Canadian police are investigating an accident involving a Tesla that suddenly accelerated and crashed into a ramp at a ferry terminal in West Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday.
The car’s two occupants were taken to a hospital for “non-life threatening injuries,” according to North Shore News, which said the crash caused the car “to break in two.”
A photo reportedly taken at the scene showed the Tesla Model 3 on a car ramp at the ferry terminal, with much of the front end of the vehicle apparently ripped off and both front airbags deployed.
“We don’t know what caused it to happen,” Sgt. Mark McLean of the West Vancouver Police Department told the news outlet.
“It looks like it was trying to board a ferry and suddenly accelerated into the gate, basically destroying the Tesla,” he said.
Tesla Model 3 Crashes Into A Ferry In Vancouver – AutoSpies Auto News https://t.co/2nH51ePmi6 #tesla #model3 #crash #Vancouver pic.twitter.com/9SrhtMRA0U
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However, Deborah Marshall of BC Ferries disputed that theory in an email to CTV News.
“There was no vessel in the berth at the time of the incident,” she said. “The vehicle was not attempting to board a ferry.”
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McLean told CTV the police are investigating the cause of the crash.
“They’re so high-tech that it’s going to be quite time-consuming to go through all the data and find out what’s going on,” she said.
Police do not believe the driver was impaired, according to CTV.
There have been multiple reports of Teslas suddenly accelerating, according to Electrek.
The tech news outlet ran a story in September 2016 highlighting several such incidents, including a Model S that crashed into a gym in Irvine, California, in June of that year and a Model X that hit a curb in a parking lot in Bradenton, Florida.
“This story is not about the Tesla Autopilot,” Electrek’s Fred Lambert wrote at that time. “I want to be clear because the highway accidents involving Tesla vehicles with the Autopilot enabled are a completely different matter and unrelated to these claims of sudden unintended acceleration.”
Lambert later reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began investigating the issue of “sudden unintended acceleration” after it received a petition citing 127 such incidents.
In January 2021, after the investigation, the NHTSA announced that the incidents were all attributed to user error, Electrek reported.
“NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) issued the results of its investigation … confirming that it found that the incidents were due to ‘pedal misapplication’ — in other words: drivers pressing the wrong pedal,” the report said.
