Tesla faces public pressure after the Model S crashes into a tree at high speed. According to local police, no one was behind the wheel in the car. After the fire was extinguished, police found the remains of two men – one sitting in the front passenger’s seat and the other in the back of the car.
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Although news has so far revolved around the Autopilot system, which was supposed to allow the couple to relocate, Tesla boss Elon Musk is resisting that, according to an internal investigation, the system has not been activated, needs guide lines and does not exceed the speed limit. In addition, the specific vehicle allegedly did not have the full package of these functions activated.
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Your research as a private individual is better than professionals @WSJ!
Data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled & this car did not purchase FSD.
Moreover, standard Autopilot would require lane lines to turn on, which this street did not have.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2021
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So the question arises as to what specifically happened before the accident. Before the tragic event a few hundred meters from the house from which they had left, the couple could believe that the system was active, even though it was not. However, the investigation by the road safety authorities is not over yet.
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In any case, pictures and videos are circulating on social networks again, which show how easy it is to deceive the Autopilot system, which already irritates regulators with its confident name.
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According to many, the Tesla system is not enough to ensure the attention or presence of the driver, which is of course still necessary for legislative reasons, the driver is still responsible for his car, although the laws on the steering wheel in some US states are more benevolent than in Europe.
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Several shots of the owners show that an ordinary bottle or other similarly heavy object that puts resistance to the steering wheel is enough, and Tesla Model S leaves its Autopilot activated.
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It takes days to extinguish an electric car
The accident is also another reminder of what trouble electric firefighters can cause electric cars in such serious accidents. According to the Daily Mail server, the vehicle fire, which was watched by relatives of the couple, could not be completely extinguished even after four hours, and firefighters had to communicate with the car manufacturer through the correct procedure.
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“The reason why extinguishing electric cars is more complicated is the construction of the traction battery, where the cells are connected. These are hidden so that nothing happens to them, in a sarcophagus that protects the battery from external influences. In the event of an accident, a chemical reaction and combustion may occur there, “Rudolf Kramář from the General Directorate of the Fire and Rescue Service described to the News earlier.
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In the end, they used 145,000 liters of water to extinguish the car. According to the instructions of some manufacturers, a water bath is often used for car fires with traction batteries, ie a container filled with water and other substances, which ensures safety and an ecological process in the sense that dangerous substances do not escape directly into the surroundings. “They have to stay so submerged for several days,” a spokeswoman for the fire brigade said last year’s intervention in Čestlice, when a plug-in hybrid car caught fire in a service station.
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