Tech Won't Save Us - Cybertrucks Are a Safety Disaster w/ Dara Kerr

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Paris Marx is joined by Dara Kerr to discuss how Elon’s decision to prioritize aesthetics over safety has created a safety crisis causing people to burn alive in their Cybertrucks and other Tesla vehicles. Dara Kerr is a technology reporter at Guardian US. Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon. The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson. Also mentioned in this episode: Dara wrote about fiery, deadly crashes involving Cybertrucks. Bloomberg has tracked the wider problem of Tesla door handles trapping occupants in their vehicles. Here is a report that supports the suggestion that Musk doesn’t like the colour yellow. Here is an analysis comparing the Cybertruck to the Ford Pinto. Cybertrucks are not approved for sale in the EU or UK. China is the first nation to legislate that handles must be mechanically functional from both sides of a vehicle door.

All these people dying because the door handles is a serious problem. And regulators in other places are looking at it. China is looking at banning these flush electric door handles. There's been a lot of incidents with electric cars in China that have copied the Tesla aesthetic where people have died. So it does seem, though, that they should already be doing something. I don't know. It's been kind of a long time. Hello and welcome to DeK Won't Save Us, made in partnership with The Nation magazine.

I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this month, Tech Won't Save Us, is celebrating its sixth birthday, and we're asking you, the listeners, to consider signing up on patreon.com to help me keep doing this show, to help me keep interviewing these critical experts so that you have a better understanding of how the tech industry works, what these billionaires are up to, and how they're impacting the world that we all live in, and, of course, degrading it over time, which is not what we want to see happen. And, you know, every now and then we talk about what an alternative might look like, we might address these problems, what a better future could actually be. And that's so important.

So if you do enjoy those conversations, if you do enjoy the work that I do as part of Tech Won't Save Us, I would ask you to consider going over to patreon.com slash Tech Won't Save Us to help us to help us get 100 new supporters this month to celebrate the show's anniversary, birthday, whatever you want to call it. We're already making good progress toward that goal, but you can help us try to meet it. And I would really appreciate that, obviously. So thank you so much. If you enjoy the show, consider going over to Patreon to support us. Of course, you'll get access to ad-free episodes of the show, premium episodes of the show that we do every now and then, and there's going to be more of those in the next few months as we launch a

new series. And of course, if you support at a certain tier, $10 a month and above, you will get stickers as well. So, you know, there's plenty of reason to sign up, even beyond supporting Tech Won't Save Us. So thanks so much. Now, shifting to this week's episode, guest is Dara Kerr. Dara is a tech reporter at The Guardian in the United States. And, you know, there are many things that I could talk about with Dara, but she had this fantastic story recently about cyber trucks. And in particular, about the problem of people being stuck inside of cyber trucks when they catch on fire and how hard it can be to actually get out of them. This is not just a cyber truck problem. It's a broader Tesla problem. But with the cyber truck,

it becomes even worse because the door handles are an issue in many of the Teslas, you know, these cars that don't have proper door handles and they're more of an electronic release. And so if something happens to the car, if it loses the battery, you need to find another way to get out of it. There is a way in the car, but it's not always easy to find or it's not always very obvious. But if you're in a regular Tesla, you know, a regular sedan or a crossover or something like that, it's not too hard to break the window in order to get out, right, to save your life or for someone to do that for you. In the cyber truck, the windows are much thick. And so that becomes a much more difficult task.

If you are stuck in the car, it catches on fire, you can't get the doors open, you don't know where that kind of manual releases, or there are people outside trying to get you out because you have lost consciousness, but obviously they can't break the windows in the same way, or it's much more difficult for them to do so. So this is an important issue. It's one that we should be paying attention to. It's one that we need to be paying attention to. And we need to ask why a company like Tesla is not being held to account more.

for, you know, creating a car that operates in this way. We are seeing certain jurisdictions around the world begin to regulate these vehicles, and in particular, these types of door handles that are causing people to get stuck. But as you'll hear Dara explain in our interview, other manufacturers that are making door handles like this have better manual releases, you know, make it much easier for people to get out of the car if something does happen, if the battery goes out and these door handles don't work properly. But Tesla does not make it so easy.

They're starting to make some changes, but it's taken a long time and a lot of backlash and criticism of the company for them to actually act on this. So I think that this is a really important interview. I think it's important for us to understand what is happening with Tesla, the decisions that this company are making for how its cars are designed, and how that has influenced other automakers and made people less safe as a result, even though it's been promoted as making people more safe because there's more technology. and it's more high-tech and all this kind of stuff, that is not always the case. In the same way that we see with these infotainment systems and these big screens in the dashboards

and how we're seeing manufacturers roll back on that and put more physical buttons back in their cars, these door handles are another one of these problems that it looks good, it looks aesthetically nice for this to be happening, but it creates a safety issue at the end of the day. That is actually leading to people losing their lives in these cars. And that needs to change and there needs to be accountability for that.

