{"id":113888,"date":"2025-11-03T23:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T23:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/113888\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T23:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T23:18:07","slug":"us-family-sues-tesla-alleging-wrongful-death-due-to-faulty-doors-automotive-industry-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/113888\/","title":{"rendered":"US family sues Tesla, alleging wrongful death due to faulty doors | Automotive Industry News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lawsuit, filed on Friday, alleges the lithium-ion battery pack in the Model S caused the electronic door systems to fail.<\/p>\n

Published On 3 Nov 20253 Nov 2025<\/p>\n

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Electric Vehicle company Tesla has been sued over a fiery crash in the United States that killed all five occupants of a Model S, who were allegedly trapped inside because of a design flaw that prevented them from opening the sedan\u2019s doors.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Bauer, 54, and Michelle Bauer, 55, of Crandon, Wisconsin, were passengers in a Model S when the car went off the road and struck a tree in Verona, Wisconsin, a suburb of Madison, on November 1, 2024. They died the next day.<\/p>\n

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According to a complaint filed on Friday by four of the Bauers\u2019 children, the couple\u2019s fate was sealed because the Model S\u2019s lithium-ion battery pack caused the electronic door systems to fail.<\/p>\n

The children said that Tesla knew this could happen based on earlier fires, yet made a \u201cconscious departure from known, feasible safety practices\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tesla, based in Austin, Texas, and led by Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday by the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

The automaker has also been sued by families of two college students killed in a Cybertruck crash last November in a San Francisco suburb, after allegedly being locked in the burning vehicle because of its door handle design.<\/p>\n

In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration disclosed a probe into the possible defects on some Tesla doors<\/a>, following reports that handles could fail.<\/p>\n

The Bauer children said that Model S rear seat passengers, like Michelle Bauer, were particularly vulnerable in the event of a crash, because they would have to lift carpeting to find a metal tab allowing their escape, which is not intuitive.<\/p>\n

A nearby homeowner told 911 that she heard screaming from within the Bauers\u2019 vehicle, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTesla\u2019s design choices created a highly foreseeable risk: that occupants who survived a crash would remain trapped inside a burning vehicle,\u201d according to the complaint.<\/p>\n

Other defendants include the estate of the car\u2019s driver, whom the Bauer children accused of negligent driving.<\/p>\n

On Wall Street, Tesla\u2019s stock finished the day up 2.5 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lawsuit, filed on Friday, alleges the lithium-ion battery pack in the Model S caused the electronic door…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11866,114,2681,782,184,350,85,46,43,125,1032,1156],"class_list":["post-113888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-automotive-industry","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-courts","tag-economy","tag-elon-musk","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}