Toronto Police say four people are dead, and a fifth has serious injuries, following a suspected high-speed crash involving an electric vehicle on Thursday.
Police said the crash happened just after midnight involving a 2024 Tesla travelling eastbound on Lake Shore Boulevard East near Cherry Street.
Duty Inspector Phillip Sinclair said the Tesla was travelling at a high rate of speed when the driver lost control and struck a guardrail and then crashed into a concrete pillar. The vehicle also caught on fire.
There were five people inside the car — three men aged 26, 29, and 32 and two women aged 30 and 25. Sinclair said four of them died at the scene while the fifth, the 25-year-old woman, was pulled out. She is expected to survive.
Paramedics said that woman was taken to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Sinclair clarified that a motorist passing by stopped to help and was able to pull a woman out of the vehicle.
“Very heartbreaking incident,” said Sinclair. “Four lives were lost. Sympathy goes out to those who were directly affected.”
Toronto Fire said there was a large fire from the collision.
“Upon arrival, our first-in crews reported a significant fire. Our crews worked to quickly extinguish the fire,” Toronto Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop said. “Our crews noted a number of persons inside the vehicle.”
Jessop said the four bodies were extricated by firefighters and are now with the coroner’s office. The cause of death has not yet been determined.
He added investigators will determine the role that the fire played in this collision.
“Certainly the intensity of the fire is directly linked to the battery cells in the Tesla, but I want to be very clear, we have all attended collisions where we’ve had horrible car fires that are gasoline powered,” Jessop said in response to a reporter question about the Tesla’s battery.
Jessop also said “extra care” was needed in reopening Lake Shore Boulevard East on Thursday morning in “removing and transporting one of the battery packs that was ejected during the collision.”
“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 dumpster, covered it with sand, and we have escorted that dumpster up to a yard to make sure that it is safely disposed of,” Jessop said.
Lake Shore Boulevard was fully closed between Cherry Street and the Don Valley Parkway while police conducted their investigation. As of around 9 a.m., one lane has reopened in each direction.
“A horrible tragedy,” Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw said on Thursday, talking about the crash.
“We offer our condolences to the families that have been impacted, I just can’t imagine how difficult that is for everybody touched by that terrible tragedy.”