So I think you're really going to enjoy this episode with Dara. Of course, if you do consider going over to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and joining the well over 1,000 people who already support the show. And of course, help us hit our goal this month to celebrate the sixth birthday of tech won't save us by getting 100 new supporters. That's patreon.com slash tech won't save us. Pause the show, go over, become a supporter today. And help me continue making this show and providing these critical perspectives on the tech

industry. Thanks so much and enjoy this week's conversation. Dara, welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. Hello, Paris. So great to be here. Absolutely. I'm really happy to have you on the show finally. We met a while ago in San Francisco.

I can't even, I feel like that was like two years ago or something. I could be totally wrong and it might be even longer. But it's like you've been one of those people who for a long time I wanted to have on the show and have just been like looking for the right opportunity. And then you wrote this fantastic piece in The Guardian where you work now about cyber trucks and about the safety issues with them. And I was like, okay, this is it. The moment has arrived. I need to have Dara on the show. So very happy to have you here. That's what I'm saying. I'm just boosting you up because I really like your work. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

I've long wanted to become, start to come on this podcast. Yeah. Absolutely. It's good. Feeling is mutual. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. So, you know, let's dig in here, right? Because the cyber truck is something that I think a lot of people will be familiar with. But can you refresh us a bit on like where this vehicle actually comes from, like where the idea for it originates and how it comes to be? Yeah. So this has been a passion project for Elon Musk for a long time. I'd say it was first hinted. I'm trying to remember the year sometime in the late teens that he started talking about it. And then, oh, my, my. might even have been earlier.

Anyway, the dates are not solid in my mind. I get you on that. I have the same issue sometimes. And then he kept hinting at it, hinting at it. And then they finally did this big debut of it, which was a really fun and funny event to watch because they were demonstrating. It's this like, you know, Musk likes to call it apocalypse-proof truck. And so they were demonstrating just how tough it is.

and on the stage at this event where they, you know, first unveiled the cyber truck, they, it's, you know, it has this really strong stainless steel exterior, which apparently Musk kind of fashioned on the same, the same kind of exterior model as his rocket ships. So it's just like really tough, really strong, like impenetrable material. And, and then it has these windows that, um, that are, really, really thick, like super laminated windows that he also said were unbreakable. He, you know, he said that the car itself is bulletproof. And there was one incident where he went out with Joe Rogan and they shot metal arrows at the truck to show like that couldn't be penetrated. So anyway. I got, I completely forgot about that. There's so many fun, yeah, hijinks with this when they were,

first rolling out the cyber check. But yeah, and then on the stage, they were showing how tough it was, throwing this metal ball at it, and it was, like, pretty cool because it wasn't, you know, being, you know, hurt or damaged or anything. And then they threw the metal ball at the windows, and the window broke, which is really funny. And it was like kind of embarrassing. And then so Musk seemed confused on stage, and he had the guy throw the ball again and it broke again, which is a good thing if you're talking about safety. And yeah,

so all of that, like this tough exterior really gets to what I wanted to explore my story about how that plays into safety for passengers. Yeah, absolutely. Because I guess

if you're thinking about the presentation of it, right? The presentation is, look, it makes you so safe as a passenger on the inside because nothing in this kind of exterior environment can get to you, right, can hurt you, can attack you, you are safe from this scary world that exists outside of your cyber truck. Like I remember at the time when it was

announced and when he was rolling it out, you know, I was talking a lot about, you know, kind of the vision that some of these billionaires have about like how scary the world is and how like, you know, this is the kind of vehicle that is going to protect you from all the scary people who want to attack you or whatever, like out in the world, right? But then as you're saying, there's the flip side of that of like if the vehicle is so secure, at least in theory, then what does that mean for getting out of it when something goes wrong, right? Yeah, which we've seen in these just terrible incidents. So I don't know if you want to get into that.

Absolutely. Well, I guess I do want to get into that. Maybe just briefly, let's discuss how it has done, right? Because the cyber truck has been out for a few years now. have we actually like obviously the answer to this is obvious most people know it but like how is it done like it clearly hasn't taken off what have we seen in the actual reception to this vehicle right so well first first off it's it's a luxury luxury vehicle they're very expensive so this is not for you know your typical truck owner i mean trucks are expensive but i think the average running rate for cyber trucks depends like what kind of add on to put on it is around $100,000 so yeah it's luxury vehicle. It debuted in the fall of, let's see, 2024. So it's been out for two and a half years. And it has not sold well. But it's also this kind of niche vehicle. So the first year, I think it sold around 40,000 units. And then the second year, so last year, that was halved. So it sold around 20.

