In an interview with Teslarati, an early Tesla Model 3 owner, shared her story of how her Tesla saved her and her family’s lives when they were hit by another car. Anna Febiana was picking up her son and daughter from school and were just minutes away from their home when they were struck by a BMW.
Anna took delivery of her Model 3 in December of 2018 and the accident happened on October 1, 2019. Although it happened two years ago, this was a hard story for Anna to share due to the trauma but she believed that people need to know that her Tesla saved her and her family’s lives.
“That was a Thursday afternoon and the crazy thing is that people think accidents happen on the freeway or the busy street. No, it was two miles away from my house at a quiet intersection. I was hit by a Series 5 BMW. I think it’s an older version, like the early 2000s. The car was bigger than my Tesla Model 3.”
The impact caused her car to spin twice and crash into a wooden street pole that fell onto the roof over her Model 3. It was the glass roof that prevented the pole from fully penetrating the roof. Although it left a hole, the glass held.
Tesla glass is a key safety design in its vehicles and it can not only protect drivers from UV rays but it can take on four times the weight of the car. This fact has been proven in multiple stories of accidents where miraculously, the occupants in the car survived.
“I don’t think we could have come out of the car to tell this story if it’s not for stable the Model 3 was. But also especially for my son, if it was not for how strong the roof of the car was, I don’t think he would be here,” Anna told me over the phone.
Anna’s daughter was sitting on the back passenger’s side where the impact occurred. Although she and her daughter had concussions, there were no bruises.
“The back wheel on the passenger side was completely crooked. My daughter was sitting there and because of how good the airbags were inside, I believe that saved my daughter. Both my daughter and I had concussions. My daughter had it a little bit worse than I had it. But there were no bruises on my daughter. It’s a miracle.”
Anna told me that she believed that God protected her that day through how safe the Model 3 was. She also didn’t realize how bad the accident was.
“After the accident, my son had all this corn-sized glass on top of his head and I didn’t have time to analyze anything. I was so shocked. My kids were in shock. My son had a bloody nose and half of his face was swollen.”
At that moment, her focus was on her children, not the accident itself. So she didn’t realize how bad it was until afterward. The car, she told me, didn’t flip over and they were able to leave the car.
When she saw the car after the accident, that’s when the gravity of the situation set in. She realized that all of the airbags had been deployed. And there was a big dent in the glass roof and a hole. The hole was above where her son was sitting. It was then she realized where those corn-sized pieces of glass came from.
“I don’t know if any other car has airbags the way Tesla designs the car with the airbags but with the strong impact, I had the side airbags deployed. The back–and I believe, as I said, saved my kids. That and how strong the car was.”
“My daughter got out of that crash with just a concussion. It’s a testament to how well built the car was.”
“When my car spun and stopped, the back of the car hit a street pole. I’ve never seen a wooden street pole anymore. I believe that the pole is the last of a kind in the city. It’s a wooden pole that held three different street signs. It was so heavy and I think that’s why the glass broke but it didn’t break completely.”
“Coming back and looking at the car, I got chills. Had it been any other glass or roof, I don’t think my son would be here today. He was sitting under that pole.”
Anna was the first person in her circle of friends to buy a Tesla. Many of her friends said that she was fancy and no, she was just tired of paying for service and maintenance and wanted to contribute to the planet by driving an EV.
After the accident, she told me that many of her friends had skeptical questions. She told them that she was alive because her car was a Model 3. And of course, she was going to get another Tesla.
“People need to know. This is a good car. It’s fancy for some people. But it’s safe and I will get it again. And we got another Model 3.”
Note: Johnna is a Tesla shareholder and supports its mission.
Your feedback is important. If you have any comments, or concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @JohnnaCrider1
News
Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’
“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving’s newest model is coming very soon, and from what it sounds like, it could be “the last big piece of the puzzle,” as CEO Elon Musk said in late November.
During the xAI Hackathon on Tuesday, Musk was available for a Q&A session, where he revealed some details about Robotaxi and Tesla’s plans for removing Robotaxi Safety Monitors, and some information on a future FSD model.
While he said Full Self-Driving’s unsupervised capability is “pretty much solved,” and confirmed it will remove Safety Monitors in the next three weeks, questions about the company’s ability to give this FSD version to current owners came to mind.
Musk said a new FSD model is coming in about a month or two that will be an order-of-magnitude larger and will include more reasoning and reinforcement learning.
He said:
“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026. We’re gonna add a lot of reasoning and RL (reinforcement learning). To get to serious scale, Tesla will probably need to build a giant chip fab. To have a few hundred gigawatts of AI chips per year, I don’t see that capability coming online fast enough, so we will probably have to build a fab.”
