Jinhua couple fell off a cliff while driving Tesla, Tesla's latest response
Recently, related topics such as "couple driving Tesla down a mountain road unfortunately died" and "Tesla falling off a cliff causing couple's death recorder data to disappear" have made headlines on the internet and attracted the attention of netizens. According to previous media reports, on April 27th, a couple in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, experienced a unilateral traffic accident while driving their newly purchased Tesla Model Y home. The vehicle rushed down a cliff from a winding mountain road at high speed, resulting in the deaths of both individuals. It is puzzling that the driving recorder data, which should have been the most important evidence for traffic accident investigations, has disappeared. What happened before the accident? How did the vehicle suddenly accelerate to 120km/h? How did it break the guardrail and fall off the cliff again? Multiple doubts about this accident have attracted widespread attention from all sectors of society. On the evening of May 7th, Tesla customer service provided the latest response to the accident, stating that if the USB flash drive is full or the owner accidentally clicks the pause, the recorder may not be able to function and function properly.
The picture shows the route map of the incident location
According to previous media reports, Mr. Tao and his wife are from Meijiang Town, Lanxi City, Jinhua. They usually live in Jinyi New District, Jindong District, Jinhua City. At the end of last year, they spent more than 300000 yuan to buy a Tesla Model Y. On April 27th, the couple drove from Meijiang Town in Lanxi City, preparing to return to Jinyi New District in Jindong District. At 17:20, while crossing Taiyangling (within Jindong District) along the Panshi Line, an accident occurred. The vehicle crashed into the highway guardrail and fell off a cliff, resulting in the death of both husband and wife.
The picture shows the location of the incident
After the incident, Mr. Tao's cousin Mr. Tang raised several doubts about the accident: Doubt 1: Mr. Tao and his wife are very familiar with this mountain road and have not had any accidents on this road before. Doubt two, why can the vehicle involved reach a maximum speed of 120km/h on mountain roads? How could it be driving so fast on the mountain road? Doubt three, why is there no trace of braking at the accident site? Question 4: Why does the data from the dash cam disappear? Mr. Tang said, "In theory, a vehicle's driving recorder is definitely useful when it is in motion. Even if an impact paralyzes it, there will always be a record of the moment of the impact, but now it's gone. This makes people feel puzzled and have to come up with other ideas."
The picture shows the involved vehicle
It is understood that in the Tesla ModelY owner's manual, the description of the "dash cam" mentions: "When driving, the dash cam will record video clips around the vehicle. Using the dash cam can record driving events or other noteworthy events, similar to using an external dash cam of another vehicle." "If ModelY detects a serious safety event such as a collision or airbag deployment, the dash cam will automatically save a video to a USB device." At the same time, "whether the dash cam will automatically save a recording of a serious safety event depends on several factors (such as the size of force, whether the airbag is deployed, etc.). Do not rely on the dash cam to automatically record all serious safety events." Media reporters have pointed out about the use of the dash cam. Call Tesla for questions, The customer service representative said, "Generally speaking, for example, the dash cam is set to automatically save or beep save, and at the point of collision, it will be recorded on the sensor."
Regarding this accident, Tesla's relevant personnel stated that they have taken note of it and are currently based on the information provided by the police. They will provide necessary support to the police, but the main issue is that the police are handling it and they cannot interfere too much.
What new progress has been made in the investigation work since the accident occurred for ten days? On May 7th, Mr. Tao told the New Yellow River reporter that the traffic police informed the family members of several new situations that the traffic police team had learned after preliminary investigation. The traffic police first explained to the family members that there were three types of recording devices on the vehicle involved, namely video recording from the driving recorder, black box data, and cloud data. The traffic police officially informed the families that according to black box data, the highest vehicle speed during the confirmed accident period reached 123km/h.
The latest response from Tesla customer service stated, "Tesla's dash cam keeps the content of the last hour in a loop. If the USB drive is full at that time or the owner accidentally clicks the pause, the recorder may not be able to work and run normally. What is the specific situation of this car? We have not received the data from the recorder or the final notice issued by the traffic police, so I cannot give you an accurate answer."
The traffic police also told the family that the video from the driving recorder before the incident showed that the vehicle was driving normally, with an estimated speed of 30-40km/h; The driver's blood test results are normal and he did not drink alcohol.
Mr. Tang told the New Yellow River reporter that the family members can only wait for the traffic police department to produce a formal report on the investigation of the traffic accident.