So it's only sold 60,000 units. And for a comparison, other Tesla models, are wildly popular. They are the top electric vehicles in the world on the market. And the number of, so the Model Y is the most popular of the Teslas. And they sold in the US alone 350,000 units last year. So just comparatively, the truck is not popular or not selling well. Yeah, it is basically like a footnote to the rest of the business, a business that we know has even been in decline as a whole.

right. Right. And but that like if you look at must talks about the cyber truck all the time, it it seems to like continue to be this passion project for him. And he of all of his vehicles, it's the one he gives the most praise to. And he's he's constantly praising it saying it's the best vehicle they've ever made. And you know, so it's interesting because it has, it has not done well. But, you know, as with like other Teslas, this, there has like really diehard fans. You know, there's whole forums dedicated to the cyber truck and they get really mad. It's funny to go on them because they get really mad when stories like mine come out and they think it's misinformation and made up and fake news. And yeah. So it's, yeah, it's really interesting. But it is, it's like a

I can't think of another vehicle that has been so cult status among a small group of people. Yeah, it makes sense, though, right? When you think about who is behind it, and then also like how weird the design is, but also how the design, you know, if you're someone who like is a fan of a certain genre or a certain era of science fiction, like it really kind of tries to play into some of those aesthetics that obviously Elon Musk likes, but also. also some of these fans of his will like to. And it's like, I don't know, you can see how it develops that, that status that you're talking about. Yeah, totally. It definitely has like a Mad Max vibe.

And when you look at, like, when you go to the website to buy a Cyberchuck, it's, you know, the videos are like the Cyberchuk going through like the Utah desert and, you know, kind of like apocalypsey, mad maxi vibes, you know, tough. Yeah. But as we've seen from the test, it probably, wouldn't fare so well in real life, if that's how you are using it, pretty often. As you were saying, let's get into this issue of the safety and stuff, right? Can you talk to us, I guess, first a little bit more about the design features?

You know, you were saying how the outside and how they were promoting a lot, how the outside is really hardened, right? The idea is that it's going to protect you from what is exterior to your vehicle. But what does that mean for trying to get out of a vehicle if something goes wrong? Yeah, and one, it's interesting with this hardened exterior outside, that has meant that the cyber truck has been essentially banned across Europe because of the dangers it presents to pedestrians because it has these sharp, hard edges, and it's big. Yeah, I think the only countries that sold in is the U.S., Canada, Mexico. So. Yeah, I know that there's a few that like have been imported to parts of Europe. And like people have been trying to get them around like the regulations or get some kind of like special certification from them.

Like I know I saw some of hosts that there was like a couple driving around in Norway or something like that. But it's very much like again, like very hard to get in there. You're not walking into the Tesla dealership and getting one easily. Right. Exactly. Not going to the Utah desert on the website. It's been marketed as this like very tough exterior. bulletproof, apocalypse-proof vehicle. And it's also the very first Tesla vehicle or a car that I know of that has no exterior handles at all, which is really interesting. I didn't realize that when I started working on the stories. So I was like, how do they, how do people open the doors? And you use your

phone and it's like a fob. And then the door just opens, but it's like you click a little button and the door opens itself. And then I was like, that makes sense. Because when you see cyber trucks, they have all these like fingerprints, you know, along the edges of the door. I'm like, oh, because you're not pulling a handle. Like you have to pull the side of the door. So like the door kind of like pops open and you have to physically like grip the side of the door and pull it open the rest of the way. Right. So there's no handle at all, which as you can imagine is not great for emergency situations if someone's trying to rescue someone who's inside the truck.

their electric vehicles, which are known, you know, have these very powerful, very flammable batteries. And there's two batteries in most Teslas, including cyber trucks. So there's the big one that runs the car, and then there's a side one that is for all like the seat, the steering wheel, the doors. And if anything happens to that battery, an electricity is shut off, nothing works in the car. And that can happen, you know, there's like a bunch of reasons why that can happen. The battery. can be drained. It can come from an accident. So what happens is when that battery shuts off and the doors are closed, even if they're unlocked, there's no latch to actuate. And there's no, from the outside, there's like no way to actually get in the car. And then from the inside,

there's no way to get out. There's handles on the inside, but they're electric and there's no latch. And so the only way to get out is through this emergency release button. And in every Tesla, it's different. This is a problem with all Teslas. In the cyber truck, they get out the front seats, there's a little lever that's next to the window switches. And in the cases that I have covered, that switch has not been labeled. But in later versions of the cyber truck, there's like a tiny little icon that's actually, I wouldn't think it would mean to open the door, but if you know it, you can see that it looks like a little moving panel. So that's in the front seat. And would that be like easy to see, like easily visible, easy to grab, or is it kind of obscured?

It's kind of like the window switch lever. It's very similar. So it's just like this little thing you pull up. From what I understand, like you don't want to pull it if the car, works because I think it actually breaks the window to open the door. And that's the same with all the Teslas, which maybe is why they obscure it. But from other reporting on this, Bloomberg's done this amazing investigation. It seems like a lot of the reason why like these emergency releases are hidden is for aesthetic reasons and like space. So trying to fit everything in these like sleek electric doors is tough. So it's like a design issue. And so that's the front seat.

So you can imagine, like, if you're in a crash and that gets jumbled, you're not going to be able to use that lever if you know about it. And so in the backseat, in the cyber truck where the emergency release lever is, is inside the door pocket, you know, where you put a drink or something. So to get to it, you have to take, there's a little rubber mat at the bottom of the door pocket. You have to peel that back. And then you have to reach your hand inside the interior of the door. And then there's like a, it's not a lever.

It's like a cable. And you have to find this cable and pull the cable. And that's how you open it. So you can imagine if you're a passenger and don't have a cyber truck and I've never been in a cyber truck or maybe you're in them all the time. But it's, it's not intuitive. And it's really hard. I can imagine be really hard for people to even know that that exists.

