PHOENIX (AZ Family) — On Your Side has done a series of reports on safety issues electronic door locks on Teslas and other new cars.

Now, a recent accident has shown that electronic door failure can have fatal consequences.

Just after midnight on October 24, a Tesla Model Y with five people inside crashed into a guardrail on a Toronto street, bursting into flames.

Witnesses rushed to the car, hoping to save the people inside, but there was a huge problem.

The car’s electronic door locks wouldn’t open, so rescuers couldn’t get in — and the victims couldn’t get out.

A man managed to break a window with a metal bar and saved a passenger, but the other four people in the car died in the fire.

And it’s not the first time something like this has happened. In 2019, a doctor in South Florida crashed his Tesla Model S into a palm tree and the electronic doors didn’t open.

He got trapped inside and died.

An autopsy revealed that he survived the crash but was killed by the fire and toxic fumes. In recent months, On Your Side has revealed problems with Tesla’s electronic door locks.

For example, I talked to a Tempe woman who was stuck in her car when the battery died.

In another report, we heard from a Scottsdale woman whose young granddaughter was trapped inside a Tesla when the doors wouldn’t open. Firefighters had to use an ax to get her out.

Electric door handles sound a little worrisome, but On Your Side found that Tesla is far from the only automaker making the switch.

“So electronic door handles, both interior and exterior, are becoming much more common in modern cars,” said Keith Barry, a senior writer at Consumer Reports who focuses on auto technology and road safety.

He tells On Your Side that every car they tested with electronic door handles also included a manual way to open the door in an emergency.

But it might not be easy to find.

“In some Tesla vehicles, you have to remove the panels on the back doors,” he said. “You have to remove the speaker panels from the Model X’s rear door to pull an emergency release. That’s not intuitive.”

Barry says if your car it has electronic door locks, look for the owner’s manual now to find out how to get out if it fails.

“The key is you don’t want to be trying to figure out where the door handle is when you’re stuck in your car in an emergency, because that’s when you panic,” he said. “The last thing you want to do is Google ‘How do I open my car door?'”

Barry suggests keeping a hammer or other tool designed to break glass in an emergency in your car as an extra safety precaution.

But it might not be as simple as it seems.

Many luxury cars now use laminated glass.

“Laminated glass in general is a good thing,” Barry said. “It can prevent occupants from being ejected in a crash. It can make a car interior quieter, but it’s also harder to break than traditional tempered glass.”

Here’s a tip if you have to break a window.

Every piece of glass in your car says in the corner whether it is tempered or laminated glass.

Tempered glass will be much easier to break.

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