Terrifying Crash Demonstrates Tesla's Commitment to Safety

First responders call it a miracle that occupants inside a Tesla Model Y survived a horrific crash.

NBC News

First responders frequently go to Devil's Slide, 20 miles south of San Francisco on Highway 1. It's a scenic but treacherous drive, with the road just a few feet from an edge and a 250-foot drop to the rocky beach below. Unfortunately, fire and ambulance crews were again called to the area on Monday, January 2. But this time it was different.

Brian Pottenger, battalion chief with Cal Fire's Coastside Fire Protection District, said, "We go there all the time for cars over the cliff, and they never live. This was an absolute miracle." He stated, "the damage to the vehicle would indicate that it hit, and then flipped several times," and that is why crews were shocked when they spotted movement inside the wreckage.

Safest Vehicle in the World

The fire department tweeted some horrific images from the scene. But you can make out that the wreckage is a white Tesla Model Y, one of the safest vehicles in the world. Incredibly, all four people inside the Model Y, two adults and two children, a 4-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl survived. The children were unharmed, and the adults suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Sadly, the police have determined the crash was intentional and have arrested the driver, Dharmesh A. Patel, on suspicion of attempted murder and child abuse.

Tesla's mission is to "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport vehicles," but it prioritizes safety in its design. The website states: Tesla vehicles are engineered to be the safest in the world. Each one combines powerful onboard technology with an all-electric design to help protect every driver, passenger, and pedestrian on the road.

Commitment to Safety Continues

That's not just rhetoric, as proven in this horrible crash. The Model S, 3, X and Y have received five out of five stars on every test run by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, including rollover protection. They have also been scored with the lowest overall probability of injury of any vehicle ever tested by the U.S. government's New Car Assessment Program. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has numerous times given Teslas the top safety pick. Most recently, calling the Model 3 the Top Safety Pick of 2022.

Tesla hasn't stopped there. Last year it introduced a Seat Belt System Enhancement. The enhanced onboard camera system detects when a crash is imminent and applies tension to the seatbelt. Regrettably, the seatbelt system hasn't been improved for decades. It only tightens the belt once the vehicle has made an impact.

Tesla's commitment to safety clearly played a significant factor in saving those four lives and has undoubtedly saved thousands of other people from injury and death.

Musk Teases New Model for Early 2025 That Will Use a Mix of Next-Gen and Current Platforms

“We have updated our future vehicle line-up to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of our previously communicated start of production in the second half of 2025”. This was one of the key sentences that were part of Tesla’s deck shared on Tuesday directly before its financial results.

Since Reuters’ report a few weeks ago saying Tesla had “scrapped” the highly expected cheaper model— which Elon quickly denied on X —retail and institutional shareholders started asking for more details on Tesla’s product roadmap for 2024 and beyond.

In the earnings conference call, Elon Musk reiterated that Tesla expects to launch the next model in “early 2025, if not late this year”.

“We've updated our future vehicle lineup to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of previously mentioned start of production in the second half of 2025. So, we expect it to be more like the early 2025, if not late this year. “

Over concerns of temporary production halts to update the factories for these new models, Musk said that Tesla will produce new models with certain aspects from their next-generation platform and current models. This will reduce the number of changes needed on production lines and allow Tesla not only to ramp up production faster but also to get the vehicles to market quicker.

Model Y Redesign

Tesla appears to hit that their next-gen vehicle will be less “next-gen” than they were initially aiming for, but to get a new vehicle out the door by late 2024, the process would already have to be in motion. Tesla may likely be referring to the redesigned Model Y, which is expected to reuse many parts from the new Model 3. Earlier this year, Tesla said that the redesigned Model Y will not be released this year, so it makes sense that they’re looking to speed up that production.

Tesla CEO concluded by saying that these measures will allow Tesla to reach a capacity of over 3 million units. Tesla produced 1.84 million vehicles in 2023. However, this year they’re ramping up Cybertruck production and introduced the new Model 3 into new markets.

And we think this should allow us to get to over 3 million vehicles of capacity when realized to the full extent.

Tesla reported on Tuesday its earnings results followed by a conference call where it teased its upcoming Robotaxi and its next-generation platform saying its “purpose-built Robotaxi product will continue to pursue a revolutionary ‘unboxed’ manufacturing strategy”.

Earlier in the day, Tesla announced the new Performance variant of its sedan Model 3 with deliveries in the United States starting already next month. The new version starts at $45,490 (after applying the $7,500 Federal EV tax credit) and goes from 0 to 60mph in 2.9 seconds.

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Tesla on FSD: Close to License Deal With Major Automaker, Announces Miles Driven on FSD v12

On Tuesday Tesla reported its earnings results followed by a conference call that brought several updates on the company’s roadmap for future vehicles, autonomous driving, Optimus and much more.

While answering a question from Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney about updates on the licensing of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, Elon Musk said they’re talking to one major auto manufacturer and there’s “a good chance” the company signs the first deal before year-end. However, he went on to say that it would probably be three years before the necessary changes are integrated into the car.

I think we have a good chance we do sign a deal this year

Brings Benefits to Tesla

The technology would require other automakers to start using the same cameras and hardware as Tesla, meaning that Tesla may not only generate money from licensing FSD but also from selling the hardware itself. However, there would be other benefits as well. When licensing FSD, Tesla would likely own the data gathered with the system well, further helping them with data and edge cases that need to be solved to reach full autonomy.

people don't understand all cars will need to be smart cars… Once that becomes obvious, I think licensing becomes not optional.

Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja commented pointing out that future partners “take a lot of time in their product life cycle” resulting in a gap between the deal signing and the arrival in the market of Tesla’s FSD software.

Miles Driven With FSD

On the conference call, Musk added that Tesla now has over 300 million miles that have been driven with FSD v12 since it was launched just last month. He added that it's becoming “very clear that the vision-based approach with end-to-end neural networks is the right solution for scalable autonomy”.

Tesla said it will continue to increase its “core AI infrastructure capacity in the coming months” adding that in the first quarter, it completed the transition to hardware 4.0 with China now receiving the upgraded FSD computer and cameras.

Over the weekend, Tesla reduced the price of FSD dropping it from $12,000 to $8,000 for customers in the United States and from CA$16,000 to CA$11,000 in Canada.

Earlier this month, Tesla implemented a 50% price reduction for FSD subscriptions in the U.S. and introduced the subscription model in Canada at a great value of CA$99 per month.

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