And another thing that's interesting, that I didn't put this in the story, but I found it interesting. This is detailed in Tesla's owner's manuals. But the owners, Tesla's come with, don't come with like a hard copy owner's manual that you have in the glove box. It's all on the computer screen. So say you're in an emergency and you're, you need to look something up. You're not, if the electricity is dead, the computer stream is dead too. So it's just like all these kind of compounding issues that seem to be, these safety issues seem to be sacrificed for design. Yeah. Even like when you talk about the manual, it's like, okay, assume you get a cyber truck and you do want to know a bit about it.

If you're flipping through like a physical manual, something like that might catch your eye, I would imagine. or maybe there's a greater likelihood that because you have this physical document, you're actually maybe going to look a bit more into what the cyber truck actually does, what the kind of non-obvious aspects of it are. But if it's just in your screen, I would say you're far less likely to actually do much digging on how this vehicle works and some of the key things that you're going to need in case of an emergency, right? And I feel like that is kind of what we're also seeing reflected in these growing number

of stories about people getting stuck in their cyber trucks when something does go wrong, right? Yeah. Yeah. And another thing that's interesting is I didn't talk about is the flush door handles, which Tesla definitely pioneered. Their flesh and they're electric. And these are the ones on the other Tesla models, right? Not the software truck. Yeah, but the inside is the same. But the outside, yeah. And we all by now have been confused by trying to open those. door handles. I still get confused. It wasn't a Tesla, but I was taking a taxi, I don't know, like a month, month and a half ago. And I think it was like a Kia or something like that that pulled up. And it had these flush door handles as well. And like, the door handle kind of popped out

for me to get into the vehicle. And I was like, do I pull this? Am I going to break it if I pull on it? Like, it was so weird. I know. I know. I once, I took an Uber like a few months ago and I couldn't figure it. It was a Tesla. I couldn't figure it out. And the driver had to like come out and like push the button and show me. I know. I feel like they were done to make us look stupid. Yeah. If you're not a Tesla owner, then you look like an idiot trying to get inside. Yeah. Totally. But those handles, I read the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk, which I have also had the misfortune of reading that book. Yeah. I don't totally recommend it. But it does. have all of this, because he had so much access, all of this information, inside information about

like the goings-ons and how decisions were made. And so as a reporter, it's super helpful. I use it all a time, actually. And when he had this whole scene of when those door handles were first designed at Tesla for the original Tesla Roadster. And Elon Musk was like very, very insistent that they, they are electric and flush. And the engineers, had concerns, safety concerns about these door handles. And he just overrode those concerns. And, you know, the handles came out. And it does look really sleek and streamlined. And so you're seeing other manufacturers copying it. And yeah, in the book, when there was pushback to that design element, Elon Musk was, he said, he's like, you know, when people ask me why I'm so hardcore about all these,

you know, design, I'm paraphrasing here, design elements, it's because it has to be beautiful. So these cars, like, the number one priority is aesthetics. And like, as I said earlier, safety seems to take backseat. Not sorry, part of the book. But yeah. Yeah, well, I remember even talking to Ed Niedermeyer about some of the early Tesla models as well, right? And in that case, too, it was like there was this real focus on design. and in particular, you know, what Elon Musk would want a car to look like and how he would want it to work.

And that often led to like costs being blown out and, you know, parts that were way more complex and difficult to like put together into the vehicle. But he didn't care because he wanted it to look this particular way. And it kind of feels like, you know, obviously we're talking about the door handles being one piece of this. But it feels like the cyber truck is almost like the final version of like that goal because like it's so his own thing. that it's almost unappealing to so much of the rest of the market, right? Yeah, it's like that whole idea on steroids. Yeah. Yeah, the design of the truck's crazy.

Yeah, and there's the whole chapter in that book, too, about how he was, you know, his insistence on that design and, you know, being hardcore. I feel like there was also, I don't know if it was ever confirmed after, but there was this story that, like, when there was a lot of concern about the injuries inside the Tesla factory, I believe in Fremont, I think. Apparently, like, yellow couldn't be used in the factory because Elon Musk didn't like the color or something like that, like to denote, like, things not being safe or whatnot. And I don't know if that was ever confirmed after, but it was like, yeah, that sounds right, especially based on what you're saying, right?

Oh, God. Yeah. But like, I'm not surprised to hear that, unfortunately. Safety is being traded off for aesthetics. And as you say, so many other car manufacturers have followed in the footsteps, of Tesla, not just on the door handles, but on the big screens and, you know, so many other different pieces of like what a vehicle should be and certainly what an electric car should be, which I think, you know, is a whole other discussion that gets us to a place where electric cars are so expensive and, you know, treat it more like luxury vehicles. But anyway, I want to get back to this question of safety and the effects of it, right? And we were talking about what it means then to try to get out of one of these vehicles. You know, it's so hard

to find these release switches, especially if you're not familiar with it, even if you're an owner you might not be familiar with it, but certainly if you're a passenger who's not in these regularly. So can you start to talk to us about what we have been seeing when these vehicles get in the crashes and the difficulty that people have in actually getting out of them and what, you know, the consequences are of that? Yeah. So in my story, so overall, I've trapped five fires and cyber trucks, three of which ended in vehicle entrapment for the people inside. The other two did not, but they did cause big fires, one of which was, it was this hybrid truck towing a wood chipper in Colorado.

