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Tesla will assist Chinese authorities in investigating a dramatic Tesla Model Y crash in Guangdong, China, which killed two and injured three. But rumors have been flying on social media with potential causes of the crash, most of which are untrue or impossible.

The accident happened on November 5, and video has been circulating on Chinese social media. The CCTV video shows (warning: graphic) a Tesla Model Y attempting to park, then speeding off on a two-lane road, swerving between lanes at high speed, sideswiping cars and motorcycles before eventually crashing into a storefront about 30 seconds and 2.6 kilometers later.

An unnamed family member of the 55-year-old male driver stated that the driver had issues with the brake pedal when he was about to pull over in front of the family store, as reported by Jimu News. As best we can tell, the driver survived with injuries.

Tesla, as is often the case, has claimed that vehicle logs show that the brake pedal was not applied during the incident, and that the accelerator pedal was pressed for a significant portion of the event, and cautioned against people believing “rumors” about the incident. CCTV video shows that the brake lights were not illuminated in rear shots of the car, though they appear to turn on shortly at about 23 seconds after the start of the incident.

Police in Guangdong will work with a third-party agency to assess vehicle logs and CCTV footage to determine the truth about the incident.

(Warning: people die in this video, though it is not immediately clear from the footage. squeamish people may nevertheless not want to watch)

Tesla has faced other accusations of malfunctioning brake pedals in the past, including from a Chinese customer who staged a protest at their Shanghai Motor Show booth claiming that an accident she was in was a result of a brake failure. These accusations are not just limited to China, Tesla has also received many complaints in the US, which it responded to in a blog post claiming “there is no ‘unintended acceleration’ in Tesla vehicles.”

These complaints were examined by the NHTSA which found that incidents of sudden unintended acceleration in Teslas were a result of driver error, and not due to any design flaw in the vehicle. The NHTSA reminds drivers that there are 16,000 preventable crashes per year in the US due to pedal error and cautions drivers to be aware of this problem.

This didn’t stop social media from swirling with rumors about the latest Tesla crash, though. Both on Chinese and English-language social media, there have been many posts suggesting various causes without evidence, most of which do not stand up to basic scrutiny.

Some have claimed that the vehicle was attempting to autopark and then went haywire, running off at high speed. But the type of swerving, hard-accelerating behavior shown in the video is not characteristic of Autopilot, much less autopark, and both would have been disabled by a tap on the brake pedal at any point.

Others stated that the vehicle’s motor is too strong for the brakes to overcome, but given that the brake lights were not on and vehicle brakes are designed to overcome the force of the motor/engine, this explanation is not satisfactory either.

The accusations are similar to those that have happened with other vehicles. Famously, Toyota faced a “sudden unintended acceleration” recall in 2009-2011, where the automaker recalled various parts of their vehicles in response to an uptick in reports of unintended acceleration. While design flaws in floor mats or accelerator pedals may have contributed to some cases, most cases were found to be issues of driver error – and were more common among elderly and unskilled drivers. Increased reports tracked media coverage of the problem, with more reports coming in as media coverage intensified.

China is Tesla’s second-largest market. The company recently started pulling demand levers, including cutting prices, as a response to falling sales in the country.

Electrek’s Take

While it is entirely possible that there is some unexamined cause here, it’s almost certainly the same cause as it always is in these situations: someone pressed the wrong pedal, and then kept pressing it when they panicked.

This doesn’t mean there can’t be a design flaw involved. I’ve noticed first-time Tesla drivers getting the pedals crossed (i.e., accidentally pressing both pedals at the same time) perhaps more often than I would expect in a vehicle. It’s possible that the position of the pedals is a little closer than they should be, though I am not an engineer with particular expertise in pedal safety regulations, so take that with a grain of salt. Also, whenever this happens, the car has popped up a warning about crossed pedals and automatically cut power to the accelerator, favoring the brake over the accelerator – so that couldn’t be the cause of this crash.

But crediting this to Autopilot just doesn’t make any sense. This is clearly not Autopilot behavior, as anyone familiar with the system (and aware of its downsides) can tell. I’d bet that the third-party investigation will find that the driver was just pressing the accelerator the whole time, and that this was human error, as is the case in many crashes. So why so much discussion of this Tesla crash specifically?

Tesla is a popular topic on social media – it’s a high-profile brand, it’s different, and it drives a lot of traffic for various reasons, one of which due to its firebrand CEO who loves to be the center of attention. Whenever anything happens with Tesla, people talk about it – there are deadly crashes in various cars every day, most of which do not generate nearly as much social media discussion or articles (such as this one, sigh) about them. People just always have something to say about Tesla.

The presence of social media rumors can especially be expected right now, given that it is quite popular to “dunk on” Tesla CEO Elon Musk lately, due to his recent behavior and the dumpster fire associated with his purchase of the very social media platform where many of these rumors are circulating: twitter.

