Free Republic

CV NEWS FEED // A Minnesota state employee caught on video vandalizing Tesla vehicles will avoid criminal charges under a controversial decision by Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty, drawing sharp rebukes from police and victims. Surveillance footage captured 33-year-old Dylan Bryan Adams, a data analyst for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, keying multiple Teslas and stripping paint from the vehicles while walking his dog near a dealership in Minneapolis. The damage totaled over $20,000 and impacted at least six victims. Despite the evidence, Moriarty’s office declined to file criminal charges against Adams. Instead, Adams was placed in a...

A female driver was killed and her passenger seriously injured after they were tossed from a Tesla that flipped and then burst into flames on the FDR Drive in Manhattan early Tuesday, cops said. The Tesla struck a guardrail and flipped on the FDR near 70th Street on the Upper East Side just after 2:30 a.m., the NYPD said — with photos showing huge chunks of the electric vehicle scattered across the road. Both the woman and her 26-year-old passenger were ejected from the car, which burst into flames

[snip] ONE-LINERS: Active Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger, 37, allegedly detonated the Tesla Cybertruck while almost simultaneously shooting himself in the head. His body was badly burned in the explosion and fire. The explosion occurred several hours after a terror attack in New Orleans committed by an ISIS-inspired man who once served in the army. Livelsberger and the New Orleans terror suspect both spent time at Fort Bragg, and both used the same car rental app to secure the vehicles they used. Though Livelsberger's body was burned beyond recognition, (he was identified by his tattoos), his cell phone and ID were...

Hertz is culling its portfolio of EVs in response to the sharp depreciation affecting some of its most popular models, including the Tesla Model 3. In what appears to be an aggressive effort to offload these vehicles, the rental giant has begun reaching out directly to customers currently renting them, offering an opportunity to purchase the cars outright on the spot. While we haven’t been able to find an announcement from Hertz directly regarding the scheme, a Reddit user recently shared a screenshot of an email they received from Hertz while renting a 2023 Tesla Model 3. In the email,...

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it took the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) 50,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames sparked from an electric Tesla Semi crash. The NTSB is investigating the cause of a Tesla Semi truck single-vehicle crash and fire that resulted in the closure of the eastbound lanes of California’s Interstate 80 for 15 hours last month. Extinguishing the fire required 50,000 gallons of water, as well as aircraft overhead that dumped f ire retardant, according to a preliminary report released Friday by the NTSB.

3:07 If Democrat-run California wants to force residents into electric vehicles (EVs), Democrat-run California had better start cracking down on crime. Talk about the law of unintended consequences… “Thieves are targeting high-powered Tesla and other EV charging stations and stealing the heavy cable for the copper metal inside,” reports San Francisco’s NBC affiliate. “In Vallejo, someone cut cables from nine charging stations — leaving Tesla drivers in a bind and causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage and repair costs.” “I think this is the second time or third that these have been cut,” a local EV driver added....

Is the Obama, I mean Biden, Administration playing Electric Boogaloo? Or is it Electric Boondoggle? The average price of a used Tesla has declined 18 months in a row, moving from a record high of $67,900 in July 2022 to a record low of $35,844 today (-47%). On January 11, I noted Hertz Is Selling 20,000 EVs Due to Lack of Customer Demand Hertz is selling a third of its EVs globally, with 20,000 in the US and will use some of the money to buy more Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) gasoline-powered cars. On January 18, I commented $2 Billion...

Tesla shouldn’t be calling its partially automated driving system Autopilot because the cars can’t drive themselves, the top US transportation official says. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he’s concerned about Tesla’s marketing of the system, which is under investigation by his department in connection with crashes that have caused at least 14 deaths. “I don’t think that something should be called, for example, an Autopilot, when the fine print says you need to have your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road at all times,” Buttigieg said in an interview with The Associated Press. The National Highway Traffic...

The Tesla Model S that braked sharply, triggering an eight-car pileup in San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day, reportedly had Elon Musk’s Autopilot “full self-driving” software engaged at the time of the crash. Breitbart News previously reported that nine people, including a 2-year-old child, were hurt in an eight-vehicle crash caused by a Tesla Model S on Thanksgiving Day on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The collision happened as the car abruptly changed lanes and stopped in the bridge’s far-left lane. I obtained surveillance footage of the self-driving Tesla that abruptly stopped on the Bay Bridge, resulting in an eight-vehicle crash...

Have you gone electric? Elon Musk thinks you should. That’s why he’s slashed Tesla prices in the U.S. and Europe by as much as 20 percent in an effort to get more drivers into electric vehicles (EVs) and out of legacy gas powered alternatives. The aggressive sales drive follows questions raised on Thursday about the safety risks posed by heavy EVs in any collision with lighter vehicles that pushed the head of the National Transportation Safety Board to issue a general warning to all U.S. road users, as Breitbart News reported. Reuter’s reports the dramatic Tesla discounting, which prompted a...

A Tesla Megapack battery caught fire at PG&E’s Elkhorn Battery Storage facility in Monterey County, California. A shelter-in-place advisory was in place for 12 hours due to fears of toxic smoke from the fire caused by Elon Musk’s battery system, with county officials announcing that even though the fire was “fully controlled” by 7:00 p.m. PT, “smoke may still occur in the area for several days.” KSBW Action News 8 reports that a Tesla Megapack battery caught fire at the local utility company PG&E’s Elkhorn Battery Storage facility in Monterey County, California. The fire reported started at around 1:30 a.m....

Despite the news and pictures from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, America's once great space program is on life support because we no longer have a serious manned space exploration program....And the Obama Administration's unimaginative and amateurish vision for space exploration -- even if successful -- will not revive the dying program. It merely follows the disturbing pattern of the Solyndra scandal, funneling tax dollars to Obama donors and fundraisers. [SNIP] ....SpaceX collects tax dollars so that it can learn how to build and develop something that other companies were doing a generation ago. It is curious that SpaceX is now...

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the plane belonged to Doug Bourn, a senior electrical engineer for Tesla Motors. Although it's unclear whether or not he was on board at the time. As we reported first earlier, two other Tesla employees were in the plane at the time of the crash. Fox Business News reported earlier today Tesla CEO Elon Musk was not on board the plane, and that he's calling this the " worst day in Telsa's history." Later on, he issued a full statement, which can be read here at Wired . . .