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Dual Fatality Model S Crash/Fire: Fort Lauderdale, FL May 8, 2018

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Regarding the statistics stated above for death rates - death rate per 1M vehicles = wrong. this is an invalid statistic as it should be Death rate per 1M miles = correct - I believe Tesla S' have a bit higher miles driven than any other similar vehicle(not sure about actual statistics)
I appreciate that this might not be the way you want to look at the numbers, but it most certainly is NOT an "invalid statistic"! Insurance companies (and this is a study by the Insurance Institute) are paid for registered cars, not miles driven. Premiums are calculated by the accidents per car, not per mile. And frankly, if I'm looking at these numbers, its because I want to know I'm more likely to die because I chose car "A" or car "B."

Claiming a particular car has a high death rate because the typical owners are more reckless might make some sense, but trying to claim that its OK for a car to have a higher accident rate because the owners like to drive more miles is just plain silly!
(Actually, I tried to find "miles driven by model" and came up empty!)
 
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Something smells like BS.
They own 4 Tesla vehicles but don''t know about the valet mode and called Tesla service to enable it?

I appreciate that this might not be the way you want to look at the numbers, but it most certainly is NOT an "invalid statistic"! Insurance companies (and this is a study by the Insurance Institute) are paid for registered cars, not miles driven. Premiums are calculated by the accidents per car, not per mile. And frankly, if I'm looking at these numbers, its because I want to know I'm more likely to die because I chose car "A" or car "B."

Claiming a particular car has a high death rate because the typical owners are more reckless might make some sense, but trying to claim that its OK for a car to have a higher accident rate because the owners like to drive more miles is just plain silly!
(Actually, I tried to find "miles driven by model" and came up empty!)
accidents / MVMT is how calcs are done.
Sure, more miles traveled will always show more accidents and that is why you use VMT instead of car #'s registered.
If an automaker just made 10 cars and 2 of them crashed you probably wouldn't want one? 20% rate, right?
What if they each drove 1 million miles? that is 2 accidents/ 10 million miles (0.2/MVMT)
So compare that to a car that they made 1000 of and 10 of them crashed (only a 1% rate! much better?) but wait, each one had only been driven 10,000 miles. That would be 10 accidents / 10 million miles (1/MVMT)
...& insurance is a scam
 
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AGAIN: I have read of many deliveries that were made in demo mode —— NOT REQUESTED BY THE CUSTOMER.
I have never heard of an explicit customer request to limit top speed.



You have only reiterated my prior statement. Thanks so much!

It's impossible to say for sure either way. There are people that can request specials things, and this has been pretty well documented.

I find it hard to believe though that it was going under 85mph.

I haven't seen any <100mph single car accident with a Tesla where the driver died being burned alive. They always had ample time to get out.

Maybe in this case it hit something that penetrated the battery just right.
 
You need to pay attention to order of events to understand this.
The family also owns 4 Teslas. We don't know for sure that the car in the crash is the same one he was driving when ticketed. But let's assume that it was. Since this crash happened 2 months after the ticket, it is plausible that the request was honoured. We also don't know that it was completed, just that the aunt says they "asked Tesla to alter the car."
I appreciate your tin-foil hat - it is good to be skeptical. But I don't see a glaring issue here.

"Altering the car" is the fatal flaw in thinking.....IF that is what was requested. You alter the child not the car. No more car after a 112 ticket. Get a job and buy your own car... or use UBER. Yes I have a kid.
 
The news of this accident even made it into the German mainstream media. It's no surprise, though.

What are you talking about? I have not heard or seen a thing about this case in german media. Let alone german "mainstream media".

The only thing I heard about cars in german media was Audi (aka Volkswagen) cheating again with a supposed to be clean post-dieselgate car.
 
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“My brother bought the car for my nephew because he wanted Barrett to be safe,” said Pat Riley, of Fort Lauderdale. “He thought other cars were riskier because the gas could cause a fire. How ironic.”

Pat Riley believes that her nephew, who was on his way home from the Galleria mall when he crashed, was trapped after the collision because the electronic doors prevented the victims from exiting.

“You’re stuck,” she said. “The windows don’t go down.”

She said Tesla should install a door handle to allow exits during an emergency.

“It’s ridiculous that in 2018 they are making cars that are plush and modern but not safe,” she said.

Lawsuit in 3...2....1....


The door handles are mechanichal (With electronic aid, but works without the electronics)