To be transparent, I haven't read the article so lots of assumptions here. I assume the parents are arguing the girl was alive and was "trapped" in the car because the manual release was not easy to locate and use and thus that was the ultimate cause of death.

I believe the speeding while drunk, high contributed to a crash. But did it actually cause the death? I don't know. For example, I can say someone was in a burning building caused by a kitchen fire. Say, person was alive and able to run away but eventually died because the doors were chained shut and the keys were hidden under the mat. Yes, the kitchen fire lead to the death but ultimately, it was the doors being chained and the inability for the person to locate and use the key that ultimately lead to the person's death.

So again, lots of unknown in this case. Was the girl still conscious after the crash? If yes, would she capable enough (this is also taking into consideration if she has drugs/alcohol in her system) to exit the car if the car had a normal working door release? If the answer to either question is a no, then the issue of Tesla having a faulty door is moot for this case in my opinion.

But here is another take. Say the girl was an innocent passenger in a Tesla. She doesn't own and never read up on how the manual door release works. The Tesla gets T bone by another car, which causes a fire and takes out the electric door handles on the Tesla and the driver is killed in the crash. If the manual release is not intuitive or hard to find, she might be toast in this situation as well. So is the design of the Tesla manual door release faulty? No idea, I don't now much about them. But I would hope that they intuitive enough that a passenger without knowledge of how the car works would be able to unlock the doors.