Taking delivery of a new car is probably the most exciting part of the ownership experience, but for this owner the day he picked up his brand-new Tesla Model S turned into a nightmare really fast.
Jeremaine took delivery of the car at 9:30 a.m. and only three hours later, his Model S was totaled in a collision that was captured by the vehicle’s TeslaCam system.
After picking up the car from Pennsylvania, the happy owner of the Model S was driving it on the highway home to Shreveport, Lousiana. He preferred to take this road trip in his brand-new car instead of paying $1,400 on shipping fees, but he would end up regretting that decision only hours later.
As the video taken by the car’s cameras shows, everything was going great until a wrong-way driver appeared out of nowhere in front of the Tesla. Shockingly, the driver of the older Honda Accord made no effort to avoid the potentially devastating impact, so the Tesla Model S owner immediately steered into the right lane.
Unfortunately, he sideswiped the front wheel of a UPS semi-truck in the process. As a result, the Tesla was thrown into the highway barrier before getting crushed by the truck.
The crash happened at 12:20 p.m., which means Jeremaine got to enjoy driving his new car for less than three hours before it got totaled. Fortunately, the Tesla Model S protected his life in spite of the serious crash.
The entire front end – including the frunk – was torn off the Tesla, the tires were ripped off the wheels, and all the airbags deployed.
According to the folks from the Wham Baam Teslacam channel, which shared footage of the crash on YouTube, Jeremaine will likely buy another Tesla once his insurance claim is resolved. We don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t, as the Model S demonstrated its crashworthiness once again in this accident.
Could this crash have been avoided by Jeremaine, though? Well, some of the commenters argue that he was a bit too close to the trailer in front. While increasing the following distance is always a good idea at high speed and can help prevent crashes, the fact remains that no one expects a wrong-way driver to show up in front of them on the highway.
