You can’t make this stuff up. A priest, a rabbi, and a minister…no wait. A Prius, a Tesla, and an SUV…
No, this isn’t a Photoshop trick. Proving truth is indeed stranger than fiction, it actually happened in Denmark on October 9th. It is likely the only accident of its kind in the world.
WUWT reader Lars Seiersen gives us the details and translation of this newspaper article that appeared in Ekstra Bladet:
Lars writes:
Dear Anthony,
I think the more hardcore part of your American readers will like this and provide a number of funny comments and interpretations:
http://ekstrabladet.dk/biler/bil_nyheder/article1243890.ece
(in Danish)
It is a weird car accidence:
Ocober 9, Northern Part of Jutland (near Skagen)
A VW Tuareg (a rare bird in DK because of the price, one of the biggest and most incorrect cars you find in DK) is stopped on a small road due to construction works.
Behind it stops a Tesla (an extremely rare bird – I have never seen one!).
Then a Toyota Prius ( also rare in DK) for some reason doesnt stop and pushes the Tesla under the Tuareg!
Nobody was seriously hurt!
Actually the SUV didn’t really win but it did come out on top.
A Prius is so quiet, you can’t tell if you’re moving or not. That must be the reason it didn’t stop.
The “Green Halo” of the Prius driver momentarily obstructed his view.
Oh boy! If this gets to the Top Gear folks, we’re going to have some serious talking…
Ecotretas
Mommy, what is the VW doing to the Tesla?
Don’t look kids, they are making a hybrid!
(Sorry, engineer humor on a Sunday morning!)
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
But did the Toureg drive away? It appears that the $100k+ (US) Tesla raised the Toureg without damaging it. There might be a couple of parts from the Tesla stuck in and under the bumper of the Toureg, but that’s about it.
Living sustainably green: click
The Prius Driver obviously had a combination of Blinding SUV hatred and Burning Tesla Envy and in true Prius status symbol mentally deranged saving the planet fashion attempted to kill two birds with one stone.
Electric cars still have dipsticks.
What do they call a wedgy in Denmark?
Smokey:
I remember that image from Brasil a few years back. Great spoof. And the endorsements are priceless.
God calls the wives of the drivers of SUV, Tesla, and Prius. “Your husbands are driving the three most important vehicles in the world. They are going to crash in a car accident soon.”
The SUV driver’s wife returns home and tells her hubby: I have two news for you. One of them is good, and the other one is bad. The good news is that God exists, the bad news is that you will crash your SUV soon.
The Tesla wife tells her sweetheart. She tells him: I have two bad news for you. One of them is that God exists, I just spoke to Him. The other bad news is that your Tesla will be smashed soon.
The wife of the Prius driver informs her spouse: I have two good news for you. Our Prius is among the three most important vehicles in the world. And the other good news is that you won’t see any global warming in your lifetime. 😉
The most amazing thing was that nobody was hurt
50 Kilo Watt Hour to charge a Tesla – $30
12 Gallons of gasoline to fuel a Prius – $35
1 full size spare tire for a Tuareg – $100
Being able to walk away from a crash because your SUV protected you –
Priceless
Here we see a Suv in its native hapitat, teaching several lesser oilivores their proper place in nature’s heirarchy.
YouTube Do6pmYfNco0
New definitions for the 21st Century-
au⋅to⋅mo⋅bile(aw-tuh-moh-beel)–noun
Just another place to text from
Classic comment on the 200 000 dollar(?) Tesla:
“I fear that what we are seeing here is much the same thing professors see when they claim there is no such thing as man-made global warming. Immediately, they are drowned out by an unseen mob, and then their funding dries up. It’s actually quite frightening.
The problem is, though, that really and honestly, the US-made Tesla works only at dinner parties. Tell someone you have one and in minutes you will be having sex. But as a device for moving you and your things around, it is about as much use as a bag of muddy spinach”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article5483422.ece
Coming from the car angle, the Tesla did well maintaining its cabin integrity.
OK, I’m confused. Is it better than we thought or is it worse than we thought?
I suppose the answer depends on whether you were driving the Tesla, the Prius, or the SUV.
(Steamboat Jack: That one cracked me up!)
Hmm, I wonder how many new WUWT readers this could bring in?
BTW, the Science Museum poll is 948 in 6034 out at 18:30 UTC, see
http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/proveit.html
Damn the Tesla messed up. never drive in that.
