Tesla made headlines in China and around the world earlier this week. At the Shanghai Auto Show Zhang Yazhou jumped on the roof of a Model 3 at the automaker’s display, shouting that the brakes in her car had failed when her father crashed it in February this year.
Tesla China has now publicly released the data logs from the car, showing there was nothing wrong with the Model 3’s brakes and that the car’s active safety features actually helped reduce the impact of the collision.
According to an explanation of the data shared with China Market Supervision News by an employee handling the accident, the Tesla was travelling at 118.5km/h (73mph) 5 seconds before the crash in an 80km/h (50mph) zone. The brakes were then applied by the driver at a maximum pressure of 92.7 bar.
It was at this point that the front collision warning and automatic emergency braking were activated, applying the brakes to a maximum pressure of 140.7 bar, which helped slow the car to 48.5km/h (30mph) at the moment of impact.
Add it all up, and the accident was clearly the fault of the driver, and the brakes and Tesla’s active safety features actually helped reduce the impact of the collision.
Tesla has offered to cover the costs of having the car inspected by a neutral third party, but Yazhou has so far declined.
Following her demonstration, she was detained by police and ordered to serve a five day sentence for “disrupting public order.”
