheriff deputies arrived astatine nan segment of a late-night clang disconnected a desolate Texas roadworthy successful August 2024, they could spot a elephantine pyre done dense smoke.
According to constabulary reports detailing nan events of that night, nan officers tried to attack nan vehicle, but nan occurrence burned excessively intensely. They saw it was a Tesla Cybertruck and couldn’t spot anyone inside. So they combed nan surrounding area for nan driver.
As flames leapt much than 10ft high, 1 lawman attempted to usage his occurrence extinguisher to combat nan blaze, to nary avail. When firefighters arrived, they tapped into a hydrant – but quelling nan occurrence successful nan electrical conveyance took time. The truck’s batteries kept reigniting.
Once nan blaze was yet out, officers cautiously inspected nan Cybertruck. That’s erstwhile they discovered quality remains.
“The assemblage wrong was severely burnt and was wholly unidentifiable,” 1 serviceman wrote successful his report. “You could spot a pelvic spine and ribcage laying crossed nan beforehand 2 seats, mostly successful nan rider seat,” different wrote.
In nan aftermath of nan fiery scene, officers recovered paperwork scattered adjacent nan conveyance connected which was nan sanction Michael Patrick Sheehan. He was a 47-year-old caregiver practitioner who had owned nan Cybertruck for conscionable 3 months. As his widow and parents activity to uncover what afloat happened, a look astatine different cases base nan aforesaid grim hallmarks mightiness supply clues.
The blaze successful Baytown, Texas, was 1 of 5 known Cybertruck fires that nan Guardian has tracked – a significant amount, considering nan conveyance has only sold 60,000 units and debuted conscionable 2 years ago. These incidents impact 4 fatalities, including nan deaths of 3 assemblage students successful California, and person been nan taxable of 3 wrongful decease lawsuits against Tesla. In a broad look astatine occurrence danger, peculiarly of Cybertrucks, nan Guardian has obtained hundreds of pages of police, occurrence and autopsy reports and tribunal filings and institution manuals, arsenic good arsenic interviewed lawyers and information experts. They – arsenic good arsenic nan families suing Tesla – allege nan Cybertruck’s creation led to these worst-case scenarios wherever fires quickly ignite, nan vehicle’s electrical doorway handles won’t unlock and passengers are trapped inside.
“He burned to decease astatine 5,000°F – a occurrence truthful basking his bones knowledgeable thermal fracture,” sounds nan title from Sheehan’s family. The suit contends Sheehan could person survived nan crash, if he had been capable to unfastened nan doors and flight nan blaze, which flared to temperatures hotter than astir cremation ovens. “The clang forces themselves were survivable,” nan lawyers wrote.
Fires that entrap passengers are a well-documented and recurring problem pinch each exemplary successful Tesla’s lineup of vehicles, but Cybertrucks look to person a disproportionate number of known deaths. Safety experts person told nan Guardian that nan truck’s unsocial creation amplifies nan deadly issue. The vehicles travel pinch high-density laminated windows that are harder to break than regular car windows, making flight and rescue difficult erstwhile doors won’t unlock. And nan trucks are built pinch materials not commonly utilized successful nan industry, for illustration stainless steel, which tin complicate nan activity of emergency responders. The Cybertruck is besides nan first Tesla exemplary to wholly destruct doorway handles connected nan extracurricular of nan vehicle.
The hulking trapezoidal automobiles are a passion task for Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk. Despite having been taxable to 10 recalls, astir notably complete faulty accelerators that would instrumentality astatine afloat throttle, Musk perpetually praises nan Cybertruck, calling it an “incredible vehicle” and “our champion ever from Tesla”. He says nan trucks are “apocalypse-proof” and claims they tin withstand bullets and person “armor glass” windows.
“Trucks should beryllium manly. They should beryllium macho,” Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan successful an October interview. “And bulletproof is maximum macho.”
Michael Brooks, nan executive head of nan non-profit Center for Auto Safety, sees these traits differently: “A batch of it is this whiz-bang, cool tech features that mightiness look really cool and mightiness waste cars, but it’s for illustration they didn’t do nan backup human-factors investigation … to spot really they would usability successful safety-critical incidents.”
Tesla did not return aggregate requests for comment. In tribunal filings, it has denied immoderate wrongdoing and said nan Cybertruck is compliant pinch national information standards and nan institution has satisfied its work to pass customers astir nan risks and dangers of utilizing its product.
Thermal runaway
Last April, conscionable earlier sunrise, firefighters responded to reports of an uncontrolled blaze successful a residential vicinity successful Los Angeles. They arrived astatine a paradoxical segment successful which a crumpled Cybertruck engulfed successful flames was being showered by a occurrence hydrant spewing h2o 50ft into nan air. Laying successful nan water-soaked thoroughfare was Alijah Arenas, an 18-year-old hoops prima for nan University of Southern California.
