Accessing dash cam footage after accident

Do you have a USB drive in the glove box

Pull the hard drive out. I assume you will get back into it at some point.

Yes! I forgot about that. Not sure how I can get in and get to it, though.

That damage will buff out.....

We had the same problem due to a very similar incident, the car shuts down & locks up due to the damage. It’s a legit design hole. What you need to do is jump start the 12V battery (from the connectors in the front bumper) to unlock the doors & glovebox. Then you can pull out the USB drive and your belongings. If the doors unlock but not the glovebox you will need to pry it open manually, potentially damaging it. Looking at your photo though, it is very likely going to be totaled.

Pull the thumb drive out of the glovebox.

This happened to me last month. Read end collision and the vehicle was totaled. The other driver was at fault. This is my rationale for Premium Connectivity. I was able to just save the clip on my phone and submit.

The high voltage battery gets disconnected to prevent a fire and you only have accessory power until the accessory battery depletes. That itself is not a design hole. The design holes would be (1) the doors locking, (2) the doors not being openable after the inevitable loss of accessory power, and potentially (3) it not giving you a warning (though occupants would be forgiven for potentially not seeing the message due to the circumstances).

If you’re able to get into the car, apparently with the right tools it’s fairly easy to break into the glove box. I think you use a tool to pry open the locking latch. I recall someone else mentioning this. Here’s a thread discussing it on Reddit that might help - https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModelY/comments/10530vg/how_to_manually_open_glove_box/

You can try making a Data Privacy Request from your tesla account. I did this and got tons of data about acceleration and braking etc plus video from all the cameras.

Ouch.

😬

To be honest , being rear ended by a drunk moron while stopped at a red light, doesn't require any more proof, I am afraid soon insurance adjuster aholes will start to deny claims in Tesla due to "missing dashcam" recordings.

My wife was in an exact situation a month ago. The car bricked about 20 min after the accident. We had to jump the 12 volt battery to get in the car and take the thumb drive from the glove compartment to access the video footage. FYI… my wife’s car had very similar damage and the insurance decided to total the car

Yeah i’m assuming this thing will be totaled. Our airbags did not go off, but there was a very distinct smell of gunpowder inside the cabin after the accident. One of the police officers said that is most likely from the airbag. But who knows…

I have premium connectivity, but when I go in the app to look for dash cam footage, I just get the spinning wheel like it’s trying to connect

That requires gaining entry to the vehicle.

Pyro fuse did it's thing then the accessory battery died. Glad you guys are ok. What a hassle tho. Hopefully you have a family lawyer because you will need it.

You read the post right? RIGHT?

What if you are inside the car when it locks the doors? Can you still manually open them from inside?

This!!

Hopefully you stay married so you don't need a family lawyer 😁

Yeah the amount of people thinking this wasn’t thought of is wild. Preventing a fire by disconnecting battery is a feature you want. It’s not that hard to jump a 12v battery after all to get the basics working. I do wish the rear manual unlock was more accessible without opening a panel but it’s easy enough to see why they didnt want something a child could easily override the child locks with and open the door at any time. that would be way more likely to be a risk to kids than the doors locking after an accident Last i checked the child locks on ICE cars cant be overridden in any way from the rear in the event of a crash.

Yes it does. And until then, the thumb drive is secure inside the glove box.

Yes, I did. But I'm not sure everyone quite understands what the ask is. It seems people often expect everything to be more complicated than think. The given details are: 1. Unable to access the dash cam video via the app. 2. The vehicle is now locked. The only other way to access the video is to gain physical access to the inside of the vehicle, then to the glove box (if it, too, has a passcode to unlock), to retrieve the thumb drive. Assuming, of course, that the thumb drive is installed. If it's installed, it's safe and secure until you can gain access. It's not lost. It's not gone. It's just behind a physical security barrier -- the door locks. A Service Center can gain access non-destructively.

The last time I checked, last year Tesla has moved away from providing any video footage if your car has an onboard usb drive. I guess doesn't hurt to try.

That’s the pyro fuse doing its job by disconnecting the main high voltage battery pack from the vehicle.

Not a design hole but a blessing for first responders. Disconnecting the low voltage/12v battery on any wrecked vehicle is one of our priorities. Having an ev do it on its own so we don’t have to mess around with it is a godsend.

