One of two electric cars recently purchased by Russian Internet company Yandex and available for hire to users of their Yandex.Taxi service was severely damaged in a car accident, news site RBC reported, linking to an image of the car after the accident uploaded on Instagram by user alexgregor on Wednesday.
As previously reported by RBC, two models of electric cars produced by carmaker Tesla Motors — a Tesla S and a Tesla S Performance — were made available to clients of taxi booking service Yandex.Taxi on July 9. The cars can be ordered through the Yandex.Taxi mobile app by accessing a section called “Secret” and submitting the code “yandextesla,” Yandex explains on the service’s official site. According to RBC, the cost of a ride is the same as for a regular car, starting at 199 rubles ($3.30) for the first 10 minutes.
Yandex.Taxi is one of Yandex’s most popular projects in Russia, according to RBC. In recent years the country has witnessed an increase in online taxi booking services, with companies such as Uber and Gett also competing for a share of the market.
According to data provided by the Main Directorate for Road Traffic Safety of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, more than 79,000 car accidents, causing a total of 9,712 deaths and injuring 99,740, have been registered in Russia since the beginning of the year.
Что-то пошло не так #yandextesla @yandextaxi pic.twitter.com/0RxgYVtrV5
— Artur Kasimov (@akterpnd) 29 июля 2015
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