I Totaled My Beloved Tesla Model 3: The Aftermath

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In over 70 years of driving, I had never had an intersection accident. A few minor fender benders, but that’s it.

My wife and I had just driven from our summer home in Northern Wisconsin to Madison for the University of Wisconsin graduation of our grandson. Saturday morning, May 9^th, I was driving through a residential section of West Madison. I was driving 25 mph and there was no traffic. Except for one car! I missed the stop sign and was 90% of the way through a residential intersection when a lady plowed into the right rear quarter panel of our 2019 Tesla Model 3 Long Range, as you can see in the photo below.

Not a big deal: right rear quarter panel and rear facia (bumper) damage plus damage to the right rear suspension (see the top of the wheel tilted in). Probably not too expensive, only two body parts and the suspension on one wheel.

While I was at fault because I had a stop sign and she didn’t, she could have prevented the accident by a slight turn of the steering wheel or tap on her brakes. I postulate that she was texting right into the back of my car. You can see the damage to her car in the photo below.

Thank heavens I wasn’t driving as usual with two bikes on the back (see photo below). She would have wrecked them both plus the bike rack.

There were no skid marks or any evidence of braking or swerving of her car on the pavement.

He insurance adjuster said that I was “majority” at fault. I understand that means my insurance company is responsible for the damage to both cars.

My car was not drivable, so my wife called an Uber and the driver dropped my wife off at the graduation ceremony while I rented a Toyota Corolla from Budget Rent a Car that I picked up later in the day.

Our car was picked up by Alliance Collision, recommended to me by the Uber driver.

The next day we drove the rental car 240 miles north to our home in Three Lakes, Wisconsin. That was the first part of the aftermath. Our Tesla had Full Self Driving, which is very precise and not only has traffic aware cruise control, but slows down the car and steers the car accurately around the sharpest turns automatically. The Corolla’s smart cruise worked well enough, but would only stop for a stop sign or light if there was another car in front of us. The steering assist was very lame! On even moderate turns, it would break loose so that you were always going in and out of automatic steering. It was more trouble than it was worth except on super highways with gradual turns.

Then the bad news started to come. Alliance put the initial repair estimate at over $10,000 before teardown, and our insurance company, Rural Mutual, was going to “total” the car. That meant that since the car was almost 7 years old with almost 180,000 miles, they wouldn’t repair it because the repairs would likely be over 70% of the value of the car. They would just give us a lump sum representing their estimate of the value of the car.

I explained to the insurance company that it was not only the long-range dual motor “premium” model, but it had a lifetime Full Self Driving subscription and a towbar receiver. This brought the estimated value to $16,000, which was $6,000 more than Tesla was willing to give me on a new car trade-in a few months earlier.

So, the search began! How could I get the same functionality in a replacement car for $16,000. Both my wife and I obsessively use Full Self Driving and are not willing to do without it. We are also aware that Tesla upgraded the computer and camera hardware of their cars to HW4 in ~mid 2023, and that is required to run version 14 of FSD, which has been getting rave reviews. Would we just try to do a one-for-one replacement or go for an upgrade? Where should I look for a replacement vehicle? We summer in a town of 2,140 inhabitants, with the nearest big used car dealers 300 and 400 miles away in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Chicago.

How about Car Gurus or CarMax? Those used car search engines are happy to tell you the year and mileage of a car, but have little or no information on battery range, Full Self Driving, or hardware version. To find out the FSD status, you would need to call up a dealer and ask them to look at the display screen to find the Full Self Driving status, which would need to be “Included.” Since only 10% of Tesla buyers paid $6,000 or $8,000 for lifetime FSD, you would need to have a used car dealer look at a lot of cars to find one with FSD “Included.”

But all was not lost. A company in our winter home of Northern Utah called EVAuto in Lehi and Bountiful, Utah, keeps track of: 1) FSD status, 2) hrdware status and 3) battery range of Teslas. However, we are 1,500 miles from Northern Utah and can’t just bop over and start looking at and test driving their EVs. The sweet spot for us would be a 2023 with HW4 and a lifetime FSD subscription. We were informed that those were in and out in a day, so it would be almost impossible to get one.

A new Tesla would have HW4, but FSD 14 is now available only as a $99 monthly subscription. Not only would the 3-year-old Tesla with HW4 and FSD be nearly impossible to find, but the monthly payments at 6% would be about the same as on a new car, which Tesla is selling with 0% interest.

The final complicating factor is that the Wisconsin Dealer’s Association is so strong that it is impossible to get a Tesla delivered in Wisconsin. My brother in Madison who has owned Teslas had to pick his up in Utah and Chicago.

We are driving a Tesla again. How did we solve these problems? Answer in my next article!