Even by the high standards of road accident videos involving Tesla cars, this one stands out on its own: a semi-truck caused $20,000 worth of damage after plowing into a Model 3 and neglecting to notice.
According to the reports from the incident site, the battery sedan was going on Tesla Autopilot in the rightmost lane and overtaking the semi, which was speeding down the adjacent lane to the left. When the Tesla nearly finished overtaking it, it suddenly changed to the right lane and hit the Tesla near its rear wheel.
The impact turned the sedan around, and it ended up stuck to the truck cab with its left side. The two proceeded to cover half a mile (800 meters) like this before the dig rig driver finally began to suspect that something was wrong. He said he only saw the Tesla after stopping and getting out of the truck.
In turn, the Tesla driver said the self-driving system warned him about the impending collision, but neither the autopilot nor he himself had the time to maneuver their way out of the collision. The semi was cruising at over 70 miles per hour (110 km/h), leaving no time to avoid the impact.
The driver of the big truck was found guilty of the collision and charged with damaging the EV for at least $20,000. Fortunately, the owner of the Tesla escaped with scratches.