And I spoke to the, I know, it was pretty wild. And I spoke to the fire chief and that is real rural region. And he's like, it damn near started a forest fire. Took 30 firefighters to put it out. Because it's like the grass around started catching on fire. Yeah, they brought in like five different types of crews. like the Forest Service and yeah so anyway that's like a whole other discussion that we should return to like the fires with the EVs and stuff but please continue yeah yeah so there was three cases

that involved field of contraachment all of which I pretty much profile completely in the story they're all really horrifying two of them ended in death one the passenger was able to get out he was saved and had some kind of lucky elements when that happened I started the story with this man, Michael Sheehan, who had just owned the cyber truck for three months. And this was in Texas. And he'd been drinking and crashed the cyber truck. How I found out about all the details of that crash was I got police and autopsy reports. And they were extremely thorough.

It was, I've never seen a police report like this. There were narratives from maybe 20 different officers all detailing what they saw. So I was able to kind of piece together what happened from all of these stories. And it's, it like chilled me to the bone. It's very, very scary. So what happened was the police arrived at the scene and to this, you know, massive fire. They couldn't see anyone inside the truck. So they assumed someone, whoever was driving at whoever,

was in it, what had escaped the vehicle. So they started searching the perimeter for for humans. Meanwhile, they tried to put out the blaze. The police could not do it. I mean, they started with a fire extinguisher, which in Tesla's emergency manual for first responders, it says that you need, I think it's three to eight thousand gallons of water directly on the battery to extinguish fire on it. And they reignite, and there's all these issues with that. But the fireman came, put out the fire, it took a long time, it kept reigniting. And then when the police went to go inspect the vehicle, they basically found like a spine. That's it.

This man was basically cremated inside his cyber truck. It's very heartbreaking. They, you know, they were able to find out who the person was. and his family has, this is how I learned about it, is suing Tesla for faulty design. This is actually, this is not my story, but it's really interesting and kind of chilling to me, too, is that Tesla is trying to get the case move to private arbitration. And the reason they can do that is because when you buy a Tesla, it's kind of like when you sign up for an app, like an Uber app,

and you just scroll through the terms of agreement, and you're just like, okay, okay, agree, agree. And it's kind of similar when you buy a Tesla. And so deep within a lot of these agreements that you're scrolling through, it's all, you know, online is arbitration. So if something happens, it has to be an arbitration. So I don't know. Which also means that they can then hide more of these cases

if they're out there and we don't know about them, right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And they can hide the details of what happened because it's all private. There's nothing as an open court. And in this case, the lawyers have been trying to get all of the data from the car, the camera, all the footage. I mean, there's a whole bunch.

These cars are like massive computers, and they're recording everything and all elements of the car. And Tesla has refused to turn that over until the arbitration matters decided by the judge. It's, yeah, it's really shocking. It reminds me in that case. Was it like last year, the year before, when Disney tried to get a lawsuit thrown out because people had accepted the terms and conditions on Disney Plus that said it should go to arbitration or something like that.

And it had to do with something in their parks, but because they also had a Disney Plus subscription, Disney was trying to use it. Like, you know, it's that kind of like wild thing where like the companies throw it in there because they know they can because they know you're going to accept the terms and conditions regardless. And then they can kind of turn that back against you, right, to try to evade accountability for what they've done. Right, exactly.

It's really, it's, yeah, there's so many elements to this. One of the other cases I looked at was this really, I mean, every single one of these kids so awful. And this was the one in California, like right near where I live and involved four college kids who were out, you know, the driver had been drinking, which, why I mentioned that they're drinking, it doesn't matter. in the case of safety, but Tesla is like trying to prove negligence. So anyway, but those kids were in the truck.

I can go into details of that, but on the arbitration matter, the driver of the truck was, it was his grandfathers who had just previously died. So it was his deceased grandfathers, but he had keys, and so they, they just decided late at night to take it for a drive. And because of that, he didn't sign the arbitration agreement. So there's now three lawsuits in that case against Tesla. And I mean, I think those will, unless there's settlements, those will go to trial, which will be really interesting. Definitely. And I guess on the settlement front, the company would be incentivized to try to do that. So there's not a ruling against them, right? Right. And everything comes out in trial.

So, you know, it's just, yeah, and they don't want us reporters getting our hands on all these internal documents. Of course. And they also don't want the public to have a better idea of what is going on with these vehicles, right? And kind of the safety risk that can come with using them because of the design that was pushed by Elon Musk. Yeah. Yeah. And what we've seen with all these trials against Tesla over the past couple of years over its self-full self-driving is that, yeah, juries, I mean, there was a huge jury settlement. I think one of the biggest in history against Tesla. Like they're not buying this blame the victim and, you know, other arguments that Tesla is bringing up. So, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Well, even when you were saying before that, like, some of these crashes happened while people were intoxicated, one of the first things that came to my mind was like, I wonder why the company isn't arguing. Like, why aren't they using full self-driving or autopilot or something like that? It would have got them home safe, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's wild, though. Like, especially to hear you talk about the details of these cases. And I know in one of them, I believe it was the California one, right? Like part of the reason they were able to get out was because that one of the windows was a jar? Or was that a different case as well? That was another California one.

