People can get really fixated about certain details on their cars, can’t they? Details like roof retention. Some people just absolutely lose their pickles if one roof happens to unexpectedly fly off their car, like what happened to a Tesla Model Y last month. If you’re a real stickler for your roof staying on the whole time you drive your car, then you probably wouldn’t be happy to own this other Tesla, this time a Model S, that lost its roof in China. This time, though, Tesla says it’s not on them.
According to the r/Tesla Motors Reddit, the video below was first uploaded to Weibo, the Chinese YouTube-ish site that also was home to some of my swiped Changli videos.
Here’s the video of that exciting flying-roof action:
Man, that roof really catches some air! I’m sure if we had an audio feed from inside that speeding Tesla, by now we’d all know what the Chinese equivalent of “what the fuck?” is.
The r/Tesla Motors page also reports that Tesla Support China responded to the video (as the page says, here’s a rough translation):
“We have made contact with the owner immediately to resolve the issue. Upon initial investigation, said vehicle has been to an authorised third-party shop for a roof glass replacement. We’re unsure of the cause and currently investigating further”
The “authorised third-party shop” has not been named, but I imagine Tesla China is re-evaluating that authorization.
The Model Y with the escaping roof reported last month was being driven directly from the Tesla store after just being bought and was likely related to a manufacturing issue with the adhesives used to mount the roof. It’s not clear if this incident in China was a service/repair issue, or if the same methods and materials used in the original manufacturing process were employed.
Generally, the Model S hasn’t had much trouble keeping its roof on.
It’s also possible that all of this roof-flying is just testing for a new seat-ejection system that will be included in a future over-the-air software update. We’ll keep you updated.