Teslas do not "disable themselves"; it's done by Tesla HQ, using criteria they do not disclose, but it seems to be just a matter of whether the crash happens to come to their attention.

Rich Rebuilds has covered this extensively. Sometimes he comes across a heavily damaged Tesla, still on their network that hasn't been disabled. Other times he comes across one with minor damage that has been disabled. I believe one of his rebuilds, he took some of the guts from a heavily damaged car that wasn't deactivated to transplant into the guts of a car that had easily repaired damage that had been.

Interesting - it was my understanding that most collisions(and definitely collisions that activate airbags) cause the car to disable itself until inspected. Good to know that this isn't always the case.

I've never heard this being the case, and I sure hope it isn't for most cars. Imagine being in a remote area.. you hit a deer after slowing down.. and now you're trapped at night? You're in death valley offroading a little too enthusiastically, airbags deploy and now you're stuck? A small fender bender in Baja Mexico and you're disabled?

I once rolled a vehicle in Nevada being stupid with friends. Airbags deployed. The radiator was crushed and leaking. We strapped the radiator support to another vehicle and bent it back out. Took the other vehicle into town and bought a radiator at AutoZone. Installed it and drove it an hour home. The steering wheel was only slightly off center.

> Teslas do not "disable themselves"; it's done by Tesla HQ

That’s the same thing. If the owner isn’t disabling the car, then it is disabling itself.