Okay. Yeah, that was a one. So that involved, this was so interesting to me because it's the only account that we have right now of what it was like to be trapped inside a cyber truck. And that involved this kid who's a basketball star. He's going to be a pro basketball player. His father played for the warriors. And he just seems like a really kind, sweet kid and all the press conferences I've watched with him. But he was driving back from the gym really early in the morning.

And he gave a long detailed account of what happened during a press conference. And he said the steering wheel became unresponsive and he crashed into a fire hydrant in a tree. And, you know, it immediately caught fire. So, of course, like, the doors wouldn't open. Nothing worked. and it was so full of smoke, he said, that he couldn't see outside. And he had passed out, and then he woke up, and he's like, I need to stay awake, I need stay awake.

He had this full, like, fight to live. And he said he, like, bit his lips and, like, put his fingernails into his palms trying to, like, keep himself awake. And he could hear people outside trying to help. And very luckily, his window was slightly cracked open. So they were trying to break the window. He was trying to break it, like, kicking at it. And they were able to, they didn't break it because of the way these windows don't, like,

break like a normal car window because they're so thickly laminated that they just kind of crumble. You have to kind of peel them. And you see that in the other case in the Bay Area. So they were able to kind of like peel and cut this window back and pull him out. And he was unconscious against. by that point, he was then put into a medically induced coma because of the damage to his lungs. But he's okay now. He's back playing the basketball. But just the details of what happened were so harrowing. And so like interesting as someone who's been studying this to really know what it's like,

as awful as you think. Yeah. And obviously he had no idea about this release valve that was there to try to open the door, right? No. That cyber truck, so the firemen came, they eventually got it put out. I mean, it crashed into fire hydrant, so it was like there's a bit weirdly TMZ was like one of the first people on the scene, so they have all this video of it. Yeah, because he's

famous basketball player, and the video, watching the video is really interesting. I mean, the fire hydrant is just like spewing like tons and tons of water on the cyber truck, which probably actually helped, a bit. But, you know, it's just all of this water. And then the, then the fire department came. They put it out. They towed the truck to the tow yard. And it caught on fire again in the tow yard. So, yeah. And I guess this goes back to what you were saying before. You know, in this case,

it was trying to peel the window back. And it was in the first case that you mentioned, it was actually using a tree branch to try to like destroy the windows and stuff, right? To get them open. Like in both cases, I feel like that speaks to what you were saying earlier about, okay, on the one hand, you have this discussion of the windows as being bulletproof and keeping you safe. But now when you're inside the vehicle is trying to get out, you do not have the same, you know, ability to crack that glass to get out of it in the way that you would in a regular vehicle, right? I mean, it's, it seems I just don't know how you'd get out. It's very, it's really scary.

And then the Northern California one with the four. college students, there was a friend that was driving behind them, and he was able, so he was able to rescue just one of them, and three died. But he was able to do that by breaking a window with a large stick. And apparently, you know, the lawyers representing one of the families of one of the victims told me that he was, he was like, just like so full of adrenaline. And it wasn't like just like one hit. It was like banging, bang. banging, banging, banging. And that was on the front seat. And then he got the, so that passenger seat person out. And then he started trying to get the people out from the back seat. And the

fire was just too intense, like to pull them out the front window. So he started to try and break the back window. And it just, it wasn't possible. Yeah. God. I can only imagine what that must feel like, you know, obviously people die, but then to also be the the one who lives and to have tried to save your friends and not been able to do it. Like, it must be harrowing. I know. And then we hadn't heard that incident happened. It was like right after Thanksgiving in 2024.

So we hadn't heard anything from the survivor about the cyber check until, tell the day my story published, actually, just coincidentally. And he is suing Tesla now too. He really, like, the injuries he sustained from the fire are horrifying and will, are life-changing. It's really scary. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And like, I feel like we're talking about this in the context of the cyber truck specifically, right?

Right. But as you've mentioned, there are issues with the door handles in Tesla vehicles more broadly. Is this a problem like in regular Tesla? vehicle, too, with people not being able to get out? Yeah, 100%. So, I mean, it's happened even more because, maybe not, I don't know if it's because there's more test vehicles, but yes, there's many, many incidents of this happening. And Bloomberg really has led the way in investigating this.