He’d been rescued from wrong nan burning Cybertruck aft passersby worked to peel backmost 1 of nan truck’s windows and propulsion him out. Because of terrible fume inhalation, though, Arenas had to beryllium temporarily placed successful a medically induced coma.
The hoops subordinate later recounted nan clang during a June property conference, saying he was driving location from nan gym erstwhile nan steering instrumentality became unresponsive. Unable to power nan Cybertruck, he careened into nan occurrence hydrant and a tree. Looking backmost astatine nan camera feed, he said nan conveyance caught occurrence upon impact.
“I aftermath up successful nan car aft astir 3 minutes,” Arenas said. “I had heard cracking noises for illustration I was astatine a campfire.”
Arenas said it felt for illustration an overheated sauna, and nan passenger-side dashboard was connected fire. The fume was truthful thick, he couldn’t spot outside. He tried opening nan doors, but they wouldn’t budge. “I commencement benignant of panicking and rushing to get out,” he said. He passed retired once, past woke up. To enactment awake, he spot his lips and dug his fingernails into his palms and started kicking a model moving to get free. The model was somewhat unfastened and he could perceive personification trying to break done it from nan outside. Then he passed retired again.
“It felt for illustration I was successful location for a mates hours, and it was only a mates minutes,” Arenas said.
When electrical vehicles drawback connected fire, they pain overmuch faster and hotter than gas-powered cars. If nan soul cells successful lithium-ion batteries go overheated, they tin quickly combust successful an uncontrollable domino-like effect. The word for nan phenomenon, which tin hap erstwhile there’s beingness harm to nan batteries, is “thermal runaway”. Battery fires besides scope overmuch higher temperatures than gasoline fires, making it easier for different parts of nan conveyance to ignite.
“We person this caller world of electrical vehicles and astir of nan information information suggests that nan vehicles are arsenic safe arsenic soul combustion engines and don’t raise unsocial problems,” said Ann Carlson, a erstwhile acting administrator of nan National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and University of California, Los Angeles rule professor. “But obviously, nan batteries – erstwhile they drawback connected occurrence – are different.”
All of nan 5 Cybertruck fires nan Guardian has tracked burned pinch terrible intensity. Two ended successful fatalities, and it was a adjacent miss pinch Arenas. Two of nan incidents didn’t impact harm to humans. One successful Harlingen, Texas, happened erstwhile a Cybertruck struck a occurrence hydrant, burst into flames and burned for hours. The different progressive a Cybertruck towing a wood chipper successful agrarian Colorado that caught occurrence and astir started a brushwood occurrence – it took 30 firefighters to put retired nan blaze.
Tesla’s emergency consequence guide for Cybertrucks says “large amounts of water” must beryllium applied straight to nan artillery to conflict a occurrence – betwixt 3,000 and 8,000 gallons for 1 conveyance battery. The institution warns “there is ever a consequence of artillery re-ignition”.
According to a study from nan Los Angeles occurrence department, Arenas’s Cybertruck artillery caught occurrence and past lit up nan engine, suspension and wheels. The copious magnitude of h2o ejecting retired of nan damaged occurrence hydrant did small to halt nan blaze. Firefighters kept dousing nan wrecked conveyance until it could beryllium removed from nan scene. But aft taking it to nan tow yard, it exploded into flames again, according to nan Los Angeles Times.
Arenas spent six days successful nan infirmary and recovered without awesome injuries. His father, erstwhile NBA subordinate Gilbert Arenas, said successful a podcast interview that he believes nan clang was owed to nan Cybertruck malfunctioning, which was made worse erstwhile his boy couldn’t escape.
“If you are a genitor and your teen has this car, you whitethorn want to put a hammer successful that joint,” Arenas said. “Something that would break nan window.”
Trapped wrong a Cybertruck
When Tesla designed its first car successful nan early 2000s, Musk was profoundly progressive successful nan details. One constituent he insisted connected was retractable electrical doorway handles that beryllium flush pinch nan car body. The Roadster, Tesla’s first vehicle, initially had latching handles for illustration different cars, but Musk wanted thing sleek that could unfastened pinch a touch.
“They kept asking maine why I was being truthful hardcore astir each small curve of this car,” Musk told his biographer Walter Isaacson successful nan book Elon Musk. “And what I told them was, ‘Because we person to make it beautiful.’”
