The driver of a white Tesla Model Y was involved in a police chase this last weekend in Orange County, California, that ended with at least two tires of his EV being shredded to pieces, wrecked rims, and a blow to his ego.
As you can see in the video embedded above, which was streamed live on ABC7’s official YouTube channel, the pursuit happened after sunset on California State Route 91. According to the broadcast commenters, the driver allegedly failed to pull over after the Highway Patrol noticed a carpool lane violation, so they started following the white EV down CA-91 going east, with the all-electric crossover sometimes exceeding 70 miles per hour, but never going over 80 mph while running away from the police.
The California Highway Patrol employed at least three pursuit vehicles for this case and after seeing that the driver of the Tesla had no intention of stopping, it went for the spike strip, which you can see at around the 5-minute mark in the video.
This led to the left-hand side tires being punctured, and we can’t know for sure if the right-hand side rubber was affected, but with two wheels running without air, it was just a matter of time until something went wrong.
About three minutes later, both tires on the left started to peel away from the rim, at which point the vehicle finally slowed down and eventually stopped, but what happened next is hard to understand.
The driver got out of the car and started walking straight into the crosshairs of the 10 or so police officers that were patiently waiting next to their cars. Waving his hands and appearing to shout at the policemen, he even approaches one of the officers at arm’s length – a situation which could have gone south very quickly.
However, the Model Y driver was swiftly tackled from the back by one of the officers at the scene, putting an end to the chase.