(Bloomberg) — The family of one of three college students who died in a Cybertruck crash in California filed a lawsuit in a bid to gain access to the Tesla Inc. truck and better understand how their daughter died.
The driver and two passengers were killed while they were on Thanksgiving break in late November when the vehicle ran into a tree on a residential street and caught fire.
Carl Tsukahara, whose 19-year-old daughter, Krysta, was sitting in the back seat of the truck when it crashed, said Thursday he’s trying to find out what happened — and why.
“Why did the driver have this car? Where were the kids throughout the night? Who was with whom?” he asked during an interview. “Why did the car catch on fire? Why couldn’t Krysta get out?”
A toxicology report found the driver had high levels of drugs and alcohol in his system and that Tsukahara had trace amounts of drugs and alcohol.
The wrongful death suit filed Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court targets the driver’s family but doesn’t name Tesla as a defendant.
The family of the driver, Soren Dixon, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Tsukahara wasn’t physically injured by the crash itself. Instead, an autopsy showed she died of asphyxiation when she couldn’t open the doors to get out.
A witness who tried to rescue Tsukahara and others in the vehicle told police, “I went back to the broken window and yelled for them to try and get out at this window. Krysta tried to come up, sticking her head from the back. I grabbed her arm to try to pull her towards me but she retreated because of the fire.” The rescuer was able to pull one passenger to safety. But the driver and a third passenger also died of asphyxiation.
Krysta’s death was caused by her inability to get out of the car and being consumed in the fire that engulfed the vehicle, according to the family’s attorney, Roger Dreyer of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora LLP.
Dreyer said he has engineers who specialize in fire science and crash reconstruction, but they haven’t been able to inspect the Cybertruck.
“We can’t get access to the vehicle without permission from the owner,” he said. “And we can’t get data from Tesla without permission from the owner.”
The lawsuit includes unidentified “Doe” defendants, which allows the Tsukahara family to keep its options open to add Tesla later.
“Defendants negligently entrusted, managed, maintained, drove, operated, repaired, manufactured and designed the subject vehicle so as to cause the collision and the resulting injuries and damages to plaintiffs,” according to the complaint.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Early Thursday, an 18-year-old driver of a Cybertruck who’d been recruited to play basketball for University of Southern California was hospitalized after crashing into a tree in the Los Angeles area, the Associated Press reported, citing media accounts and local authorities.
Tesla later said in an X post its cars are “exceeding safety standards across 4 continents.”
“Nobody wants to be in a car accident,” the post said. “But if the worst happens, you want to be in one of the safest vehicles on the road.”
Tesla’s Cybertruck has been a relatively niche product for the automaker, with a recall notice showing the EV company has sold about 46,000 trucks in the first 15 months since it started deliveries, just a fraction of its overall vehicle sales. The Cybertruck has been subject to eight safety recalls since it launched, with the latest marking its second issue related to steel trim coming loose.
The company has touted the Cybertruck’s five-star safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, including showing crash test pictures of the vehicle in its latest earnings report on Tuesday.
Krysta’s father described her as an “amazing girl” who “never got in trouble.”
“It still haunts us every day, and it will for the rest of our life,” Carl Tsukahara said while sitting inside his home in Piedmont, a wealthy enclave that borders Oakland. “She died a horrible death and suffered.”
“We keep hoping to wake up from this horrible nightmare,” said his wife, Noelle Tsukahara.
–With assistance from Kara Carlson and Dana Hull.
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