Oct. 3, 2025 12:03 pm EST KRON 4 via YouTube This could get very messy for Tesla. The Austin, Texas-based automaker is being sued over claims that defects in the doors of a crashed Cybertruck prevented three college students from getting out following a fiery wreck. All three died of smoke inhalation, and the lawsuit characterizes the Cybertruck as a "death trap." The crash happened in the middle of the night about a year ago, in November of 2024, on a residential street in Piedmont, California — a suburb of San Francisco, according to Bloomberg. A friend of the truck's occupants was able to pull just one of the passengers to safety, but the other three remained trapped inside as its cabin filled with smoke. In separate complaints filed earlier this week in California state court, the families of 20-year-old Jack Nelson and 19-year-old Krysta Tsukahara alleged that they would have survived if Tesla had ensured the Cybertruck was crashworthy and fixed a well-known issue with its door handles. "This case arises from catastrophic design defects in the Tesla Cybertruck that turned a survivable crash into a fatal fire," according to the Nelson family's complaint. The Cybertruck doesn't have exterior door handles. Instead, the doors open using buttons next to the bottom corners of the windows. All Tesla vehicles are also equipped with interior manual door releases, but they can be hard to find — especially for rear passengers. We actually covered this a while ago, and I called the situation a "dangerous nightmare." Unfortunately, it appears I was right. The suit also alleges that "Tesla's 'armor glass' windows and stainless-steel doors, marketed as nearly impenetrable, make forcing entry extraordinarily difficult." You can see how this might not be ideal for rescuing people. The crash