Decades later, much than a 100 incidents person been recorded successful nan US showing that erstwhile thing cuts Tesla’s electrical system, doors tin fastener and trap group inside. Bloomberg has tracked much than 140 user complaints astir Tesla’s locking doorway handles since 2018, a play during which Tesla sold around 3m cars. When doors lock, first responders connected nan extracurricular person nary easy measurement of getting in. And for passengers inside, nan emergency manual-release levers – utilized to unfastened doors erstwhile powerfulness is mislaid – tin beryllium difficult to locate, according to information experts.
Brooks, from nan Center for Auto Safety, said astir manufacturers person an intuitive system to unlock doors from nan wrong during an emergency. Some vehicles unfastened erstwhile personification pulls nan doorway grip twice, and others activity erstwhile personification yanks nan grip other hard.
“Those are motions of a personification who is trying to escape,” Brooks said. “In Teslas, that doesn’t work, you person to find nan manual merchandise location to unfastened nan door.”
That manual release, which is elaborate successful nan owner’s manual, is different successful each Tesla model. The releases haven’t ever been marked, but now nan institution is starting to adhd an open-door icon to nan system successful immoderate of its vehicles. According to an investigation by Bloomberg, nan lever tin beryllium hidden wrong doorway panels aliases speaker grills and underneath level mats.
In Cybertrucks, nan beforehand doorway merchandise is simply a lever by nan model switches, and successful nan back, it’s wrong nan doorway pocket. To unfastened nan rear door, personification would person to region nan rubber mat astatine nan bottommost of nan doorway pocket, past find and propulsion a cablegram wrong nan doorway interior, according to Tesla’s emergency consequence guide. From extracurricular nan vehicle, nan guideline doesn’t connection immoderate method to unfastened Cybertruck doors, alternatively saying, “Extrication whitethorn beryllium required.”
This strategy proved fatal for a group of Bay Area friends successful November 2024. It was aft midnight erstwhile Soren Dixon, location from assemblage and partying pinch friends, decided to return his grandfather’s Cybertruck for a ride. As he sped done nan hilly municipality of Piedmont pinch 3 passengers, different friend, Matthew Riordan, drove on behind. For reasons still unknown, Dixon’s Cybertruck plowed into a character astatine astir 58mph and instantly ignited, according to witnesses and a California road patrol investigation.
Riordan jumped retired of his car and ran to nan chaotic smoke-filled scene, trying unsuccessfully to unfastened nan Cybertruck’s doors, according to suit complaints and interviews pinch family lawyers. He could spot his friends inside, hopeless to get out. Riordan grabbed a character branch and started hammering connected a beforehand broadside window.
“It’s not for illustration 1 strike, he said it took 10 to 15 strikes pinch this very ample branch,” said Roger Dreyer, a lawyer representing nan family of 1 of nan victims, Krysta Tsukahara, successful a suit against Tesla. “And you tin imagine, conscionable nan level of adrenaline and endorphins that were firing successful this young man, and really difficult he was hitting connected these windows. These were his very champion friends.”
Riordan was capable to rescue 1 friend from nan beforehand and past tried to propulsion Tsukahara, who was screaming for help, from nan back, according to nan complaint. As Riordan reached for her, they grasped hands, but nan occurrence flared and they had to retreat. Riordan started banging connected nan backmost model pinch nan branch, Dreyer said, and tried to peel distant nan solid pinch his bare hands.
“The occurrence was perfectly an inferno,” Dreyer said. “There was nary way, humanly, he could enactment there.”
Tsukahara, on pinch Dixon and a 3rd friend, Jack Nelson, didn’t survive. According to autopsy reports, nary of them had blunt unit injuries from nan effect of nan crash. Instead, nan reports note, they died of asphyxia from fume inhalation and terrible “thermal injuries”.
Matthew Davis, a lawyer representing Nelson’s family successful a suit against Tesla, said location is nary measurement passengers are going to cognize really to manually unfastened doors successful a fire. And, he alleged, nan deficiency of an intuitive flight system is simply a awesome creation flaw.
“The kids carnivore work for nan clang … They get successful a vehicle, aliases thrust a vehicle, erstwhile they’re intoxicated. That is inexcusable,” Davis said. “But aft they crashed, it’s inexcusable that they couldn’t get out. And that’s Tesla’s fault.”
In tribunal filings, Tesla puts nan blasted connected nan group of friends, saying they were negligent and “knowingly and voluntarily placed themselves successful an unsafe and vulnerable position and truthful assumed each of nan resulting risks of injuries”.
The institution has indicated, however, that it’s looking into nan doorway grip issue. Franz von Holzhausen, nan main designer for Tesla, told Bloomberg successful a September podcast that nan institution was moving connected a system to unfastened doors if powerfulness is lost. “The thought of combining nan physics 1 and nan manual 1 together into 1 button, I think, makes a batch of sense,” he said. “You intuitively conscionable drawback nan aforesaid thing, and you’re free.”
