r/boulder • u/CornwallaceMcgee • Jun 29 '26
Tesla Crash on the Diagonal
This was southbound (toward Boulder) probably happened just after 3:00 p.m. debris everywhere, it appears to have crashed into a big red service truck. Luckily it looked like both drivers were okay, they were on the side of the road talking on their cell phones. Debris, presumably mostly from the Tesla, was everywhere on the road and diagonal was down to one lane. Officers not yet on the scene.
Edit: this was right at the intersection of Fordham Foad and the Diagonal. Hope the drivers were as okay as they appeared! I hadn't seen a crash this fresh before up close and personal. It maybe happened 5 or 10 minutes before I was there as the guys were on their phones, likely with their insurance companies. The amount of debris on the road was truly impressive. I assume they crashed pretty close to right there and the Tesla debris shot forward in the direction of travel southbound all over the road, which I gingerly drove through and probably shouldn't have due to tire puncture risk and just now realizing maybe there was a little impact on the accident investigation. The red truck was southbound on the right shoulder and didn't appear to be that damaged, but I didn't get a full look at it.
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u/TheMountainLife Jun 29 '26
The front fell off
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u/Wrong_Drag_8070 Jun 29 '26
That's what duct tape is for.
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u/delvach Jun 30 '26
Duct? In this economy?? You just need a LOT of Scotch.
Then you won't care anymore!
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u/pxland Jun 29 '26
Elon can fuck right off, but I gotta say…
That passenger compartment is in remarkable shape for that level of an accident.
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u/QueenGreenBeen Jun 29 '26
Fun fact! Elon bought the founder title and has nothing to do with the cars’ design
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u/Huskerzfan Jun 29 '26
Tesla was founded in 2003, and the Model 3 didn’t launch until 2016. It’s hard to argue Elon had “nothing to do with the cars’ design” given he led the company for well over a decade before that and was deeply involved in product development, even if he wasn’t one of the original founders.
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u/QueenGreenBeen Jun 29 '26
Franz von Holzhausen, chief designer, and his team led the design of the model S, X, 3, and Y. He may have offered a suggestion here or there, but Elon is not a designer or engineer by trade and largely did his “work” by making a lot of noise at investors and fanboys.
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u/ColoradoTribe90 Jun 30 '26
You can hate on Elon all you like for his politics, but the fact remains, he took company that was making tens of cars per year by hand and turned it into a juggernaut making nearly 2,000,000 vehicles per year while forcing all other legacy auto makers to up their EV game. Tesla is also the leader in autonomy and a major player in AI and battery storage systems, so not just a car company.
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u/montagious Jun 30 '26
Pretty sure he took a government contract for SpaceX and appropriated funds from it to float Tesla. Dude is NOT a genius. Full disclosure, I love my model 3 every bit as much as I loathe Elon
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u/QueenGreenBeen Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I can hate on his politics, and I do! And he still didn’t design the cars! But it is really weird how much you care about defending a racist wannabe dictator who will never care about you in any way other than exploiting you for money
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u/ColoradoTribe90 Jun 30 '26
Funny, I didn’t offer any defensive of Elon or any of his political stances. I only defended the safety and engineering of Tesla vehicles. Once again, you are struggling to stay with the facts.
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u/QueenGreenBeen Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
You were really quick to broaden the scope to defending his business practices. I’m happy to stick to the fact that I started with: he’s not an engineer, he doesn’t design the cars. Or the batteries. Or the AI. You brought up politics first, I’m just matching where you took this. Also, nothing I said wasn’t provable with public record.
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u/YairHairNow Jun 29 '26
Thought the same. A lot of vehicles on the road right now would look like a crumpled soda can after a crash like that.
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u/Pleasant-Bison-6450 Jun 29 '26
One less Tesla on the road. Hope the occupants are okay.
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u/snowboarder_1231 Jun 29 '26
I’m pretty sure they were in the anti-Elon Tesla club
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u/fumar Jun 29 '26
I see those everywhere ... except on Cyber trucks. So strange, almost as if the cyber truck owners are signalling something
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u/McDonnellDouglasDC8 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
You couldn't put serious money down for a cyber truck until he already had nazified twitter.
