Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “RIP Apollo (for now)”.
Hey, what’s up guys, I’m Kim HD here and welcome back to another video, another Tesla video, but probably not the Tesla video that we ever wanted to make. But here we are so a couple days ago on Friday afternoon on the way from a top secret location or shooting a video to come here to the studio, actually uh got hit by a truck, so a little crash didn’t go too well. So, first of all, I am totally fine. I was not even scratched or bumped not injured at all. So that’s been fine uh, but here’s what happened so you might have heard about all the weather in the east coast of the past couple of days have been pretty weird.
We got some snow dumped on us and then it all melted, real, quick. This happened in the middle of that, but it actually had nothing to do with the weather. So on the highway it’s a three-lane highway. I was in the far right lane.
There was a truck in the Middle Lane. I wasn’t passing it. I was actually pretty much matching its speed. We were in traffic, so everyone’s going 35 miles an hour and I must have been in his blind spot long enough that when he decided for whatever reason he was going to merge into the right lane, he just did it and I was there. So I guess from his perspective he was just looking at an empty Lane. He merges and suddenly he’s plowing a car, it’s kind of weirdly surreal, just because I’ve I’ve seen accidents happen, especially with a lot of truckers, but a lot of accidents are usually just kind of like an impact and then they’re over pretty quick. This one was like an impact and then I felt it happen, and then I realized this is I’m. This is a crash of some kind, but then it just kept going and scraping and going and going just because his car started his truck started at the back.
Bumper on my rear left wheel and he had so much momentum, it’s an 80 000 pound truck that it just kept scraping and going forward for it along the side of my car until it clipped the front mirror from inside the car. It was actually pretty minor. I barely like I felt like it was just basically a hand pushing my car sideways out of the road. It was kind of weird, but just the fact that I never saw it coming, because he came from almost behind me and tried to speed up to merge into my lane.
That’S why it was so blind so anyway, that all happens uh I pull over. He pulls over and actually got out the car and just took those pictures that I ended up eventually posting on Twitter that you’ve probably seen by now. You know it’s funny. Actually, somebody on Reddit from I guess, a dash cam passing by got a video of me right after I’d taken those photos, so the internet stays stays ready for this type of stuff.
They stay ready, but basically yeah. We obviously call the police, because it’s an accident, the truck driver, he gets out, he’s pretty apologetic. He says, look I sorry. I didn’t see you, I don’t think he really had anything else to say there.
So you know he called the insurance. You call roadside. That’S uh, that’s taken care of the only other. Interesting variable is obviously we each have our own insurance company and I’m pretty sure, we’ll all be in agreement.
When the police report eventually gets filed that it was the truck’s fault because he merged into a lane. I wasn’t passing on the right. He just happened to not see me, it happens, it’s fine, but that was the one little variable, but now we’re in an interesting place, because this is uh. This is actually one of the biggest complaints and and one of the areas where Tesla owners have the most negative to say about the company.
Tesla repairs are one thing that I’ve heard from a couple friends who own Teslas and, of course, in forums and on Reddit and things like that. Uh they take a long time, not necessarily because the repair action itself takes a long time, but because it takes Tesla. A really long time to get out parts that need to be sent to start the repairs. Now it is, of course, assuming that this can be repaired. I know I did ask on Twitter. Does this? I mean it looks pretty bad, but do you think you know replace the doors, replace the rear three-quarter? You think this is not totaled and a lot of people actually seem to think as long as the frame is bent as long as the battery and Motors aren’t damaged in any way should be okay.
Now this morning I got a phone call and it was from the auto body. Shop and Tesla hasn’t brought the car to them yet, but they kind of they sent the pictures in a sort of a description of it to them and they believe that it can be repaired. So that’s good news, so the challenge now is.
We have to wait for the police report, which will be filed in the next 10 days, just because State Police take longer because it was on a highway and it will hopefully find that the truck driver was at fault, don’t know how it could be any other Way but that’s the case, then his insurance can come get involved and help pay for it, and my insurance will have to there’s a whole bunch of insurance Logistics, but at the end of the day my biggest question is: how does Tesla handle it? I think one could argue that my relationship with Tesla, as people have pointed out, could be seen as preferential right. I’Ve. I’Ve had a pretty good relationship with my service center.
Every time I go in there we know each other uh, the guys we talk about camera stuff. We talk about the interview I did with Elon things like that, we’re all pretty cool there. I could see how they would say that that’s preferential treatment, but this is a new scenario with a body shop that I’ve never had any contact with a new relationship with a new company insurance companies. That’S all messy, but the question is: will this be a big pain point to owning a Tesla, the question of uh? Do you total the car or do you repair It ultimately comes down to the cost of repair. Teslas are higher end Vehicles, they cost more. If the cost of repair of a vehicle is too high relative to the cost of the car, then the insurance company will just decide. That’S a total just pay for the value of the car get a new one, but with a high value car like the Tesla and a high cost of repair, it actually doesn’t match up and you probably can still spend more money on fixing it. So, on one hand, I’m glad that it’s not totaled and that Apollo, hopefully when they see it in person, they’ll agree with what they found in the photos and they’ll find that it can be fixed.
But, on the other hand, this might take a while I’m just gon na have to keep ubering everywhere until we figure this whole thing out. So that’s that’s. Basically it that’s the outline. That’S where we’re at right now I’ll keep you guys updated on Twitter.
If I you know, when I get more updates, I always start to go through this process, but that’s my question: have any of you guys had similar experiences with an auto body shop, maybe even with Tesla having to wait a long time for parts before you actually Get in and the repair only takes a couple days. Let me know what you guys think so: yeah, not not the Tesla video that I thought I’d be making today or ever, but we’ll see how this goes. It’S the beginning of a process and I’ll. Let you know fingers crossed all right. That’S pretty much! It thanks for watching talk to you guys in the next one peace.
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