A Bay Area family’s Cadillac Lyriq EV experiencing a faulty 12-volt battery became a potential safety hazard when its electric doors blocked with an infant inside the vehicle.
Reporting this week on the incident that happened on January 4 in Antioch, California, ABC 7 News Bay Area noted that the parents couldn’t get to their 12-month child who was trapped in the car for about 30 minutes.
Mother Lacey Gunn was using the grandparents’ 2024 Cadillac Lyriq to go to church on a Sunday morning, and after placing her baby girl in the child seat and closing the door, she went over to the other side of the vehicle to help her other child, a toddler, climb inside.
If This Had Happened in Summer, the Child’s Life Would Have Been Threatened
As video of the incident captured by a surveillance camera shows, by the time she reached the driver’s side of the vehicle, she noticed that the door handles became unresponsive and she couldn’t open them. She immediately tried using the key fob to unlock the doors, but that didn’t work either. The woman then tried to unlock the doors using the Cadillac mobile app’s remote keyless entry feature, but to no avail.
At this point, she tried using the vehicle’s second key fob, to the same effect. As the baby started crying, the mother called OnStar, GM’s in-vehicle safety, security, and connectivity service.
According to GM, OnStar offered assistance, contacted authorities and roadside assistance. The operator attempted unlocking the vehicle remotely, but that was impossible because of the 12-volt battery’s condition. With 23 minutes passing since the child got locked in the vehicle, the mother called 911 as she and the infant’s grandfather seriously considered breaking a window.
In the end, the child’s father found the solution after typing the situation into ChatGPT and learning that the trunk can be opened through a small latch using the vehicle’s physical key, which is integrated into the key fob. This did the trick and the crying infant finally got recovered from the car after almost half an hour of being alone inside. The Lyriq also features manual release levers to open the doors from the inside, but obviously the 12-month child couldn’t operate them.
GM Says the Owner’s Manual Explains How Emergency Access Works
Zac Palmer
The incident has angered the family, especially after discovering that besides the trunk latch, there’s no other emergency feature to gain entry or turn on the car if the 12-volt battery fails. Had the same thing happened in the summer heat, the child’s life would have been threatened.
While it’s hard to argue with that, GM told ABC7 News Bay Area that the “2024 Lyriq has access via the rear hatch and this is explained in the owner’s manual and other materials.” Still, finding a more straightforward solution that doesn’t require people searching online for a way to open a vehicle’s doors in critical situations is common sense.
The family filed a formal complaint with Cadillac after their local dealership charged them nearly $1,000 to replace the 12-volt battery and perform other electrical system-related work. A service technician told the child’s mother that the faulty 12-volt battery caused the electrical system to go dark and into lock mode.
Locked EV Doors Caused Several Fatalities in the U.S. and China
This incident is the latest in a series of events where passengers got trapped in electric vehicles. These incidents are particularly common after collisions or water submersion that cause the low-voltage battery to fail, causing electronic doors and handles to stop working.
In many cases, the emergency mechanical release was difficult to locate or operated incorrectly, preventing escape during a fire or emergency like a vehicle plunging into a body of water. Sadly, some of these cases resulted in fatalities, with high-profile cases involving Teslas in the U.S. and Xiaomi EVs in China.
A 2025-2026 Bloomberg investigation identified at least 15 deaths over 13 years linked to Tesla vehicle doors failing to unlock, trapping occupants inside following collisions and subsequent fires.
These safety concerns have drawn scrutiny from regulators, with China recently banning electric pop-out door handles starting January 1, 2027.
