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The Street
The Street
Ellen Chang

A Tesla Burns on the Side of the Road

A Tesla Model Y burned on the side of the road in California and instead of assisting him, the electric vehicle manufacturer asked the driver to tow in the car himself.

Bishal Malla said he was driving on May 6 approaching Highway 99 when he heard a noise and stopped the car. Luckily, he was able to get out of the car before it caught on fire.

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"My Tesla Y caught fire on Saturday, May 6 at the California hwy. I was driving on a ramp to enter the freeway when I hear a noise from the bottom," he tweeted. "I opened my door and saw smoke coming from the bottom. It’s been 2 weeks and not a single follow up. I need answers."

Malla said he initially believed the Tesla had a flat tire, but then the vehicle began shaking and had caught on fire. 

A customer service agent at Tesla (TSLA) told him to tow the burned vehicle into a dealership, Malla told Business Insider.

"One agent I talked to had an audacity to tell me to take my fully burned Tesla to the Tesla recommended servicing center," Malla said on Reddit. "How in the world am I going to do that?"

Instead of helping him, the employee "took the report," but "no one responded."

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. 

Malla said he attempted to talk to a customer service employee "more than 10 times but those folks at roadside assistance customer service can’t do anything," he wrote on Reddit.

View the original article to see embedded media.

He said the employee gave him no recommendations on how the burned out vehicle would be taken to the servicing center.

Malla's insurance company salvaged the Model Y.

"I am just stunned that a billion dollar company won’t do a single follow up when their product destroyed like this in the middle of the road taking a lives of the driver and potentially passengers too," he wrote on Reddit. "That’s what it hurts the most .."

But Malla said he was fortunate because he was in the vehicle alone since he was headed to his home to pick up his wife and two children to attend a family function, he wrote on Reddit.

"If this had happened 30 minutes later, my whole family would be in there," he said on Reddit.

He told the NBC-affiliated TV channel KCRA 3 that he was "speechless" that the car was engulfed in flames.

Malla still wants to hear from Tesla about the fire that burned his Model Y.

"All I need is the answer from them and protect others to not go through the same issue," he said on Reddit.

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