NEWS: Elon Musk says FSD Unsupervised is “pretty much solved at this point” and that @Tesla will be launching Robotaxis with no safety monitors in about 3 weeks in Austin, Texas. He also teased a new FSD model is coming in about 1-2 months.
“We’re just going through validation… https://t.co/Msne72cgMB pic.twitter.com/i3wfKX3Z0r
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 10, 2025
It rings back to late November when Musk said that v14.3 “is where the last big piece of the puzzle finally lands.”
With the advancements made through Full Self-Driving v14 and v14.2, there seems to be a greater confidence in solving self-driving completely. Musk has also personally said that driver monitoring has been more relaxed, and looking at your phone won’t prompt as many alerts in the latest v14.2.1.
This is another indication that Tesla is getting closer to allowing people to take their eyes off the road completely.
Along with the Robotaxi program’s success, there is evidence that Tesla could be close to solving FSD. However, it is not perfect. We’ve had our own complaints with FSD, and although we feel it is the best ADAS on the market, it is not, in its current form, able to perform everything needed on roads.
But it is close.
That’s why there is some legitimate belief that Tesla could be releasing a version capable of no supervision in the coming months.
All we can say is, we’ll see.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms
However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon. Musk replied, basically confirming it.
Elon Musk confirmed through a post on X that a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) is on the way after hinting at it several times earlier this year.
It also comes one day after Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was aiming for a valuation of $1.5 trillion, adding that it wanted to raise $30 billion.
Musk has been transparent for most of the year that he wanted to try to figure out a way to get Tesla shareholders to invest in SpaceX, giving them access to the stock.
He has also recognized the issues of having a public stock, like litigation exposure, quarterly reporting pressures, and other inconveniences.
However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon.
Musk replied, basically confirming it:
As usual, Eric is accurate
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2025
Berger believes the IPO would help support the need for $30 billion or more in capital needed to fund AI integration projects, such as space-based data centers and lunar satellite factories. Musk confirmed recently that SpaceX “will be doing” data centers in orbit.
AI appears to be a “key part” of SpaceX getting to Musk, Berger also wrote. When writing about whether or not Optimus is a viable project and product for the company, he says that none of that matters. Musk thinks it is, and that’s all that matters.
It seems like Musk has certainly mulled something this big for a very long time, and the idea of taking SpaceX public is not just likely; it is necessary for the company to get to Mars.
The details of when SpaceX will finally hit that public status are not known. Many of the reports that came out over the past few days indicate it would happen in 2026, so sooner rather than later.
But there are a lot of things on Musk’s plate early next year, especially with Cybercab production, the potential launch of Unsupervised Full Self-Driving, and the Roadster unveiling, all planned for Q1.
Tesla has added the 15th automaker to the growing list of companies whose EVs can utilize the Supercharger Network this year, as BMW is the latest company to gain access to the largest charging infrastructure in the world.
BMW became the 15th company in 2025 to gain Tesla Supercharger access, after the company confirmed to its EV owners that they could use any of the more than 25,000 Supercharging stalls in North America.
Welcome @BMW owners.
Download the Tesla app to charge → https://t.co/vnu0NHA7Ab
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) December 10, 2025
Newer BMW all-electric cars, like the i4, i5, i7, and iX, are able to utilize Tesla’s V3 and V4 Superchargers. These are the exact model years, via the BMW Blog:
- i4: 2022-2026 model years
- i5: 2024-2025 model years
- 2026 i5 (eDrive40 and xDrive40) after software update in Spring 2026
- i7: 2023-2026 model years
- iX: 2022-2025 model years
- 2026 iX (all versions) after software update in Spring 2026
With the expansion of the companies that gained access in 2025 to the Tesla Supercharger Network, a vast majority of non-Tesla EVs are able to use the charging stalls to gain range in their cars.
So far in 2025, Tesla has enabled Supercharger access to:
- Audi
- BMW
- Genesis
- Honda
- Hyundai
- Jaguar Land Rover
- Kia
- Lucid
- Mercedes-Benz
- Nissan
- Polestar
- Subaru
- Toyota
- Volkswagen
- Volvo
Drivers with BMW EVs who wish to charge at Tesla Superchargers must use an NACS-to-CCS1 adapter. In Q2 2026, BMW plans to release its official adapter, but there are third-party options available in the meantime.
They will also have to use the Tesla App to enable Supercharging access to determine rates and availability. It is a relatively seamless process.
Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’
SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms
