California man alleges Tesla Model Y roof ‘fell off’ on highway

A California man says he had just picked up his brand new Tesla but only made it a few kilometres before it had to be returned.

A California man’s time as a Tesla owner appears to have been short lived after the roof of his brand new car allegedly came off as he drove it home.

The man’s son Nathaniel rode along in case his father needed help with the computers when he picked up the hi-tech new car valued at $US49.990 ($A69,500), but the car allegedly had a big issue Nathaniel was not equipped to deal with.

“Everything was going fine and we were driving back home when we started to hear a ton of wind,” Nathaniel wrote on Reddit.

“I thought maybe a window was open but a minute later the entire glass roof just blew off,” he said.

“After a brief panic we turned around and drove the new Tesla convertible back to the dealership.”

After sharing his story on Reddit several commenters encouraged him to make a Twitter account and post it at Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is a big user of the platform.

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Hey @elonmusk why didn't you tell us that Tesla sells convertibles now? Because the roof of our brand new model Y fell off on the highway pic.twitter.com/s8YNnu7m9L

— Nathaniel (@TheNastyNat) October 5, 2020

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Tesla has sold the convertible Roadster in the past, but none of its currently ranged vehicles are convertible.

The Model Y purchased by Nathaniel’s dad that allegedly lost its roof is supposed to have a single piece of glass the covers the top of the vehicle, and with it gone the entirety of the car is exposed to the elements.

“The manager at the dealership said that either the seal for the roof was faulty, or the factory just … forgot to seal the roof on?” Nathaniel alleged.

“I can’t imagine how something as big as the roof not being attached could make it past quality control,” he wrote.

A second image posted by Nathaniel from the outside of the car.

One Reddit user who claimed to own a glass shop said he had seen Tesla windshields that were only half glued in from the factory.

Another commented that the glass is probably glued in with a robotic arm, which might have run out of glue and kept going through the motions regardless.

After Nathaniel made the Twitter account just to share the short video, some Tesla fans were quick to call it a fake.

“You can believe what you want but this happened,” Nathaniel wrote in a follow up tweet.

He said they didn’t have footage from the car’s “Sentry mode” because they’d just picked it up and hadn’t set up the feature yet.

He also said taking photos and videos to prove the incident happened wasn’t at the front of his mind as the incident unfolded because he was “too busy panicking to get a good picture”.

Tesla has not commented publicly.

Elon Musk has tweeted multiple times since the video was posted but has not addressed it.