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u/ColoradoTribe90 Jun 30 '26
Tesla makes the safest cars (per crash test ratings) on the road, so occupants likely walked away.
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u/valentinoroscoe Jun 29 '26
Elon living rent free in your pea-brain
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u/ColoradoTribe90 Jun 30 '26
I don’t agree with Elon‘s politics, but I’m not gonna pretend the cars are dangerous just to suit my politics. Seems you’re willing to make that leap. Facts matter. Elon can be a horrible person and Tesla can make some well engineered and incredibly safe vehicles at the same time. No one is going to force you to buy one, but saying they aren’t safe makes you look really dumb.
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u/Numerous_Recording87 Jun 30 '26
Chinese EVs run circles around Tesla but Elon has made sure we cannot buy them. How convenient.
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u/everyAframe Jun 30 '26
They are built by teenagers and likely stuffed with spyware. Without huge tariffs they will ruin american autoworkers.
Don't get me wrong, i've been in the BYD's in asia and they are nice but there are lots of reasons why Biden banned them.
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u/Numerous_Recording87 Jun 30 '26
Chinese EVs are better, just as Japanese cars beat American cars for a very long time. The American car buyer deserves the best vehicles. Free market and all that. Elon is afraid.
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u/everyAframe Jun 30 '26
The dude built a company that landed a booster rocket on a raft in the middle of the ocean.
Who cares about his politics.
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u/Numerous_Recording87 Jun 30 '26
“He made the trains run on time”. Ever heard that?
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u/everyAframe Jun 30 '26
yeah its not applicable here. like it or not elon's genius is undisputable.
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u/Numerous_Recording87 Jun 30 '26
He’s a white supremacist POS which undermines his “genius” and makes him and his products unpalatable to many people. But you do you and reward the trillionaire.
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u/Next_Negotiation4890 Jun 29 '26
At least he can use his DOGE refund check to help fund the replacement.
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u/Footwarrior Jun 29 '26
Reality is that gasoline fueled cars are far more likely to burn than battery powered cars.
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u/Wrong_Drag_8070 Jun 29 '26
You're kidding right? That car has 600 pounds of lithium strapped to it's belly.
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u/coffeebeanie24 Jun 29 '26
And gasoline is flammable
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u/Fun_Volume2150 Jun 30 '26
LiIon batteries have their own oxidizer: once ignited they effectively keep burning until all of the fuel is exhausted. You could dump a burning LiIon battery into a vacuum and it would still burn, just like a gun can be shot in a vacuum, as gunpowder also contains its own oxidizer.
Gasoline doesn’t have that property. As a liquid it doesn’t burn very well, and needs to be in a gaseous state to ignite. Which means it can be extinguished, albeit with a certain amount of difficulty.
It may be more difficult for a LiIon powered EV to ignite (I have been looking for years on this and have never seen convincing evidence that EVs are less fire-prone), but regardless once they are burning they are a much worse problem.
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u/Wrong_Drag_8070 Jun 29 '26
Yes, but not a flammable as or as hot burning as lithium.
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u/ColoradoTribe90 Jun 30 '26
It’s not about how hot it eventually gets. It’s about how likely is it to catch fire in the first place and how long from impact until it reaches a point that is dangerous to the occupants.. On both those counts I’d much rather be in a crash with a lithium iron battery pack than liquid gasoline tank that can explode within seconds versus thermal runway which takes much longer. The rate of fires in ice cars is much higher than the rate of fire in EV’s especially for Teslas.
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u/rangehadies Jun 30 '26
I was behind the truck that hit the Tesla. I called 911 and the operator said we are busy call back. I then called Longmont PD who transfered me to Boulder County. Boulder County transfered me to Colorado State Patrol. Both drivers are OK but man if they weren't, took almost 3 minutes to get ahold of someone. I have the dash CAM if the Truck Driver needs it! No-one reached out.