Only two weeks ago, a reckless Chinese driver in Singapore plowed into a side of a taxi, killing both cab passengers and himself (GIF credit: Alicia). We now have more of the same. (And in case you needed a reminder — there’s a lot of the same.) On Shenzhen’s Binghai Road on Saturday around midnight, a speeding red coupe crashed into two taxis, causing one of them, an electric BYD, to erupt into flames (all three passengers in that car perished). A passing cabbie caught video of the fireball. The driver and passenger of the other taxi, which was flipped upside-down, both crawled out. The coupe’s driver — who was apparently going in excess of 150 kilometers, according to the guy who shot the video, and apparently had been drinking, according to Shenzhen authorities — was a young man who had three young ladies in the car with him. He fled the scene with two of them (the other was pinned inside the car), but later turned himself in. Sina video for those in China after the jump, plus update.
UPDATE, 10:21 am: Here’s a picture of the two passengers in the electric taxi that exploded, according to a Sina Weibo post that’s gotten more than 2,800 forwards and 1,100 comments in less than two hours (it was posted at 8:25 am):
UPDATE, 6/8: A story in Reuters says the BYD explosion may have been caused by a leaky battery (h/t The Nanfang).
(H/T Alicia)
been reading this site for quite sometime.
sad to hear this happen, i just relocated to Shenzhen from Beijing, and this isn’t to far away from my office.
I’ve taken these BYD electric taxi’s before. I have to admit enviromental friendly and looks descent from outside, but once inside you start to notice “shoddiness” of it in terms of quality. Further proof that a well made car(albeit by an asshole who jsut killed 3 people) can crash @ 150km/h and look fine for its speed but a domestic vehicle will ignite itself..
This is why I stick with taxi’s here in Shenzhen that are VW or Toyota made.
Curious too as to whether it is general shoddiness or lack of safety features in a BYD electric vehicle that may make them prone to fires, or if it is electric cars in general.