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True Story or Not?: "Frunk opened at 115mph and caused $20k damage on brand new P85"

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this guy over at prius chat just picked up his P85 from the factory and on his way home driving 115mph the frunk opened and caused $20k in damage. not even 100 miles on odometer. $128k car destroyed on it's first drive. frankly, I'm surprised his insurance is replacing it given that he admit it happening driving very illegally at 115mph. well, I guess that still shouldn't happen though.

story and pics here:
Damage to my Tesla | PriusChat
 
That has bothered me since the first time I opened my frunk. Every car I have owned when the hood was released it only released the first latch. The second latch had to be manually released to finish opening the hood. The Tesla appears to have a two stage latch since I hear two separate clicks when I close the frunk. When I open the frunk with the fob both latches are released. I wonder how this got by the NHTSA.
 
Someone should forward a link to that site over to the Fremont Police and CHP. He is publicly admitting to breaking the law, he should be prosecuted for felony speeding. Sorry if any disagrees, but driving 115 MPH anywhere other than a track is irresponsible and should be punishable with jail time.
 
defective latch frunk opened at 115mph and caused $20k damage on brand new P85

How does one open the trunk while driving? I know you can't from the screen while in D or R but I haven't tried (obviously) with the fob.

And if it opened by itself or got lifted by wind drag then it's a big issue. The car is speced to 130 mph.
 
Why wouldn't that be a warranty item? Doesn't matter if it's illegal or not. Are you saying that if my battery pack fails while going 80 mph in a 65 mph zone that Tesla wouldn't be fully responsible? Of course they would. Same thing if it's proven to be a defective latch.
 
That has bothered me since the first time I opened my frunk. Every car I have owned when the hood was released it only released the first latch. The second latch had to be manually released to finish opening the hood. The Tesla appears to have a two stage latch since I hear two separate clicks when I close the frunk. When I open the frunk with the fob both latches are released. I wonder how this got by the NHTSA.

It is not supposed to do that, have service check it out.
 
That has bothered me since the first time I opened my frunk. Every car I have owned when the hood was released it only released the first latch. The second latch had to be manually released to finish opening the hood. The Tesla appears to have a two stage latch since I hear two separate clicks when I close the frunk. When I open the frunk with the fob both latches are released. I wonder how this got by the NHTSA.

It does have a double latch system, but it should be possible to make such a system safe, even with the fob releasing both latches. Tesla should be able to disable the electronic latch release while the car is being driven. I have no idea if they do.
 
From the pictures I am not clear that the hood flew off.
In any event, it would be helpful if they had a photo of the latch.
I'm curious if it was a hardware failure or a failure that opened the frunk at speed.

I would think it would be a warrantee issue.
 
Although it is quite apparent he also owns a Prius, it is a little bizarre he posted all that on the Prius forum, not on a Tesla forum.

I sympathize profusely with him over what must have been an hellaciously frightful circumstance; I empathize not one whit with him over consequences resulting from driving 115mph on public roads. I am staggered that the hood stayed attached to the vehicle. I wonder if he's aware that Tesla will be able to determine very precisely the minutiae of the vehicle's situation just prior to and through the incident. If he's not absolutely on the up-and-up, I would suspect he's in for a world of hurt.
 
When my frunk was open and I was driving, it limited my speed to 10 mph. And that was with one latch catching, and the second didn't. (I had put too big a cooler in it, and only the first latch caught. I had to play with it a bit to open again so I could remove the cooler and close it properly). So it does have 2 latches.
So as soon as the first latch released, the car would have been trying to slow down to 10 mph.
Yes, I would think that if it did happen on its own, it is a defect...but I don't see how he could have kept that speed once the latch popped.
 
Why wouldn't that be a warranty item? Doesn't matter if it's illegal or not. Are you saying that if my battery pack fails while going 80 mph in a 65 mph zone that Tesla wouldn't be fully responsible? Of course they would. Same thing if it's proven to be a defective latch.

This. The car was operated within spec. If the latch truly failed as described, it's a manufacturing defect.
 
I also found it odd he posted over there and also only took close up photos and didn't show the front of the car in full. Is he saying he ran into something at high speed or that the whiplash from it opening up at high speed did the $20,000 in damage?

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Would insurance really replace it if you admit to reckless driving?
 
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Someone should forward a link to that site over to the Fremont Police and CHP. He is publicly admitting to breaking the law, he should be prosecuted for felony speeding. Sorry if any disagrees, but driving 115 MPH anywhere other than a track is irresponsible and should be punishable with jail time.
Not saying that this is the case, but there are private roads in the US that one could do this sort of thing without a problem from the law.
 
Even if he tried to open it at speed it shouldn't open, so it would be a defect. If the story is true it's irrelevant that he was going 115mph... 60mph would have been more than sufficient to push the hood back and destroy the car.
 
omg


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