A 43-year-old man and two children burned to death inside a Tesla after a rescuer was unable to open the car doors, according to reports. The electric vehicle drove off the road while attempting to overtake another driver in Villigst, West Germany, officials said, before colliding with a tree and bursting into flames. A passerby tried to rescue the passengers but was unable to open the doors due to the car’s retractable handles, local press reported.
“Tragically, three people inside the vehicle were burned to death,” Bernd Pentrop, spokesperson for the Unna District Police Department, told Ruhr News. “Among them were two children and an adult man.” Another child is believed to have been saved from the vehicle and rushed to hospital in an air ambulance.
The handles of Elon Musk’s electric car models have previously come under fire for their high-tech door handles amid reports that they stop working after a vehicle’s power is cut.
The company has installed manual door releases inside the cars, but such functions don’t help those who need help and may not be conscious or able to free themselves after an accident.
The North Rhine-Westphalia Police Department said it would launch full investigation into the incident, through “reconstructing the course of events” to “clearly determine its cause”, the Daily Mail reported.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also opened an investigation into around 174,000 Tesla Model Y cars from the 2021 model year this week, after reports that the electronic door handles can become inoperative.
A report by Bloomberg revealed that the NHTSA had received over 140 customer complaints linked to doors on various Tesla models getting stuck, not opening or otherwise malfunctioning since 2018.
Mr Musk’s firm previously recalled more than 120,000 Model S and Model X vehicles in the US in 2023 over the risk of doors being unlocked and opening during a crash.