The Prius lookes ok btw.
Steamboat Jack, that was the first thing I could come up with *grin*
Barriers to traffic movement do not exist. The accident was caused by the black car denying the progress of the green cars.
This is so obvious!!
Some one made a foolish comment. to the tune that the only thing the Tesla is good for is a party car.
The only reason for any private highway car worth over a $100,000, is as a panty remover. If the Tesla does that, then it has achieved its main function.
How dare anyone take Tesla’s name in vain?
Perhaps the Tesla’s battery went flat causing it to come to a sudden halt 🙂
The Toureg Driver was simply minding his business when the Tesla driver overcome by
“smug” generated by his vehicle and the proximity of the Prius cut the Toureg off in a
fit of green road rage.
However it was like Woody Allen picking a fight with Mike Tyson.Not all of the
body parts were available after the encounter…
According to the Google translation of the page, there was also a CYCLIST* involved in the accident. *motorised variety
If it’s a spoof, it’s very well done. Look at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16822508@N05/3995784846/
for high res images. The number plate on the Touareg definitely looks like a bona fide Dansih plate. So do the white lines on the road and the divertion sign. Great fun any way.
I think it is time to invent autoball. Autoball would be like football only with cars. Each “player” would be a small car driven by an “athlete”. The ball could be a big red rubber one, pushed along by special scoop bumpers, perhaps with “kickers”: spring-loaded devices that propel the ball.
Like demolition derby only with goals and scoring. The Danes are obviously ready to play.
VW Monster SUV crushes AGW vehicles. Audience go crazy.
Sure looks like a bunch of Li-Ion batteries from the Tesla all over the road. If I’m right, there doesn’t seem to be much protection for them.
As my Jeep dealer once told me, “4wd will get you out of situations you normally wouldn’t get out of, but it will get you into situations you normally wouldn’t get into.”
I drove my Jeep Cherokee 250,000 miles at an average milage of 20 mpg. Assuming a normal car life is 150k miles, and if I had upgraded to a hybrid SUV at 180k to make 30 mpg, the hybrid SUV would have required how many gallons of oil to manufacture? According to my sources about 2,000 gallons (new tires alone require 22 gallons each on average). Firstly someone else would have driven the vehicle to 250k miles rather than me.
You’d have to drive the hybrid over 80,000 miles to make up for the “carbon debt” of manufacturing the hybrid, and that would only be valid if you had the old SUV demolished at a wrecking yard when you bought the hybrid to prevent others from driving it to 250k miles. That represents a trade in value of $3000 wasted, or another 1500 gallons of fuel, which equates to another 60,000 miles the hybrid has to drive to make up for the trade-in loss. So your hybrid SUV has to drive a total of 140,000 miles to make up for its carbon debt of manufacturing and replacing the old SUV.
I drove my SUV 70,000 miles beyond the 180k mile average. I should get a carbon credit equal to 1750 gallons of oil.
Recent extreme testing of hybrid, electric and petrol cars in Denmark reveals major common safety fault – all driven by humans.
Tesla driver attempts to fully flatten batteries before recharging to avoid memory effect.
John G (09:41:40) : “What do they call a wedgy in Denmark?”
The word is “krøtchpåntihøijster.”
[Easy for you to say. ~dbs, mod.]
aaaah well looking at the cost to the environment to recycle these cars and batteries doesnt look so cheap now
Aren’t you the one who chastised Mr. Rush Limbaugh for cruel humor?
Mmmm… I wonder if it’s not a case of regenerative braking failure to behave properly (e.g. as dissipative, conventional, braking) or driver’s mis-evaluation of the subtlety of regen braking.
Prius saves the planet, SUV saves the people. I’ll take the SUV – in “endangered species red” please.
Wait! Isn’t tenure supposed to allow academics to speak their minds freely? Why isn’t it working then?
If tenure is not doing what it is supposed to do then why keep it?
Do your job academics or lose your security!
A bit of magic:
Taking into account the rarity of the event, it´s like winning three lotteries at the same time. Many years ago phycisist W.Pauli and psychiatrist K.G.Jung published a book studying such a type of chance events (three parallel events is too, but too much). So perhaps this one is indicating, as an omen, the future……of global warming, green policies and copenhagen treaty. Hope so!
Mike D.
“Auto-Ball” has already existed for a long time. Back in the 80’s it was a “big” thing in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. There was a huge ball that you pushed around with your trucks.
