Tesla Model S Catches Fire: Is This Tesla's 'Toyota' Moment?

cartechboy writes "A Tesla Model S was involved in an accident in Washington state on Tuesday, and the car's battery pack caught fire (with some of it caught on video). The cause of the accident is pretty clear, and Tesla issued a statement that the vehicle hit 'a large metallic object in the middle of the road.' Whether that collision immediately set off a fire in the Model S's battery pack isn't known, but a report from the Regional Fire Authority of Kent, Washington went into detail on the battery pack fire saying the car's lithium-ion battery was on fire when firefighters arrived, and spraying water on it had little effect. Firefighters switched to a dry chemical extinguisher and had to puncture numerous holes into the battery pack to extinguish it completely. Aside from the details of how the battery fire happened and was handled, the big question is what effect it will have on how people view Teslas in the near and middle-term. Is this Tesla's version of 2010's high profile Prius recall issue where pundits and critics took the opportunity to stir fears of the cars new technology?"

Comments

Re:Big Oil is Dancing

[hairyfeet]

Meh if you are rich enough to have an expensive toy like the Tesla then you are rich enough to pay higher insurance premiums for burning batteries.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, and I don't care which side you are on in the AGW debate as this would be a beneficial change to BOTH sides, lowering dependence on foreign oil for the right and cutting down on greenhouse gasses for the left but if you REALLY want to make a difference? $60K-$200K electric toys for the rich is NOT gonna do it.

What would really change the game is a "people's car/truck" that gets a minimum of 40MPG, runs on diesel so that you can easily switch them to biodiesel down the line, and which costs less than 25K and follow it up with a government subsidy program that would allow even the poorest American to own one. You look at the national MPG right now and its a lousy 14MPG and that is because the poor can't afford to get rid of their old gas guzzlers, you get all those late 90s/early 2Ks gas hogs off the road? Watch the output of greenhouse gasses and oil imports drop like a stone. Then we can work on algae based biodiesel to take the output of factories and turn it into fuel, lowering our emissions even further.

All these electric cars are frankly toys, the high cost of battery replacement means they won't be worth shit on the used car market so they will never end up in the hands of the working poor, which as i pointed out above use the most gas, most poor folks don't have garages and so the major shifts in temp for summer and winter will kill the batteries that much quicker, and if the government wasn't subsidizing the hell out of them they would make zero economic sense. The whole thing is just a bad idea and I have yet to see a study taking the ENTIRE cost, from mining to disposal, into account and I have a feeling that the reason i haven't is because if one were to take in the costs of the entire lifecycle of the vehicle then your average small car like a Focus or Civic would probably end up being more green than the electrics. Lets face it guys, the tech? Its just not there yet to make a pure electric car or even a hybrid a long term viable replacement for the traditional vehicle.