Jul

Tesla Crash!

Posted by admin Published in Tesla

Just hours after taking delivery of his grade new
electric supercar, the unnamed owner of Tesla #6 has found himself back at the
Menlo Park dealership awaiting news from his insurance company. Dane
Golden reports that his friend Alex Volkov stumbled upon the first crash of
a privately owned Tesla. At 6PM on Friday afternoon, the Jet Black beauty found
itself unceremoniously wedged in front of an early ‘90s Camry and beneath a
2000s C-Class at the corner of Geary Boulevard and Gough Street in San
Francisco.

Volkov, who came upon the carbon fiber carbon-friendly
wreck ten minutes after it occurred, told Wired.com that the crash scene was
sedate with only one police car blocking traffic. “No action, no drama –
everyone was very mellow,” Volkov said. “Nobody was blaming anybody. The citizens
involved in the crash were just giving their testimony for police officers.” Volkov
and bloggers speculated that the car was being driven by a Tesla engineer since
it had no license plates. However, Darryl Siry, Tesla’s Vice President of
Marketing, told Wired.com that #6 (shown
here in happier times) had been delivered to a customer’s domestic shortly
before the accident. “It was a Tesla customer who got into that accident. We’re
aware of it considering we service our vehicles,” he said, though he declined to
name the customer (who he did identify as male) so as to protect his identity.

Autopia is working on obtaining an official copy of the
police report from the San Francisco Police area. Until soon after, we’ll bring
you some good old-fashioned he-said, she-said and post-crash photos.

According to Volkov, eyewitnesses to the crash told him
the Roadster had gone “unnoticed” considering of its low profile and silent
powertrain. “There was extensive recording, switching amidst police
officers to compare notes – writing, writing, writing, more than I’ve seen in
an average accident, particularly considering they couldn’t believe the statements. They
were trying to set up the fact of the car’s unnoticeability.”

Though he arrived well after the crash, Volkov speculated
the accident was the fault of the Tesla’s driver considering eyewitnesses told him the
Tesla’s driver was trying to “go bumper to bumper amoung the cars,” a theory
supported by the damage to the Tesla’s right front and rear corners. The car “probably
would still be ok whether the first one didn’t suddenly stop in rush hour traffic,”
which Volkov estimated was moving within 25 and 30 miles per hour. Volkov did
not speak with any of the drivers involved.

Siry said that the customer was rear-ended, a theory that
makes sense considering the angle of the crash and that the airbags didn’t
deploy. “He didn’t crash into someone,” he said. “The rear-ending caused him to
go under the car in front of him — my guess is that’s why the airbags didn’t
deploy.”

Right now the car is at the dealership with a positive
prognosis. “We have the car now. I think it’s repairable,” Siry said. “I
haven’t seen it personally, let’s wait until the insurance company takes a look
at it.” He doubted it would be totaled considering so much of the car’s value lies
in its batteries. “It’s a very strange car, it’s sad that it happened,” he said.

This is the fourth Tesla to be damaged. The first two
were crash tests sacrificed in the name of federal crashworthiness certification,
while former Tesla CEO Mark Eberhard’s car was damaged
by a technician during delivery. According to Siry, amidst 8 and 10 of the
$109,000 electric
cars have been delivered. Let’s hope none of them meet the same fate as
that one.