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Father and son incinerated after ‘self-driving’ Tesla suddenly slammed into tree
(www.independent.co.uk)
This could kind of be a Darwin award. . ?
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
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You don't hear about it? I constantly hear about people dying in Teslas. And the car is a joke for years now, it can't become a joke any harder.
After some googling, the "Why?!" in the image seems to be completely bullshit, though.
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Electric cars have a way lower amount of deaths from fire than petrol cars. So why would there be outrage about Tesla fire safety?
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The comparison in the image also completely ignores number of cars on the street, total miles driven. All car models will have fire deaths.
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The outrage about the Ford Pinto was because it was a known specific defect which was covered up (fuel tank rupturing when rear ended), more than the number of deaths in itself. As far as I can tell, the number of fire deaths were actually not extraordinarily high for the Pinto. Hence comparing this not especially high number to Tesla for outrage purposes is meaningless.
There's absolutely zero chance that Tesla isn't covering up stuff right now about the safety of their vehicles. Zero.
source: c'mon bro, like, c'mon
Hahaha
it was a known specific defect which was covered up
It was not covered up, the Pinto had the same fuel tank design as other manufacturers, it's just at that period of time, Ford had more cash.
Lawyers do not sue to justice, they sue for cash.
This isn’t true. Read up on some details of the lawsuit. Although Ford had designs overseas with fuel tank behind the rear axle, not one model by Ford or others had 9” or less crush space like the Pinto. They had meetings and reports to discuss crash test results that showed the Pinto vulnerable to fuel spillage based on proposed federal crash tests. They decided to defer any improvements until 1976 to accrue $20 million in savings.
The 1937 New London School gas explosion killed 295 students and teachers.
Because, for some reason, people actually like teslas?
My theory? Musk remotely grabbing the wheel while on a bad ketamine trip
- How come Elon hasn’t been sued into bankruptcy over these deaths?
- How is FSD not outright criminal fraud?
- How is not having accessible door handles in a fire allowed, legal, and not the source of massive lawsuits?
- How is FSD allowed when it’s objectively one of the least safe driving modes around?
Fuck, this is like a fractal of liability that somehow they never get in trouble for. Everywhere you look it gets worse.
How come Elon hasn’t been sued into bankruptcy over these deaths?
Class Action Lawsuits: A major class-action lawsuit was certified in August 2025 by a California judge, representing Tesla owners who claim they were misled by marketing regarding the autonomous capabilities of FSD, with plaintiffs seeking refunds for purchased software.
Active Crash Litigation: Litigation is ongoing in at least eight cases involving the use of Tesla Autopilot/FSD during a fatal or serious crash, according to reports as of March 2024. This includes lawsuits alleging the system fails to detect objects, such as a case in Washington state involving a motorcyclist.
$243 Million Damages Verdict: In February 2026, a federal court upheld a verdict ordering Tesla to pay $243 million in damages regarding a fatal 2025 crash involving Autopilot, marking a significant legal loss for the company.
NHTSA Probes & Recalls: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating over 2.9 million Tesla vehicles regarding FSD’s ability to follow traffic laws (including running red lights). In early 2026, this shifted to a "recall query" to verify the effectiveness of a previous software update aimed at fixing the issues.
Criminal Investigation: Reports in 2024 indicated that Tesla is under federal criminal investigation over claims that the company misled consumers and investors about its autonomous driving features.
Tesla would have been shut down if idiots didn't elect a corrupt President literally selling Teslas on the White House Lawn.
- He’s disgustingly rich.
- He’s disgustingly rich.
- He’s disgustingly rich.
- He’s disgustingly rich.
They have been sued, but it doesn’t matter, because that’s just the cost of doing business. (If the punishment for a crime is a fine, it’s only illegal for poor people to do it.)
Also:
- How is it that the company that makes this shit has a price-to-earnings ratio of 326 and a market cap of $1.3 trillion. Meanwhile Toyota makes good dependable cars and has a P/E ratio of 11.41 and a market cap of $266 billion, even though Toyota sells 10x as many cars.
Because STONKS.
The dude owns a platform that actively generates nude photos of real people on the platform. Then proceeded to put the child porn generating feature behind a paywall when shamed publicly.
At what point will people realize that laws do not apply to the capitalist (Epstein) class. Shame is literally the only (non violent) weapon we have left and they are actively working to stop that as well.
The only way they will see non vigilante justice is at the hands of a revolution.
...I honestly don't think rich people feel incredible shame by being referred to as the Epstein class. They don't care.
They still do to an extent but as their power and influence gains they are able to take more of the mask off. But that mask is only coming off for people like you and me. Its an inverse relationship to that of the uninformed or distracted masses. They are, in reality, better able to control what is seen and not seen by the masses too impoverished or overworked to see past the mask they have built.
