If you were sitting at home watching TV on the 4th of July, then you might have heard that a stolen Tesla Model S kicked off a high-speed police pursuit that ultimately ended with a fiery crash that split the electric vehicle in two big chunks of twisted metal.
The overnight chase started after a Tesla store employee alerted the police about the theft. Thus, police cars went in hot pursuit mode, chasing the driver behind the wheel of the stolen EV on the streets of Los Angeles at speeds well over 100 mph.
But the inevitable happened and the thief crashed the Tesla Model S into a light pole after it previously hit a white Honda carrying a family of five. The high-speed impact with the pole sliced the stolen automobile in half, with the front bit catching fire and the rear wedged into the entrance of a synagogue.
2 passengers in the Honda sustained heavy injuries and a third is in critical condition, but the driver of the stolen Tesla was the most roughed in this scenario. According to Park Labrea News, the car thief was identified as 26-year old Joshua Slot. Park Labrea News reports that Slot has succumbed due to the heavy injuries sustained.
Even though he did a bad thing, it's not cool for someone to lose its life, especially in a vehicle heralded by the NHTSA back in 2013 as "the safest car ever built." While the Tesla Model S may be the safest car in the world according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the vehicle has an impeccable safety crash record, Slot is considered to be the first person to die in a Tesla Model S accident.
At first, authorities on the scene thought that Joshua had died on the scene of the accident, but paramedics managed to resuscitate him on the way to the hospital. But all that effort was unfortunately in vain.
To be frank, you can't expect, not even from the safest car ever made, to offer enough protection when you crash at that kind of speed in an object such as a light pole. It may be at least 5 times more protective than an average gasoline-fed car, but the Tesla Model S cannot get you out of harm's way in situations as dramatic as this one.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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