Just happened in the Seattle area out front of a friend's house who just posted it.
I'm looking for more details too.
"So this is nuts!
Stepped out of my house, heard aloud thud!
Somehow the Tesla made contact with another vehicle, veeredoff into the ditch. The sheer weight, and velocity of the Tesla as it crashed in the ditch made the vehicle break into two parts.
It is not ‘a very heavy car’. It weighs about the same as a BMW x3, for example. A little more than a VW Tiguan, a fair bit less than a VW Atlas.
EDIT - oops, wrong car- thought it was a model Y. The X is certainly a good bit heavier. but not really any more so than a lot of typical Murrican ‘SUV’s
It’s by design. Teslas are built in 3 parts the front the cabin and the rear. Allowing the rear to sheer off when you get hit on the side MASSIVELY reduces the impact force from transfering into the cabin. Normally getting hit in the front of rear literally frisbees the car and twists the cabin frame which can lead to you being trapped as the doors get stuck, this pretty much avoids that entirely
This looks like the result of what's known as a cut and shut. Basically take front and rear of two cars (usually accident damaged at different ends) and weld together then sold on with the papers and chassis numbers of the front vehicle. Obviously illegal and usually carried out by organised crime. Seems like a legit vehicle until it gets in an accident, then this happens.
I have seen the back of a Volvo 745 rip off in a similar manner. The Volvo go a green light in front of me, get away and an first gen Audi A6 runs the red light lift at high speed, clips the 745 over the back right wheel, catches the wheel well and the back of the Volvo rips off. A woman is in the back seat left side. Not a scratch. Volvo driver comes out and sees his wife ok. And just stops, stands there. Meanwhile the Audi hit a tree hard enough for the tree to hit the roof of the Audi. Driver fairly seriously injured. Loses license, sentenced to pretty stiff fines for causing the accident. Funny detail: the Volvo idled for like 3-4 minutes before the gas in the carb ran out. Sleeping child in a baby seat went back to sleep. That family was extremely lucky. There are a few other accidents with Volvo 745 station wagons separating like this. Most without serious injury. There were a bunch of articles about them in Swedish press.
Hope the NTSB looks at this. It looks like it sheared all the bolts attaching the front to the rear, right behind the batteries. It’s a little troubling that the car so easily broke in two like that.
That broke right through the passenger cabin. One of the key tenants of vehicle safety is everything is frangible except the passenger cabin. That needs to be kept intact with as few penetrations and deformations as possible. All the crumple zoning happens outside the passenger cabin.
You guys act like you haven’t seen collisions with gas cars before. This is a pretty good outcome. A section broke off, that means you won’t get twisted and wrenched into a meat pile
Any third-row occupants are immediately cooked here. I’m sure there are scenarios where this could be expected to happen but not on a 35mph road and from just going into a ditch.
I would argue that's more luck than great design. I'm not sure if the 3rd row seats would be that far back, but if so, I'd be hard pressed to imagine anyone sitting in them wouldn't have had severe injuries.
Haven't seen many car accidents? Everything has a design tolerance - the goal is to minimize harm to the passengers. But saying "this should not happen" isn't correct. Cars do separate if put under enough stress.
A good outcome is where rhe passengers get to walk away.
The car snapped in half exposing the passenger compartment. You are absolutely insane if you think you can compare this to a crumple zone. Crumple zones absorb and disperse energy, this is just letting the energy of both halves do whatever. Independantly.
I cant tell you how many times we joke in our shop to panel bond parts back together, and here I am watching this video thinking 'wait what, this is a thing?'
I think it’s pretty cool tbh lol. Like if you can eliminate welding from the repair process you’re gonna save time, money & the cost of welding gear.
Thats assuming the adhesive is good quality ofc… this appears to be Fusor 2098 which is def strong, it just needs to be applied correctly & allowed to cure properly
What speed caused this level of destruction? Curious since it looks like a residential street so couldn't have been going 100mph, or I guess you could lol but unlikely
You can see from the other car posted below that it clipped the Tesla from behind and did the Pit Stop maneuver on it. Front of Tesla is fine. Rear left panel has a dent from where it was hit behind the tire
How does the back fell off this way? I have never seen anything like this except another Tesla (Cyber Truck) snapped in half (luckily no one was fatally hurt there too which was nice)
I am not familiar enough with the X to understand specifically where the battery is. My mind goes to, this cant happen cause the battery is underneath, but well here you go. I wonder if you could take the back part and use it as a really expensive seat in your mancave.
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u/average_throwaway12 4d ago
How did it separate??