Recently a Tesla Model S crashed into a gym in Florida. What happened? On the 9th of August, there was a Tesla S trying to park when it suddenly accelerated and crashed into the front corner of the gym located in Lighthouse Point, FL. The whole incident has been recorded on the gym’s camera. Luckily, no one was injured during the whole situation, but it was a close one. Just seconds before the accident, a person went into the gym through the front glass door.
This case reminded us of a similar one happened in June this year when a car crashed into a building. The interesting thing is that both crashed cars are made by the same manufacturer – Tesla. The one from June was Model X and it crashed in Irvine, CA. It also suddenly accelerated. The driver said that the vehicle accelerated on its own. After reviewing the logs, Tesla came out stating that the accelerator pedal was pressed and that it was driver’s fault.
Now both Tesla and the owner of the vehicle are having their side of the story. The driver in the video is a woman, the actual owner of the Tesla Model S is her husband. The owner posted on Tesla’s forum describing the situation: “I have owned several Model S Tesla’s and currently own 1 P85D and 1 P90D. Recently, my wife experienced a near fatal accident when she was slowly parking at her gym. The car violently exploded into full acceleration and could have easily killed people in the gym”. The post was deleted afterwards.
After contacting Tesla, they confirmed that the logs have been reviewed and the result is that the accelerator pedal was pressed during the accident. “I am amazed and wildly disappointed by the way Tesla has handled this and their complete unwillingness to even talk to me about it. Of course, they immediately blamed it on the driver and claimed their online computer tells them that” – the owner described in the same mentioned post. On the other hand, he did leave the option of the driver’s fault open: “Of course, it is possible that there could have been driver error, but we do not feel that is what has occurred and wanted to have it looked further into.”
Back to the first accident – the owner of the Tesla Model X that crashed into a building in Irvine back in June said something similar. He pointed out that people from Tesla were quick to blame the driver based just on the logs, without actually physically inspecting the vehicle.
NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated that around 16,000 crashes happen every year in the USA because of driver’s fault – mistaking the brake and accelerator pedals. Now, there might be a huge number of car accidents in the USA, but the number of 16,000 is not unimportant. It actually might mean something. Now, in these two particular crashes, both drivers are claiming that the vehicles accelerated on their own.
There were some other similar situations with Tesla vehicles suddenly accelerating and there should be a new report coming up soon.
Of course, the manufacturer came out with a statement defending their position and denying defect:
“Tesla’s cars do not accelerate without the driver instructing it to do so. In every situation where we have received a customer claim about this, the vehicle’s diagnostic logs have confirmed that the acceleration was the result of the driver pressing the accelerator pedal.”
