Four people are dead and another is in hospital after a Tesla driving through downtown Toronto at a high rate of speed crashed into a guardrail and struck a concrete pillar on Lake Shore Boulevard.
It happened in the eastbound lanes of the busy road, east of Cherry Street, shortly before 12:15 a.m.
"The vehicle lost control, struck a guardrail and then struck a concrete pillar. Upon impact, the vehicle then caught fire," Duty Inspector Phillip Sinclair told reporters Thursday morning.
He confirmed that three men and a woman – all believed to be in their 20s and 30s – were pronounced dead at the scene.
Another driver who was in the area at the time of the crash stopped and managed to pull one woman in her 20s from the burning car.
She was transported to hospital with serious injuries, Toronto Paramedic Services said. However she is expected to survive
"I believe the fire had started when the bystander provided assistance. So again, thanks very much to that bystander," Sinclair said. "We have been speaking to them, and obviously they also (are) deeply affected by this incident, a very horrific scene for that bystander to step in."
Firefighters then arrived on scene to discover a "significant fire," Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop said.
"Our crews worked to quickly extinguish the fire and then, once the fire was extinguished, our crews noted a number of persons inside the vehicle," Jessop said. "Under the direction of the coroner's office and the Toronto Police Service, Toronto firefighters carefully extricated the bodies, and they are now in the care of the Office of the Chief Coroner.
Images from the scene showed the charred and crumpled vehicle being hauled away from the site of the crash.
There was a heavy police presence at the scene through the early morning hours, with the Collision Reconstruction Unit working to piece together exactly what happened.
It is not yet clear what caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle.
"We are asking anyone who may have been in the area by Lake Shore Boulevard and Cherry Street, who may have witnessed the incident or has dashcam footage, to contact the police," Sinclair said.
Lake Shore Boulevard was closed both ways between the Don Valley Parkway and Cherry Street through the night as police investigated the fatal crash. The road reopened around 8:30 a.m.
Investigators examining vehicle's batteries
Jessop said that the intensity of the fire was "directly linked" to the battery cells in the Tesla and noted that "thermal runaway" has been a growing concern with lithium-ion-powered devices.
"I will say we had to take extra care this morning in reopening the Lake Shore with the assistance of Toronto Police and removing and transporting one of the battery packs that was ejected during the collision," Jessop said.
"We worked with Transportation Services, Solid Waste and Parks and Recreation to arrange for a dumpster to arrive where the Toronto Fire Service placed the ejected cell into the dumpster, covered it with sand, and we have escorted that that dumpster up to a yard to make sure that it is safely disposed of."
Lithium-ion battery packs have been known to reignite, even weeks after an initial fire, he said, noting that the fire service has been paying increasing attention to the issue.
"This is something that certainly going to be an evolving risk that Toronto Fire Service has been very proactive on in preparing for in the future," Jessop said.
However he noted that it is still too early in the investigation to say what role the batteries may have played in the fire or the crash itself.
"I want to be very clear; we have all attended collisions where we've had horrible car fires as well that are gasoline-powered," he said. "So I don't want to suggest or comment until the investigation is complete."
Sinclair said police will be looking at all angles to try to determine what happened.
"Much (as) with any investigation, you work with the city partners to look at all the factors that could be involved, including the road surface, environmental factors, to determine what factors are exactly involved, or what could have led to the collision," he said.
