Tesla on safety trial for another brake failure amid viral China crash

Prosecutors have charged the driver with manslaughter. He blames Tesla.

Choi Woan-jong, who makes a living driving drunk people home in his own car, said the Model X lost control of itself and its brakes failed in a December 2020 accident.

A pending criminal trial in South Korea is pending over the safety of Tesla vehicles, at a time when the electric carmaker faces a flurry of lawsuits and increased scrutiny from regulators.

Choi, 61, is now unable to find work as an independent driver, known in South Korea as a “contract driver.”

He said he experienced flashbacks and depression ahead of a trial that pitted his credibility against the world’s most valuable automaker.

“When I woke up, I felt abandoned, floating alone in the middle of the ocean,” said Choi, who underwent surgery for a ruptured intestine after the crash.

Tesla did not respond to a written request for comment on the accident or Cui’s case. An attorney for the family of Yoon Hong-geun, who owned the car and was killed in the crash, declined to comment.

Choi’s case has drawn the attention of some safety advocates in South Korea who want to change the terms of the free trade agreement with the United States that exempt Tesla from complying with local standards.

Tesla, for example, is exempt from South Korean regulations requiring at least one front and rear door to be equipped with a mechanical failsafe, as the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement exempts automakers with sales of less than 50,000 vehicles from complying with local safety rules.

Registration data showed Tesla sold 17,828 vehicles in South Korea in 2021.

Park Keun-oh, an official at the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement Division at the South Korean trade ministry, said the waivers require Tesla to comply with U.S. safety regulations that do not require mechanical backup latches. This latch allows the door to be opened even if the car has no power.

Parker declined to comment further. The USTR did not respond to a request for comment on the trade agreement or regulations.

Choi hit the gas pedal as he entered the garage of an apartment building in Seoul, reaching 95 km/h (60 mph) before crashing, prosecutors said. He denied that, saying the car’s mirrors began retracting and retracting on their own just before the car accelerated on its own.

“It felt like being swept away by a hurricane,” said Choi, who has driven cars for more than 20 years and has experience driving Teslas.

The judge said in a preliminary hearing that the automaker provided prosecutors with data from the Model X that the car transmitted in the moments before the accident. The defense team has asked to see the data and is awaiting the court’s release.

Choi and his lawyers are trying to prove that the car’s electrical system was malfunctioning and that its design slowed firefighters’ efforts to rescue Yoon.

Tesla’s batteries caught fire after the accident. Smoke and flames filled the car, according to video of the scene taken by firefighters and firefighters and viewed by Reuters.

Choi escaped through a broken window beside him. A Dec. 31, 2020, fire department report seen by Reuters showed firefighters were unable to pull Yoon out of the rear seat because the Model X’s electronic door wouldn’t open from the outside. The report did not say how long the rescue had been delayed.

Yoon, 60, was pronounced dead after firefighters pulled him from the car and administered CPR. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Judge Park Won-gyu said he planned to call Tesla engineers to testify and said he would review the safety of Tesla vehicles at trial. Involuntary manslaughter could carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

hot scene

The Fire Department’s investigation found that a faulty battery disabled the seat controls, slowing emergency response and preventing firefighters from repositioning the front seats so they could reach Yoon, according to the fire department report.

The report said the power outage had “impossible to secure space for (rescue) operations”.

Fire Department representatives declined to comment.

The Model X’s exterior door handles are electronic and cannot be opened from the outside due to a burned battery, the report said. It also said firefighters were unable to pull Yoon out of the car because they could not move the front seats after the battery died.

A video of the rescue showed firefighters trying unsuccessfully to open the Model X’s wing doors. About 25 minutes after receiving the emergency call, they eventually burst through the front windshield and pulled Yoon out of the car, according to footage and firefighter reports.

According to the agency and South Korea’s opposition Democratic Party lawmaker Park Sang-hyuk, Tesla is the only automaker that does not provide data from its on-board diagnostic system to South Korea’s Transportation Safety Service (TS) for safety checks. Spurred by Choi’s crash, he has launched a campaign to pressure Tesla to replace door handles and to cooperate with regulators.

TS pointed out that Tesla is not required by law to provide such data, but all other domestic and foreign automakers are doing so.

Park and TS said Tesla is working with the agency to allow South Korean owners to access their cars’ diagnostic data starting in October 2023.

“Tesla has become a hallmark of great innovation, but I think (the company’s problems in South Korea) have caused serious concern among customers here as well,” Parker said, referring to the case of a Tesla car door not opening after a crash , and the provisions of free trade agreements.

Citizens United for Consumer Sovereignty, a South Korean consumer group, said in September that Tesla had not fixed what the group called a “door defect.” Over the past four years, the group said it collected information on about 1,870 complaints involving Tesla doors. The figure was confirmed by data provided to Reuters by another South Korean lawmaker and TS.

The consumer group said it asked police to investigate Tesla’s failure to improve driver and passenger safety after the fatal crash in Seoul, but told them in May that there had not been enough, according to their report seen by Reuters. Evidence can go on and on.

In a June 29 letter to consumer groups seen by Reuters, police said that while Tesla’s door latches may violate local safety standards, the terms of the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement override that consideration.

The police letter said the Tesla doors “may have violated (local) regulations, but under the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, it (Tesla) is not obliged to comply with local motor vehicle safety standards.”

In South Korean courts, drivers face the burden of proving a car was defective if the cause of the crash is disputed in South Korean courts, while automakers are almost never prosecuted for safety issues, three legal and auto safety experts said.

“Unless you’ve been through it, you’ll never know what it’s like,” said Ahn Ho-joon, another South Korean “designated driver” who had an almost identical incident to Choi’s in May, police records show. pull accident.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Ahn, one of the few people present at all of Choi’s pre-trial hearings, said the Tesla he was driving also accelerated on its own and hit two cars in the underground garage, but was not seriously injured. Police said the accident was his fault because there was nothing wrong with the vehicle, but no charges were filed against him because the accident was minor.

Ahn said he kept his job as an independent replacement driver but refused to drive the Tesla.

Unable to work and almost out of money, Choi moved into a 6.6-square-meter (71-square-foot) cubicle that he rents for 350,000 won ($243) a month. Funded by a state housing subsidy, including a shared bathroom and kitchen, and all the rice he can eat. Despite the odds, Choi has a long-term view on Tesla.

“Obviously, there’s a process of trial and error that makes a product perfect. I was meant to be a part of that process,” he said.

First published date: Nov 21, 2022 at 08:24 AM CST