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Model 3 Accident, Is this car really safe to drive?
- Thread starter bigroccrek
- Start date
Car is still in the shop waiting on parts from Tesla. Tesla will not release any of the data from the car to me, they absolutely refuse. I am looking into other ways to get the EDR data. The only piece of information Tesla gave me was I was going 19 MPH at the time of the accident. They said once repaired they will go over the whole car and make sure the systems are all working. I guess it will be useless for me to ask for a written status of that as well.
I know you were worried about the air bags not going off. But if Tesla is being honest about the 19 mph, that probably explains it. And that speed is very plausible. I forget if I mentioned earlier in this thread, I was in a similar "low speed" accident hitting a pole. I slide down a small hill in an ice storm. I was afraid to turn away because I didn't want to hit the pole I was heading towards sideways, so I consciously, perhaps stupidly, let it go into the pole. I was hoping the brakes would stop in time but they did not. Anyway. No air bags went off. I could not have been going fast (20 mph tops). But boy, that pole went pretty far in, similar to yours. It was $12,000 to fix (probably double that in today's dollars). It was a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Car was perfect after the repair and the accident happened at 60K miles and I sold it at 227k miles. I thought for sure I'd dump it. But it was perfect (tires, brakes and oil).
I think that situation is unique in that the crumple zone absorbs the whole thing. So damage is high, but impact to passenger is low and doesn't need the airbag to protect the passengers. The car did its job. And from what I've heard you really don't want those air bags going off if you can avoid it and is a last resort. Because they can hurt you.
Good luck !!
I can't disagree with anything you said. I am just irritated with Tesla since they publish software to read the data from the car and they make it available for free on their website for free (google: Tesla EDR) and they even let you upload the data and generate a report on the Tesla website. They have a link where you can buy the kit for $995 on their website but.......they won't just give you the data/report they already have from pulling the same data over the air. The Service Centers have access to the same report but won't even let me see it. I don't get why it is such a big deal if they give you all of the tools (except the ones you have to buy) and Tesla referred me to the website page with the information so they apparently are not worried about owners downloading it themselves so why not just provide it in the case of an accident??
Maybe because if they do it for you they have to do it for everyone? Can't imagine the time involved in that case. If I'm not mistaken and just from things I've read on TMC about the reports generated, they are lines of data that would need interpreting by someone with that specialized type of knowledge, ie. translates into tech time reading and interpreting the data. They make the info available for download but it's up to the end user to have it interpreted in cases like yours. Believe they only make it available from them when legally requested by police, investigative bodies or in the case of lawsuits at the request of an insurance company or lawyer.
I would say the important thing is that Tesla had someone look at the logs to see if something malfunctioned and determined it didn't, and it sounds from what I've read on the thread that the airbags performed as expected. Sorry to read that after all this time you are still having issues with what happened.
I would say the important thing is that Tesla had someone look at the logs to see if something malfunctioned and determined it didn't, and it sounds from what I've read on the thread that the airbags performed as expected. Sorry to read that after all this time you are still having issues with what happened.
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AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
Sorry you are still waiting on your car repair, a bit surprised they did not total it. Maybe you’ll be lucky and have the car back in a month? Did you try to encourage them to total the vehicle at all?
Seems like the salvage value would have been really high, so all that rental and paper pushing expense is now going to waste...did you have rental coverage on your policy? (I don’t because I don’t need it...thinking about it, maybe I should add it so that total loss declaration is more likely...)
GuyDude
Member
I don't think it would be that much effort for Tesla. According to what Tesla told me they do and "Engineering Investigation" on any reported accident. Once complete just emailing the file to the registered owner shouldn't be that big a deal.
Tesla also has an upload capability on the "Tesla EDR" site that will humanize the data for free, just getting the raw data is expensive and in my opinion not necessary since Tesla already has it.
Federal law says the data must be made available to the owner and by making it difficult most owners won't bother.
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