Court told driver tried to delete Tesla data following fatal crash

A court has heard how an Auckland man defending a charge of careless driving causing death allegedly tried to delete the car’s travel data before calling 111 for help. 

Driver Saurbh Sharma, 26, is facing a judge-alone trial for his actions in the death of young Auckland barrister Shubham Kaur. 

The first two days of the judge-alone trial were heard in the Huntly District Court last month and the trial resumed in the Hamilton District Court on March 21 before Judge Glen Marshall, the NZ Herald reports. 

On January 4, 2022, a Tesla which Sharma was driving was airborne for more than 20 metres before it smashed through a power pole and rolled into a ditch on Dawson Rd, Taupiri, where it caught fire. Sharma’s passenger, Kaur, died at the scene. 

Detective Constable Harjot Sandhu testified how he extracted the data from Sharma’s phone and found messages he made in the months leading up to the crash and the moments straight after it.

He discovered Sharma first used the phone to search “how to delete Tesla recordings”, NZ Herald reports. 

Teslas are equipped with an event data recorder which saves driving information such as vehicle speed and whether or not the brake or accelerator pedal was applied for a certain time before and after an accident. 

The trial continues.