They've tracked 140 complaints about vehicle entrapment in Tesla's. And some of these entrapment issues involve, like, I mean, it's not as, it could be dangerous, not as dangerous, but, like, a parent, like, putting their kid in the back seat, closing the door and then, like, not being, like, somehow the battery died and not being able to, so a kid stuck inside. There's lots of incidents of those. And there's, and it's really hard to get in, like, you have to break the windows. Yeah, and a lot of people have died the same way that of these incidents in the cyber truck. I did like some kind of back of the knack and math and of what we know of the incidents that are out there, the cyber truck is disproportionately has more. You know, again, we don't totally have all the numbers and all the data. But given that there's fewer cyber tracks and there's already been all these incidents, it does show that there's like complications because of the design of the car on like first responder missions. But yeah, there's really just as like I was writing the story, another incident happened and that Tesla and this young man, 20 year olds, was burned to death in a Tesla sedan. So it's an ongoing issue. Yeah, I have a few questions on that front.

So first of all, you know, I'm sure you've probably seen this going around. I'm sure listeners have probably seen it as well. But there's this discussion that like the cyber truck is worse than the four. Pinto and like the Ford Pinto being this vehicle again I don't know all the details but like you know it had some real clear flaws with it and it is part of and the flaws that it had are part of what led to you know like the I guess the modern vehicle regulatory environment safety regulatory environment right and this you know this suggestion is that like the degree of safety issues with seeing with the cyber truck are even worse than that but I guess we're not seeing the same kind of like response to it I guess

I wonder what you make of that comparison and, you know, the issue of whether we're doing enough to address these safety concerns with cybertrunks. Yeah. Yeah. So the cyber truck, like, if you just look at the basic, you know, again, like back of nap and math, has proven to be more deadly than the Pento. And I think the Pinto analysis, like we all know, the Pinto was bad, but also Pinto's caught on fire. So there's that same issue that's happening. The United States, it's NHTSA, the National Highway Safety Traffic, Transportation, Traffic, I always get it wrong.

I always get, there's like two, and I always get them messed up of what exactly the words are. So you get a pass on this one. Yeah, okay. Nitsa. We know it's NITSA. They're the ones that do safety tests. And in fact, they've given cyber trucks a five-star safety review at the top in the two years that it's been out.

And it does do really well in crash tests. As we've seen even in these incidents, like these people did not suffer, like, root force injuries. The crashes were survivable, but they couldn't get out. And that's one thing NHTSA does not test for is egress. It's called. And when I spoke to the spokesperson at NHTSA, they said, you know, we might do, we're looking into egress. We might do it. you know, so it's definitely seems like it's on their minds.

Nitz has this big bureaucratic agency, and they told me they look at every student of plane, they know of every incident that's in the news, they're studying it, and there's like these protocols they have to take before they take action. They have been looking into the case where the four college students were in the cyber truck crashed, but they have not opened an investigation, and it's kind of unclear why. I don't know if they're, they're waiting for more information. And I don't know, like, what level it has to get to for them to do an investigation. I spoke to a former head of NHTSA, and she was really adamant that, you know, they're doing the best they can and they are paying attention to all these safety issues.

You know, a lot of these federal agencies have been stripped of employees and money. And so I don't know how much that's affected NHTSA, but you have to imagine that that is playing into some of this, like, what appears to be like inaction. But they did, they have recently did two recalls on the door. Was it, was recalls? And maybe it's investigations into the door handles of two different Tesla sedan models. Gotcha. Yeah, I guess for me, it's like, I look at it from the outside, right?

not knowing exactly how the agency operates on the inside. And it just becomes like, are they scared to go after someone like Elon Musk because of like how powerful he is? And like how many bodies need to pile up before something is actually done about this? You know, like it makes you a bit disillusioned, I think, seeing how it plays out. Yeah, I don't, you know, it's hard to tell. I don't know if they're scared about Elon Musk. they definitely like do a lot of recalls.

The Tesla, the first year of the Tesla, the 2024 model had 10 recalls, one of which included an accelerator that stuck at full throttle. I remember that. Other ones, like the door panels flying off. Yeah, it's, can't make this stuff up. Yeah, it's just really hard to tell. And since it is this big bureaucratic body, I'm sure they have like all these like levels they have to go through before they can reach, like, an investigation stage, recall stage.

What's interesting is, you know, all their complaints are public. So you can just, like, scroll through the complaints of each model of vehicle. And there, yeah, there's a lot of cyber trucks. And they themselves, like, take these complaints into account. So I don't know if it has to reach, like, critical mass. But it is, like, all these people dying because the door handles is a serious problem. And regulators in other places are looking at it. China is looking at banning these flush electric door handles.

There's been a lot of incidents with electric cars in China that have copied the Tesla aesthetic where people have died. So it does seem, though, that they should already be doing something. I don't know. It's been kind of a long time. Yeah. Well, and this is the other piece of it, right? Like, we can talk about the regulatory side.

And as you say, you know, in China and Europe, it feels like things are moving a bit faster on the door handles in particular. But then the other flip side of that is like, if you're a company like Tesla and you are seeing all of these instances of your customers getting in the crashes, getting stuck in their cars, having their kids being stuck in cars, you know, potentially dying when their cars catch on fire and they're trapped inside, like, how have you not acted sooner to address this issue? Because it's not something, as you're saying, it's not something that's just been happening for the past couple of years. since the cyber truck was released. We've also had this with regular Tesla's, you know, Tesla sedans and crossovers and stuff for quite some time now. Yeah.