No experience but there is that manual door release button near the window switch. Guessing you’d need to use that

Glad you guys are okay! I was able to access videos by sending them to my phone thru the app after my accident last December, though my damage was less serious than what your MY sustained so maybe accessing the USB is the only option.

Thank you. And I am glad you and your passengers came out okay. Last year similar thing happen to me and my 3 year old kid. We were at red light and Audi sportscar slammed into us. Luckily she saw us on time and swirled. If she would have hit us straight on, we wouldn’t be here. At the time I still had my VW Up. Police said we were very lucky.

The tow lot can hook it up to a 12V external battery and you should be able to view them either from the car or app then. I totaled my 2018 M3 striking a car that turned in front of me and was able to screen record from my phone (Tesla would only save a 30 second clip, while it showed the accident, I saved the full minute drive from leaving the coffee shop to the hit). But I did have free premium connectivity as a pre-order bonus. Family has gotten used to the YouTube & games, so I’m stuck with $99/yr subscription for my Y now

Always put your windows down after an accident.

No that is definitely true. I just want it more out of my own curiosity.

Once you get access, pull the USB drive. It will continue to record and over write the video eventually. I had a similar problem (my battery compartment was punctured from interstate debris on a 24 MYP). The car shut itself down and was towed. I asked the repair company to remove the USB drive but they didn't. I finally got a chance to (about 4 weeks after the incident) and salvaged the video. The driver who dropped the debris (from a towed trailer) claimed that I could have avoided the debris. His insurance company (Progressive) agreed and said I was 30% responsible for the accident (?? - whoever heard of that). Until I provided video proof that I could not have avoided it AND the other driver could not see it. So it saved me over $2000.

My son just had an accident with his 2017 Tesla model S to his right before the accident. He was getting all these warning signs Telling him to pull over blah blah blah he was on his way to an appointment. He had to go. He ended up getting in an accident however we had to go to the junkyard the other day to get stuff out of it and they just jumped the 12 V. battery and he was able to get right into the vehicle now. Beware Teslas erase a lot of footage of accidents. They did his he was able to get into the glove box but once he shut it, he couldn’t get in the second time but he got what he needed so that’s good. He had just bought the car three months prior to the accident. It was beautiful all the airbags did deployed, but the car was beautiful all self driving mode ,free to charge life time !!!! we have it at a friend’s body shop, but he’s going to sell online as is whoever buys. It’s gonna make some money because it was just front end damage.so basically it just needs the hood front and bumper in one light other than that the cars meant you should see the inside. It’s beautiful all white.leather never been smoked in low miles! So yes, you can get into your car just charge the 12 V battery bring a automatic battery backpack with you. You can get in it. You can even start it.

And that is definitely not totaled all the glasses intact no airbags deployed that’s nothing to fix

That can sometimes get tricky if it gets hauled off to a lot. Either way he might not get access for a while. At the end of the day though thats the only option. Kind of a shame is it "protected" behind a locked door.

I assumed it would be totaled, but I have no idea. At first, I was hoping it would be totaled but now I think I’m probably better off getting it back as long as it’s repaired really well. I think the way these things depreciate I would not be getting a lot for it. I have put a ton of miles on it in less than two years. I had planned on keeping it for a very long time.

what about the idea that you can't get into the vehicle if needed by opening the locked doors? obviously you would then be force to take to time to break in but that of course means time lost to rescue which could be critical to survival

I can pop a door much faster than I can deal with a fucked front end and the mess that causes while trying to find the unique location of low voltage power source and securing that to prevent air bag deployment and/or electrical fire risk. In 99% of situations I’ve made entry into the vehicle by the time you finished reading this comment. Securing electrical on every different iteration of car is another beast unto itself.

How are you making an entry into a vehicle with an electronic latch for doors?

Window.

The car got in an accident. It blew the hv fuse. Without the hv battery there is nothing to run the car. The low voltage battery depletes and then the car does nothing. You can jump the low voltage system from the bumper and then under the hood to get the thumb drive and any belongings out.

So I finally got to the salvage yard. Vehicle was totaled by GEICO and they are going to subrogate to Progressive. I was able to get in and pull the thumb drive so I have the videos (not that they were needed). I’m not sure how to add a picture to a comment, but I took one showing what I’m guessing is the frame damaged behind the rear bumper. I don’t know if that was enough by itself to declare a total loss or if it was something to do with the batteries or a combination of both.