The lawsuit, filed Friday, alleges that the lithium-ion battery pack in the Model S caused the electronic door system to malfunction.
Published November 3, 2025
Electric car company Tesla is being sued over a fire accident in the United States that killed all five occupants of a Model S, alleging a design flaw in which the sedan’s doors could not be opened and the occupants were trapped inside.
Jeffrey Bauer, 54, and Michelle Bauer, 55, of Crandon, Wisconsin, were riding a Model S in the Madison, Wisconsin suburb of Verona on November 1, 2024, when their car veered off the road and struck a tree, killing them the next day.
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The suit filed Friday by the Bauers’ four children says their fate was sealed when the Model S’s lithium-ion battery pack caused the electronic door system to malfunction.
The children said Tesla knew from previous fires that something like this could happen, but it “consciously departed from known and workable safety practices.”
Austin, Texas-based Tesla, which is led by Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Monday.
The company is also being sued by the families of two college students who died after being trapped in a car that burst into flames due to the door handle design during a Cybertruck crash outside San Francisco last November.
In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealed that some Tesla doors may be defective, following reports that the handles could malfunction.
The Bauer children said Model S back seat passengers like Michelle Bauer are especially vulnerable in a crash because they have to lift up the carpet to find a metal tab for escape, which is not intuitive.
According to the complaint, a nearby homeowner called 911 and reported hearing screams coming from inside Bauer’s car.
“Tesla’s design choices created a highly foreseeable risk that the surviving occupants of the accident would remain trapped inside the burning vehicle,” the complaint says.
Other defendants include the estate of the driver of the car that Bauer’s children have accused of negligent driving.
On Wall Street, Tesla shares ended the day up 2.5%.
