A Long Island man blames his Tesla’s “defective design” and high-voltage lithium ion battery for the horrific burns he suffered when the car burst into flames after an accident.
Jay Kharbanda was driving home to Dix Hills after a visit with his mom when he collided with a car making a turn in front of him, sending his 2024 Tesla Model 3 into a pole, according to court papers and video of the crash.
“I blacked out,” said the 20-year-old Stony Brook University biochemistry major. “I just remember getting hit, and that’s it.”
The crash caused the $36,000 car’s high-voltage battery to fail “catastrophically,” sending the vehicle into “thermal runaway,” he said in a Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit.
The phenomenon occurs when damaged or overheated battery cells ignite, causing additional cells to catch fire, setting off a “rapidly-escalating” chain-reaction blaze, according to the court papers.
“The fire intensified the danger far beyond the initial crash forces and created an acute emergency,” Kharbanda contended in legal papers.
The car “became a literal hell on earth,” said Kharbanda’s lawyer, Scott Epstein.
Video of the June 30 accident at the intersection of Old Country Road and Newtown Road in Plainview shows flames shooting up from the red Tesla, as a dazed Kharbanda writhes on the ground near by.
Kharbanda, who hopes to go into the medical field after graduation, doesn’t know how he escaped the fiery wreck. The doors malfunctioned in the blaze, and he’s been told bystanders smashed the vehicle’s window to get him out.
He woke in Nassau University Medical Center, where he spent the next two months undergoing painful surgeries.
His left hand and face are scarred from the fire; the toes on his left foot were amputated; his knees suffered torn ligaments, and third-and fourth-degree burns on his lower legs necessitated skin grafts, Kharbanda said.
“I was coughing up and sneezing black soot for two or three weeks,” recalled Kharbanda, who also got several weeks of daily, two-hour treatments in a hyperbaric chamber to aid his recovery.
The former sprinter at Half Hollow Hills East High School ultimately endured four surgeries.
He wants Elon Musk’s car company to be held accountable.
“I think Tesla should realize that their cars aren’t as safe as they make them out to be,” he told The Post.
His dad, Gagan, said the family is facing at least $800,000 in medical bills.
“I lost my whole world when I saw him” in the hospital, the father said.
At least 15 people have allegedly died in Teslas since 2012 after being trapped by malfunctioning electronic doors, according to an analysis by Bloomberg.
Tesla did not return requests for comment.
Kharbanda, who is seeking unspecified damages “sufficient to punish Tesla,” has yet to get back behind the wheel.
“I Uber everywhere I go, or my parents take me. I don’t think it’s worth it,” he said.
