So reading the article... it had a dead 12V battery. The car warns you when the 12V battery is going bad. It's possible it suddenly died without warning, but unlikely. Those are literally the same tech as every other car, nothing really special about the 12V system. It's just a smaller battery since it doesn't have to power anything other than accessories, and is constantly recharged by the high voltage system.

Even ignoring all that, you can access the 12V system externally to jump it and open the doors just like any regular ICE car needing a jump. It's not like Teslas are the only vehicles reliant on things like key fobs and doors without obvious keyholes.

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-3567D5F4-A5F4-4323-8BE0-023D5438FFC6.html