EV vs ICE in a Rear end CollisionSaw this amazing video the other day which got me thinking about a lot of things.
Here's the scenario...
The guy is driving on an Interstate Highway in California in an EV (Tesla). The car in front of him suddenly slows down for no apparent reason. The guy in the Tesla slams on his brakes and a guy in an Audi ICE car runs into the back of the Tesla.
The guy in the Tesl smells something but doesn't know what the smell is or where it is coming from. The guy driving the Audi, whose car has the front end smashed in drives the Audi to the side of the road and gets out to exchange papers with the Tesla owner.
The Tesla owner tries to start the car and do the same. The car won't start and 0n his screen he sees that all of the systems in the Tesla have been disabled.
Soooo...what is going on and what happens next?
Well the wierd smell the guy smelt was something called a pyro-fuse whose sole purpose in life is to save the battery by rendering the battery inoperable.
They exchange papers and the guy in the Audi drives off on his own steam.
The Tesla owner calls AAA and after an hour they show up and the guy is stuck blocking a lane of the Interstate. The problem is when the AAA shows up they can't move his car because unlike an ICE where they would put the car in neutral and winch the car onto the tow truck, you can't do that with the tesla because the wheels are locked. So the AAA truck driver uses his truck and rams the back of the Tesla to push it off the road and then says goodbye since he can't do anything else.
The Tesla owner then calls Tesla who sends another truck which arrives a half hour later and has specialized equipment to get the car loaded onto the tow truck. They take the Tesla to a Tesla sanctioned repair shop.
Total cost for the repair?
Please sit down before I tell you...lol
A few bucks under $20K!!!
Now.....I picked on Tesla in this example but the fact of the matter is that all EVs have this pyro-fuse so the same thing could happen to any of them.
Welcome to the future!!!