Twitter has long been a source of rapidly-spread disinformation, which Musk himself has participated in. He has routinely spread COVID-19 disinformation, among other topics, while promising that his purchase of the company would result in the removal of guardrails intended to protect against disinformation on the social media site. For example, he recently tweeted (and later deleted) that “there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” echoing a false and bigoted conspiracy theory about a violent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

This sort of active disinformation spreading from the CEO of Twitter and Tesla naturally leads to public resentment that the world’s richest man would spend so much of his time and effort on polluting information streams instead of fixing his companies. So some number of people will be uninterested in seeing “his side” of the story, and will actively distrust anything that he or Tesla has to say, since he is spending so much public effort spreading disinformation lately.

If Tesla’s mission is to “accelerate the advent of sustainable transport” – and they are the company most responsible for electrification currently – then it doesn’t seem particularly productive for the CEO to spend so much time spreading social media disinformation, turning public opinion against him and his company and its mission. We’d like to see less of that.

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China overhauls EV charging: 100,000 ultra-fast public stations by 2027

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China overhauls EV charging: 100,000 ultra-fast public stations by 2027

China just laid out a plan to roll out over 100,000 ultra-fast EV charging stations by 2027 – and they’ll all be open to the public.

The National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) joint notice, issued on Monday, asks local authorities to put together construction plans for highway service areas and prioritize the ones that see 40% or more usage during holiday travel rushes.

The NDRC notes that China’s ultra-fast EV charging infrastructure needs upgrading as more 800V EVs hit the road. Those high-voltage platforms can handle super-fast charging in as little as 10 to 30 minutes, but only if the charging hardware is up to speed.

China had 31.4 million EVs on the road at the end of 2024 – nearly 9% of the country’s total vehicle fleet. But charging access is still catching up. As of May 2025, there were 14.4 million charging points, or roughly 1 for every 2.2 EVs.

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To keep the grid running smoothly, China wants new chargers to be smart, with dynamic pricing to incentivize off-peak charging and solar and storage to power the charging stations.

To make the business side work, the government is pushing for 10-year leases for charging station operators, and it’s backing the buildout with local government bonds.

The NDRC emphasized that the DC fast chargers built will be open to the public. This is a big deal because a lot of fast chargers in China aren’t. For example, BYD’s new megawatt chargers aren’t open to third-party vehicles.

As of September 2024, China had expanded its charging infrastructure to 11.4 million EV chargers, but only 3.3 million were public.

Read more: California now has nearly 50% more EV chargers than gas nozzles


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Two charged in $650 million global crypto scam that promised 300% returns

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Two charged in 0 million global crypto scam that promised 300% returns

A U.S. Justice Department logo or seal showing Justice Department headquarters, known as “Main Justice,” is seen behind the podium in the Department’s headquarters briefing room before a news conference with the Attorney General in Washington, January 24, 2023.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Federal prosecutors have charged two men in connection with a sprawling cryptocurrency investment scheme that defrauded victims out of more than $650 million.

The indictment, unsealed in the District of Puerto Rico, accuses Michael Shannon Sims, 48, of Georgia and Florida, and Juan Carlos Reynoso, 57, of New Jersey and Florida, of operating and promoting OmegaPro, an international crypto multi-level marketing scheme that promised investors 300% returns over 16 months through foreign exchange trading.

“This case exposes the ruthless reality of modern financial crime,” said the Internal Revenue Service’s Chief of Criminal Investigations Guy Ficco. “OmegaPro promised financial freedom but delivered financial ruin.”

From 2019 to 2023, Sims, Reynoso and their co-conspirators allegedly lured thousands of victims worldwide to purchase “investment packages” using cryptocurrency, falsely claiming the funds would be safely managed by elite forex traders, the Department of Justice said.

Prosecutors said the pair flaunted their wealth through social media and extravagant events — including projecting the OmegaPro logo onto the Burj Khalifa, Dubai’s tallest building — to convince investors the operation was legitimate.

A video posted to the company’s LinkedIn page shows guests in evening attire posing for photos and watching the spectacle in Dubai.

Read more CNBC tech news

In reality, authorities allege, OmegaPro was a pyramid-style fraud.

When the company later claimed it had suffered a hack, the defendants told victims they had transferred their funds to a new platform called Broker Group, the DOJ said. Users were never able to withdraw their money from either platform.

The two men face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The Justice Department, FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, and Homeland Security Investigations led the multiagency investigation, with help from international partners.

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Tesla forced to refund $10,000 FSD payment and 0% interest on Cybertruck

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Tesla forced to refund ,000 FSD payment and 0% interest on Cybertruck

Tesla is starting to experience some consequences for misleading Full Self Driving customers – at least that’s the finding of one arbitration ruling that has Tesla refunding one customer $10,000 plus legal fees for failing to deliver on their promises. Find out more on today’s legally challenging episode of Quick Charge!

An arbitration “court” found that Tesla misled customers with its Full Self Driving product, and has now been forced to refund at least one person’s $10,000 payment (plus legal fees) for the not-quite autonomous driving software. France, too, is piling on claims of deceptive business practices – but there’s some good news for FSD fans! If you’re still willing to pay for it, Tesla will thrown in 0% financing on a brand new Cybertruck.

Check out the relevant links, below, to learn more.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

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New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.


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Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.

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