There's a couple things that I would like to point out here. I am a Tesla owner, not a huge fanboi or anything, but this is another press example of trying to incite fear.
One: this vehicle was travelling over 200km/hr. It hit a cement barrier. That car could have been made of bubble wrap, it wasnt going to be pretty, no matter what.
Two: there is, in fact, a mechanical override latch in Tesla doors. You pull up on the latch at the top of the panel. It looks like a door handle. In fact, most people who are first riders in my car, end up pulling it before they realize there's a door button there. Which is a pain in the ass because the door window doesn't automatically roll down when it closes and it can damage the seals. But yeah, there's a mechanical latch right there for the pulling.
Also there's other vehicles that have the exact same door systems, but the press also neglects to ever mention that. Corvettes are one that comes immediately to mind.
Again not totally a Tesla fanboi, I bought it before Elon went off the deep end. I do like the car though. Don't hit shit at 200km/hr or drunk drive into ponds, and you are generally fine.
It definitely needs to be marked better. The latches are definitely there, but I think the thing that sucks with them, is the owners generally understand where this stuff is, but the passengers often don't. I'm not denying that's not an issue, it is. Especially when everyone else is dead. It also doesn't help that everyone often stuffs rubber mats in the backdoors that cover over the mechanical switches. I feel like this could be pretty easily solved with a sticker on the door panel, pointing to the latch, but then everyone would probably complain how it looks and some would likely would peel it off. These are the exact same folks that can't be bothered to read a manual either.
Mechanical latches can break in accidents too though, especially ones that operate on rods, which is lost in the hysteria here. Sometimes the doors just get bent real bad too, like I suspect even if the manual override worked in this door, these young adults hit the barrier at a very high speed, that door was going to have serious damage. You were probably going to have to use Jaws of Life or break the window no matter what. I used to drive an after hours tow truck years ago for a dealer that I worked for, and in quite a number of accidents (especially the high speed ones) the doors were no longer operable. It's just one of those things