They DO care what people think because that gives them power and control. They just only care to the extent that that power and control is maintained.
If they didn't care what people thought they wouldn't spend billions to buy platforms like Twitter or to further consolidate the media we consume into what has essentially become a fascist state media of two different flavors.
Don't think that because they are convincing the public that pedophiles and war criminals are not actually pedophiles and war criminals that they "don't care what you think". They do. They just have enough power and influence to make the public misinformed or (for you and me) informed but in a state of hopelessness.
Their power comes from keeping the public misinformed, distracted, or feeling hopeless. They care what you think because what you think keeps you in one of those inactive states.
Parenti is someone to read or listen to.
Well you see, being the world's richest person enables him to do whatever he wants without repercussion. And what's a poorer person going to do, go bankrupt and homeless fighting his lawyers?
Tesla has been sued. But their brilliant legal defense is that full self driving needs the driver's full attention to take over. These accidents are human error Not Tesla
In this accident I'm sure Autopilot disengaged half a second before the crash, that somehow proves it wasn't Autopilot's fault.
You seem to get the point of laws backwards.
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Huh, I guess if I let go of the steering wheel in my car, it's also going to self-drive into a tree, or wall, or car, even without all the fancy marketing by it's maker of self-driving capabilities
Yes I hate tesla like everyone else but the driver is the driver. The car is not the driver.
people crash and die on cruise control all the time.
What kind of asshole puts the life of his family in the hands of a cheaply made gadget?
I have a Ford Edge that can self steer with Cruise Control on.
If I take my hands off the wheel for more than a few seconds it screams at me and disables the self steering. For it to work I must have a hand on the wheel at all times.
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At the same time, the vehicle’s electric-powered door handles became inoperable once the battery system caught fire, preventing the two from getting out or rescuers getting in – a serious issue that has similarly doomed others riding in Teslas – Shantorria Herring’s complaint alleges.
Terrible engineering. And it cost these two their lives, as well as others.
But those flush handles are so pretty....
From the user manual: it is so easy, in case of a fire, just calmly remove all your stuff from the door pocket, then use nails to remove the rubbery mat on the bottom of that, then take out a plastic cover, there's a cable, pull that cable. So easy and totally intuitive when someone is panicking after an accident! /s
Ps: I wonder what the user manual means with that "if equipped" part. Some models don't actually have the emergency unlock under the mat?
IMO if a door has an electronic lock and normally opens with a button (which is dumb), the backup system has to be something you can use if you're on fire and have a concussion after a crash.
Apparently Audis have an electric lock but still use a regular latch instead of a button. In an emergency you can open the door by just pulling harder on that door release latch. In a Fisker you can do it by pulling on the handle twice. In a Ford Mustang if you yank hard on the door handle it acts as a release. These are all things I can see someone doing in an emergency without thinking.
O! Thank you for this picture.
I was in somebody's Y (I think? I don't know teslas) a few weeks ago in the front seat and I pulled the mechanical door release across multiple different stops around town before he told me I was supposed to push the electronic "open door" button.
That spurred me to think "wait, if I pulled the mech release by default and it's pretty obvious/intuitive, what's all the hubbub about getting trapped in a car because the manual door releases are so difficult?"
I didn't realize it was about the rear door handles rather than the front until right now. Granted, the front manual door handle is fairly different than "most" cars but I still found it pretty obvious... more obvious than the need to push a stupid little button to open a door.
I guffawed at the "in the unlikely situation your model Y doesn't have power". Like in a car wreck when you need to escape?! The most likely cause for total battery failure just happens to overlap with the most likely time you will be on fire, trying to find your way out of this thing.
We wouldn't want safety to ruin the AESTHETIC, would we?
These two were dead as soon as they hit the tree.
Sounds like your typical safe lawyer talk, this way when you're about to burn to death and the cable ain't there because they forgot it/cheaped out/decided to stop including them to save costs, you can't complain!
Holy shit I didn't realise it was there. I always assumed it would be under the floor mat where your feet usually are. This is so much worse. Those pockets are always full of crap and I bet removing the bottom bit is easier said than done. Especially when you're on fire.
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Run into a tree in any other car, and the airbags will likely save you, and then you just open the door and get out. No flames, no locked doors you can't open. To me, it looks like Teslas are more dangerous for the passengers in common accidents, regardless of how they happen.
I do wonder who is still buying these things today, because people still are, in spite of sales being down sales aren't zero, which they should be. There are much better options.
Doors often jam when deformed from a serious crash in any car. Often emergency workers have to cut the car to get to people. Any EV has a battery fire issue. But it's not like gasoline fires are so great either tho.
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