Yeah, like a decade. Do we see any movement from Tesla here? Do you have an idea of why they haven't acted faster to address this? I can only speculate, and I imagine it's must love for the Doriannals. Bloomberg did an interview with their head designer, and he said, So I'll just backtrack a little bit. Like other car manufacturers, for their emergency release, if you're stuck in the car, their manual release is some kind of intuitive mechanism that's built into the door handles from the inside.

So a lot of them will have, like, if you pull twice, it will open. And or you can pull really hard, like bending the handleback. In this interview that Bloomberg did with the engineer at Tesla, he was like, yeah, they asked about that and having a manual release that's intuitive mechanism that involves the latching system. And he's like, yeah, that kind of makes sense. I can see that where, you know, you just like pull one button and you're free. So like, okay, so why not do it? Yeah, they're definitely, well, just this week, news came out. It wasn't big news. Well, it wasn't, it wasn't in like widespread and mainstream publications. But in their cyber cab, which is Tesla's autonomous, oh, God, I'm nervous for these things.

They're self-driving cars. Don't even get me started. They have put this mechanism, this quick release way to get out of the car in the cybercabs, which, thank goodness. But definitely the company is thinking about it. And they, for the first time ever, have put something like that in one of their cars. Yeah, and so again, then I guess the question is like how long until that actually rolls out to the ones that most people are using now? And, you know, obviously I assume you're not going to be able to go back and change the vehicles that are out there. Unless, I don't know, maybe they can do a software update where if you pull really hard, I don't know how all that.

No, but I guess if it's the electronics, they can't do it because they need a physical component. Right. And it's like a latching mechanism. Right. So yeah. So it would still be in cars, you know, being sold in the future. but it's like, why do all the 2026 models not have this in there if they know it's an issue and have known it's an issue for a while now?

Obviously, we know a lot about Elon Musk at this point, right? But it's like, what is the value of human life to you? We know it's probably not a ton. But like, these people are paying you a lot of money for their cars. Like, can you not do the like bare minimum to keep them safe? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

It's really perplexing. It's hard for me to understand. Yeah, I completely agree. I wonder, you know, as we wrap up this interview, you know, this has been really insightful to learn about what is going on with these cyber trucks, but also Tesla more broadly and why we really need more attention on this issue, which luckily your story provides and hopefully has informed a lot of people about what's happening, you know, not least of which Tesla owners or Tesla passengers who might need to know about this

if something goes wrong, right, and where to find these. But I wonder, are there any other pieces of your story that we didn't discuss that really stand out to you as something that people should know about? Or where do you think that this is potentially going from here? Yeah. Well, one thing that's interesting is this isn't Tesla, but we talked a lot about those electric vehicle batteries and how flammable they are. In general, I think it's important to state that electric vehicles have shown to be safer

than gas-powered vehicles, even with these highly fammable batteries. batteries and they actually catch on fire less often. This is electric vehicles as a whole. And so this isn't an issue with electric vehicles. It's really a Tesla issue and involves this entrapment, which is the thing that's really getting people in trouble. That's really good to know. I've often wondered as well, at some point I should look into this. Like, Norway has such a high degree of electric vehicle penetration. And when you talk about like, you know, the electric vehicles catching on fire, and having to be doused with so much water to put them out and keep them out. Part of me wonder is like, have the Norwegian firefighters like figured out something that we need to learn

where they have so many more electric vehicles on the roads? Like, that's something for me to maybe look into. But yeah, it's something I wonder about. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the safety experts I spoke to also said this is like a learning curve for firefighters because how to deal with electric vehicles. And then with Tesla, with cyber truck, that's even more complicated because it's such a unique, in different vehicle, that they, they're just, they're not, and it's rare, they're just not trained on how to deal with like first response in the way they would be with, you know, a Honda.

Totally. Yeah. A Honda Civic, they see those all the time. They know what to do with something like that, right? Yeah. Awesome. No, this has been really insightful, Dara. It's been really great to learn more about this. And I'm sure that the listeners have as well. You know, we hear about these stories, but it's harrowing to hear about some of the experiences that you're talking about, but hopefully we're heading in a direction where this is going to be addressed soon, and hopefully Tesla will have to be held accountable for what it has done to people by choosing design over safety. Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see as these lawsuits continue. There's several lawsuits also on the exact same issue for Tesla sedans, and they're all over faulty design,

wrongful death lawsuits. So, yeah, it's going to be very, really interesting. And maybe that's what'll spur the change. Yeah, hopefully. Dara, it's been really great to have you on the show. Thanks so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. This is, fun is not the right word, but I really enjoyed being on. Darra Kerr is a tech reporter at the Guardian U.S. Tech Won't Save Us has made in partnership with The Nation magazine and is hosted by me, Paris Marks. Production is by Kylie Houston. Tech won't Save Us relies on the support of listeners like you to keep

providing critical perspectives on the tech industry. You can join hundreds of other supporters and help us hit our goal as the show celebrates its sixth birthday by going to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and becoming a supporter today. Thanks for listening and make sure to come back next week.