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A 43-year-old man and two nine-year-old children have died after being ‘burned alive’ when they became trapped inside a Tesla.
The car went up in flames on September 7 after it came off the road and crashed into a tree in western Germany, police said.
The man, and the children, no further details, died at the scene. Another child inside the vehicle was able to get out alive and was taken to a nearby hospital.
A local resident tried to rescue the others but was unable to open the door with the Tesla’s retractable handles, German media outlets report.
Roman Jedrzejewski , who runs a paint shop opposite the crash site in Schwerte, North Rhine-Westphalia, said he sprinted over to the vehicle with a fire extinguisher after hearing a loud bang.
He told local Ruhr News: ‘I wanted to rescue some people.
‘I tried to open the car, but that didn’t work either. It was already so hot from the fire, but the right side of the car was still relatively undamaged.
‘Damn it, I didn’t help. It didn’t work.’
The blaze continued to burn, with local firefighters also struggling to put it out due to repeated flare-ups.
The crash, which police said took place when the Tesla tried to overtake another car, is still being investigated by North Rhine-Westphalia’s Police department.
The district police department stated: ‘Our goal is to fully reconstruct the course of events and clearly determine the cause.’
The country’s automobile association the ADAC warned in April 2024 that retractable door handles could be a safety risk.
They explained that the door handles could remain retracted after electrical supply is interrupted after an accident.
The deadly crash came a few days before Bloomberg uncovered several accidents where passengers became trapped inside a Tesla after an accident.
One off-duty firefighter from Virginia, Max Walsh, found himself unable to open the car’s Model Y doors and to smash in a window with his bare hands to rescue the driver.
On Tuesday, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced an investigation into as many as 174,000 Model Y Tesla after reports of electric door handles could not be opened.
These reports included instances where parents trying to remove a child from the car.
Tesla vehicles have manual door releases inside, but children may not be able to work or access the releases even if the vehicle’s driver is aware of them.
Tesla’s design chief, Franz von Holzhausen, also told Bloomberg on Wednesday that the company is working on a redesign of the door handles following the reports of incidents.
Metro has contacted Tesla for comment.
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