5 Injured After EV Goes AWOL At Chinese Auto Show

Five people, including one child, were hurt when they were hit by a runaway Zeekr X electric car at an auto show in China last month.

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The incident happened at the 2024 Nanjing International New Energy Vehicles Exhibition where the Zeekr-built Extreme Krypton X crossover was on display alongside other electric vehicles. Chinese media reports that the EV suddenly began driving forward, colliding with multiple showgoers, leaving two of them needing medical attention.

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Video footage taken at the scene and broadcast by Chinese news stations shows a dark gray X with its nose pushed up against the side of a white sedan, apparently having already made contact with at least two other cars before it performed the t-bone maneuver.

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One blue sedan can be seen pushed back against the promotional backdrop with its trunk open and the white car has been pushed across into the side of an orange one. The damage to the various cars involved looks minor, but will certainly require all of them to spend some time in a body shop. Fortunately, none of the five people attacked by the rogue EV was killed.

Sensing a PR nightmare unfolding, Zeekr issued a statement on Chinese social media platform Weibo on the day of the collision declaring that the accident was not the result of a fault with the runaway car itself, but mismanagement of the cars on display at the show. It says the EVs’ powertrains were not in their ‘exhibition’ mode, but were instead parked in regular comfort mode.

Though the keys were not in the car, they were apparently near enough that someone was able to ‘start’ it up and engage drive. There’s no suggestion that the car drove forward under its own steam. Since the March incident Zeekr has instigated a nationwide review and inspection of other display vehicles to ensure nothing similar happens again.

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