You sure this isn’t the Euro version of Monster Truck Rallies?
The Tesla battery looks a little flat!
You may have tenure, but if you go against established science you lose your funding. No fun!
I can put all three of them in the back of my pick up.
“You may have tenure, but if you go against established science you lose your funding. No fun!” Lennart
Who needs money? Hasn’t the IPCC proven that all one needs to do science is a computer model?
At least the mathematicians can’t be bought since all they need is a pencil and a sheet of paper. Oops! I forgot, they have to eat.
To show partiality is not good,
Because for a piece of bread a man will transgress. Proverbs 28:21
“Fun?”
Doing wickedness is like sport to a fool,
And so is wisdom to a man of understanding. Proverbs 10:23
Gee, I wonder if the EPA was called in for the “Clean Up”… 🙂 and what a “bill” that would be!!!!
Bad driver. Since the cars were all expensive and rare to the area, and at the risk of stereotyping from L.A. freeways, was the Prius driver a visiting senior citizen with oriental features wearing a hat on route to a climate treaty conference? Let me guess, the high carbon content road was undergoing confusing preventive pot hole repair?
I think the diesel Touareg qualifies as $100k+ (++) panty remover in Denmark.
Cars are *VERY* expensive in Denmark. (For US equivalent I think you start at about 2 to 2.5x the US price.) And yes, it’s massive taxes.
Was it good for you two, ladies?
an electrifying result..they should get a charge from that.Truly re -volting to see such a waste of a good SUV..
Tesla is a really nice car. Although I’m highly skeptical on the whole man made global warming issue, I’m a big fan of these purely electric cars.
That accident could of gone all kinds of different ways including the SUV on its roof and with people dying. Drawing conclusion from a single event is unrealistic but fun 🙂
SUV driver says,” Al Gore told us we all have to come together to fight Global Warming”
Robert Wykoff (17:47:00): Mike D. — “Auto-Ball” has already existed for a long time.
Dang it. Another one of my million-dollar ideas ripped off by someone else, this time before I even thought of it. If I had a nickle for every stroke of my genius…
Forget wedgy. This is a case of cellincallinlackinattentionichten.
The crash was caused by Global Warming/Climate Change.
Without the hysteria led Green Garbage campaign to lay the blame on
mankind’s CO2 output there would only have been a VW SUV on the road.
If I was the unhurt driver in the Tesla, my first thought would be, “I waited two year to get this car and some weenie in a Prius just totaled it…Wow…look a the size of the gas tank on that SUV!”
I am informed by my Dansk correspondents that ‘wedgie’ is translated as (very anglicized phonetic spelling) oohlfoort. The shortened version is Al Gore’s dream.
Shame the photographer of these (copyright) pictures gets no credit.
John Nuttall (the photographer) ‘skagman’ on Flickr.
John Nuttall (04:51:18) :
> Shame the photographer of these (copyright) pictures gets no credit.
> John Nuttall (the photographer) ’skagman’ on Flickr.
Certainly is – I was wondering yesterday who “Privatfoto.” I hope you’ll let Anthony keep the photos up. Without the photos, all that’s left are the jokes.
I’ve had a couple photos “above the fold” in New Hampshire papers and gotten credit for them. Even got money for one, but turned it over to the victim’s fire fund.
So, what happened to the motorcyklist, or was he gone when you arrived on scene?
Leif Svalgaard (10:13:11) :
The most amazing thing was that nobody was hurt
I agree. When I first saw the red car It looked awful.
VW Diesel SUV comes out on top in milage tests in Denmark.
I’d loved to have seen the outcome if they had proper SUVs in Europe instead of hairdresser soft-roaders like the Touareg. Imagine that scene with a Tahoe or Expedition!
Toyota Pious: designed by boffins, tested by dummies, driven by idiots.
As Kristin said, the VW is light, more likely in europe what would have been the outcome if the SUV had been a 3 ton Rangerover? also I find the name prius way too close to the attitude of its victims, pious!
Clearly a copulating case arising from the Prius degenerative braking system.
Many of the above posts seem to think that this was a spoof. I can confirm that while delivering another Tesla to the guys place of work in Denmark, I did see the car Tesla that had been involved in the accident.
I had travelled from the Uk with the other Tesla after having had some maintenance work carried out.
The crashed Tesla stood up to the carsh very well indeed.