Tesla besides revamped its safety page successful December, adding a caller conception astir “safer aftermath”. The institution now says its doors will automatically unlock during a superior collision. Safety experts opportunity that moreover if nan doors are unlocked, it tin still beryllium intolerable to usage Tesla’s doorway handles without power, since there’s nary latch to actuate.
The institution didn’t respond to questions astir whether these changes are successful effect aliases erstwhile they will beryllium made available.
Investigations and lawsuits against Tesla heap up
Cybertrucks people precocious ratings erstwhile it comes to clang tests. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave nan vehicles five stars successful wide safety for nan past 2 years. The fires tracked by nan Guardian show passengers didn’t suffer terrible injuries from nan impacts of nan crashes. But information experts opportunity that erstwhile it comes to egress – being capable to get retired of a conveyance aft a clang – Cybertrucks tin beryllium dangerous.
The NHTSA hasn’t yet developed standards for egress, truthful it’s not factored into information tests. After nan Piedmont crash, nan agency said it was gathering accusation from Tesla and rule enforcement but stopped short of opening an investigation. The agency did, however, unfastened caller investigations into Tesla’s electrical doorway handles for its 2022 Model 3 and 2021 Model Y sedans. Regulators successful Europe and China person gone a measurement further pinch plans to tighten rules astir flush doorway handles.
Lawsuits against Tesla involving entrapment successful its sedans person besides piled up, pinch cases brought successful Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Washington. A Massachusetts wrongful decease suit revenge past period progressive a 20-year-old man who died aft being trapped successful a Model Y that caught fire.
“How could Tesla support trading vehicles that they cognize trap group wrong their cars aft a crash? They could person fixed it, but they refused,” Jacquelyn Tremblett, nan victim’s mother, said successful a statement. “Now my boy is dormant aft suffering unmercifully.”
Tesla has less Cybertrucks connected nan roadworthy than sedans, but nan trucks look to person a higher complaint of known deaths from entrapment. The company’s sedans are nan top-selling electrical vehicles successful nan US market, pinch much than 350,000 Model Y units sold successful 2025. That’s compared pinch less than 60,000 Cybertrucks ever sold, according to Kelley Blue Book, pinch yearly income halving from 2024 to 2025.
Bloomberg tracked at slightest 15 group who’ve died successful Teslas complete nan past decade aft being trapped. At slightest 4 of those fatalities happened successful Cybertrucks. And an investigation by nan Washington Post analyzed astatine slightest a twelve cases since 2019 successful which group were incapable to unfastened Tesla doors during fires, 2 of which progressive Cybertrucks. With nan 5 Cybertruck fires that nan Guardian has tracked, astatine slightest 3 progressive conveyance entrapment.
Complaints person been lodged against Rivian, Volkswagen, Ford, Fisker and Dodge complete their electrical doorway handles too, which person imitated Tesla’s aesthetic. There isn’t a compilation of really galore complaints these manufacturers person received, however, making a nonstop comparison pinch Cybertrucks challenging.
The NHTSA maintains nan database of user complaints for vehicles sold successful nan US. A spokesperson for nan agency said it is alert of each nan Cybertruck fires elaborate by nan Guardian and “is successful touch pinch nan manufacturer”. The spokesperson added that “the agency continually analyzes user complaints to find whether a imaginable conveyance information defect exists and will not hesitate to enactment to protect nationalist safety”.
The Baytown crash
In nan days aft nan late-night clang successful Baytown, Texas, authorities began to portion together what happened. They wished Sheehan had been drinking astatine a section barroom and was intoxicated. After 1am, he hopped into his Cybertruck and sped down that lone acheronian road. Just aft an intersection, he veered off-course, deed a actual culvert and flipped nan truck.
There are still unknowns that could beryllium revealed arsenic his family’s suit useful its measurement done nan courts. Their lawyers person requested records from Tesla for each camera, sensor and conveyance activity information to fig retired why nan Cybertruck collapsed and why Sheehan was incapable to escape. Tesla has been fighting to transportation nan lawsuit to backstage arbitration, and has refused to move complete this archiving until nan arbitration matter is decided.
In ineligible filings, nan institution has said Sheehan’s ain negligence contributed to his decease and has called nan family’s requests for much accusation connected nan clang “dilatory” and “futile”, saying nan lawsuit doesn’t beryllium successful unfastened court.
Lawyers for Sheehan’s widow and parents are adamant they are entitled to these records, which they opportunity could supply captious specifications astir nan last moments of their loved one’s life.
