Tesla has revealed the data logs of the car that belonged to a protestor that made an appearance at the Shanghai Auto Show earlier this week. The data indicates that the driver of the car, who was the protestor’s father, was traveling well above the posted speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour (49.7 MPH).
Zhang Yazhou, the protestor who stood on top of a Model 3 at the Tesla booth at the Shanghai Auto Show this week, pleaded that her electric vehicle’s braking system had failed, eventually leading to an accident. “Tesla brakes failed me,” a custom shirt that Yazhou wore to the event said. It turns out the brakes might not have been the problem, the speed of travel was.
Records now made public by Tesla indicate the car was traveling at 118.5 kilometers per hour (74 MPH) just before it crashed. Before impact, the vehicle had slowed to around 48.5 km/h (30.14 MPH). Additionally, the brakes were applied more than 40 times in the half-hour before the accident occurred, and the car traveled at more than 100 km/h (62.14 MPH) several times.
The automaker also released a lengthy statement on its Weibo account, breaking down some points of the case. ” Driving safety and product quality issues have always been our top priority, so we think it is necessary to inform the facts we have for everyone to understand,” the company said.
Tesla says there is no dashcam footage of the accident because the owner didn’t create “a dedicated folder” for videos. The side airbags didn’t deploy because they “did not reach the threshold” needed for deployment. Also, Tesla maintained that its vehicle data is recorded with encryption technology, and it cannot be read, modified, or deleted directly.
“You’ve got to look at the data and the data, in this case, is available because the car can actually monitor the performance of the driver,” Bill Russo, Founder and CEO of Automobility Ltd. in Shanghai, told Bloomberg.
Zhang and Tesla have been in a bout of contradiction for several months, each side pleading their own case. Zhang is adamant that the braking system failed, while Tesla continues to standby the fact that the driver was not operating the vehicle at the appropriate speed posted for the roadway that was traveled. Zhang believes Tesla tampered with the data to make it favorable for the automaker’s side of the story.
Tesla issued an apology earlier this week and announced the creation of a new “Special Handling Team” in China to secure the quality of its vehicles prior to delivery.