Model 3 crash on local news

[Larry Hutchinson]

Remarkably, there was no mention that the car was a Tesla.

Also remarkably, the driver was said to be uninjured. They speculated he had a medical emergency. The car came down the embankment in the background.

These shots were taken off my TV with a camera (could not find any video on the station's website.)

 

[Jeff4155]

Very lucky anyone walked away from that crash, looks like something out of a "final destination movie"

 

[trm2]

tsk, someone playing pole position.


Too soon?
I'm glad the driver wasn't hurt.

 

[Silicon Desert]

And it has me looking forward to the day that I might be able to press an icon for medical emergency.... take me to the nearest hospital.
Maybe I wouldn't wreck the car.

 

[GHammer]

Here's a video report on it.

 

[Msjulie]

So when the driver walks away unharmed, mentioning Tesla is more or less an afterthought.. but when a crazy driver runs people over speeding through a light, Tesla is in the headline...

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Interestingly, the car did allegedly catch on fire a while after the accident. (You have to watch until the end of the video, there is some footage of the aftermath; it's a small fire and the fire department (or tow company???) was able to put it out - not sure of the source of the fire, but not sure what it could be other than the battery.) Not all that surprising given the amount of skewering that seems to have taken place, I suppose.

At the end of the video the car is happily no longer smoking, and has been removed from the playground.

Dual Motor, FWIW (not much, just noticed).

 

[cucubits]

Interestingly, the car did allegedly catch on fire a while after the accident. (You have to watch until the end of the video, there is some footage of the aftermath; it's a small fire and the fire department (or tow company???) was able to put it out - not sure of the source of the fire, but not sure what it could be other than the battery.) Not all that surprising given the amount of skewering that seems to have taken place, I suppose.

At the end of the video the car is happily no longer smoking, and has been removed from the playground.

Dual Motor, FWIW (not much, just noticed).

If it was a small fire, it couldn't have been the battery.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

If it was a small fire, it couldn't have been the battery.

That's possible - it could have been that something else was shorted out. I would expect that the pyrofuse would have gone so the stuff on the HV would be de-energized. But I guess the 12V could still provide power to something that created enough heat to burn, without too much difficulty.

No way to know, really, with the limited information in the video. I agree it is far from certain that it was the HV battery.

Rather large amount of whitish smoke, source unclear (presumably airbags would not go off subsequent to a collision during vehicle removal from a fence?). And that was after extinguishing activity, so who knows...

 

[SomeJoe7777]

If airbags have been deployed (which is visible in the video) the HV battery is supposed to be automatically disconnected from everything. I don't know if that is done simply by dropping out the contactor or by blowing the pyro fuse.

But if that's the case, then the only power source remaining would be the 12V.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

If airbags have been deployed (which is visible in the video) the HV battery is supposed to be automatically disconnected from everything. I don't know if that is done simply by dropping out the contactor or by blowing the pyro fuse.

But if that's the case, then the only power source remaining would be the 12V.

Yeah. I guess I was just wondering whether it was possible for any still undeployed airbags to deploy as they removed the vehicle from the fence. I would guess not, if deployment has already occurred, and also I doubt the forces involved would be sufficient to trigger them anyway. I only started thinking about this because the whitish smoke kind of looked like airbag smoke - but it was likely from another source.

Here is the parking lot it appears he came out of (it appears he was not driving on a street at the time - though of course with a medical event it could have been a LARGE diversion from Macadam):

Google Maps
(punched through just to the left of the dumpsters)

And the view from below:

Google Maps

Obviously, with the stepped cinder block wall raking the bottom of the vehicle as it descended (looks like that must have happened?), there is likely massive damage to the underside of this vehicle, and the battery pack. It's unfortunate we didn't get that footage from the news! All the 12V stuff should be fused. I guess I'm leaning towards a small, contained, HV battery fire caused by massive damage to the main pack.

On the other hand, VERY fortunate timing on this accident. Could have been REALLY bad.