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Owner of Battery Fire Tesla Vehicle: Car 'Performed Very Well, Will Buy Again'
cartechboy writes "The Tesla Model S fire that, to date, is either electric car Armageddon or 'no big deal' has been fun Internet theatre combined with a dose of crowd-sourced battery-pack pseudo-expertise. Now the actual car owner (and Tesla investor) weighs in with his take, which is, basically, 'nothing to see here and yes, I can't wait to get back into a Tesla.' Owner Robert Carlson wrote an email in response to contact by Tesla's vice president of sales and service, Jerome Guillen, saying he found the car had 'performed very well under such an extreme test. The batteries went through a controlled burn which the Internet images really exaggerates.' Carlson had no comment on the guy who videoed his car fire, who is now Internet infamous for shooting video in portrait mode." You can read Elon Musk's take, along with Carlson's correspondence.
It's powered by flaming batteries.
For the love of all things holy, can camera software / smartphone software detect if the user has _initiated_ the recording rotated and adapt appropriately?
Alternatively, can we get some simple, easy software which rotates video easily? Pictures are a breeze, video seemingly not. It's 2013 already!
I know this will probably get lost in the comments but, when my mom isn't home I like to go into her garden, cover myself in dirt, and pretend I'm a carrot.
Funny, that's how you were conceived.
Car fires tend to be pretty spectacular... gasoline is quite flammable.
In fact, it's exactly the same tech. Tesla uses laptop batteries for their vehicles.
... I guess they really are just like all the other cars out there.
A car that can't suddenly roast its occupants in an explosion should be regarded as a step forwards. Don't forget how dangerous it is to travel at speed in a vehicle that carries both a tank of highly volatile liquid and an engine that, even when functioning properly, turns 70-75% of that potential energy into heat.
Only in vapor form. You can put out a match by dipping it in gasoline. That's part of the reason gasoline is such a good vehicle fuel.
Good luck having a condition where you have spilled liquid gasoline but no gasoline vapor, which is QUITE flammable.
Gasoline was chosen as a vehicle fuel because once upon a time it was a waste product of kerosene production, so it was cheap and plentiful. The advantage it had was being VERY VOLATILE - easily evaporating into the air to form an explosive mixture. A carburetor does not need to "condition" it at all, just deliver a carefully controlled dose. Because of this you could produce an internal combustion engine without the need for a fuel injection system like diesel engines required, and with a lower compression ratio, so the engines would be simpler, lighter and faster. Less efficient, too, but who really cared when the fuel was so cheap?
=Smidge=
My neighbor's truck caught fire shortly after he parked it. Problem was a fuel pump which did not shut down properly, and continued to pump fuel to a hot engine with a leak on the fuel injector rail.
Things went from bad to worse very fast.
He was able to push the thing into the middle of the street while it was in the infancy of the burn stage.
During the height of the burn, all of the neighbors were out with their garden hoses trying to keep the gasoline down, but kinda useless... the tank overheated, ruptured, and sent a small stream of ignited gasoline down the street. Of course, everybody moved their cars pronto. The gasoline went on into the gutter and went underground - what happened to it down there is anyone's guess, but it was well lit and smoked a lot down there.
Point I am trying to make is that when the energy which was intended to move a car and its passengers hundreds of miles is released in the space of a few minutes, the results can be spectacular, and destructive.
The fact the car did not literally explode says a heck of a lot.
Try heating it. If you want to see a spectacular fire have an ignition source near gasoline that has been heated. a good car fire is highly dangerous because the gasoline starts to boil at only 120 degrees F. and once it is boiling you can easily get the whole tank of fuel to the superheated vapor point by 200 degrees, easily achieved in a car fire. At that point if you release the pressure of the container and the WHOLE LIQUID MASS will nearly instantly vaporize.
That is the nice fireball you get. Gasoline is a good vehicle fuel because it's dirt cheap and easy to make, it's not because it is incredibly safe.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
We've told you a million times: Don't exaggerate!
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes they can. In fact pick any car and I can get it to catch fire by driving it over a single metal object.
The metal object will be a puddle of molten stainless at 3000 degrees, the car will almost instantly burst into flames.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You can put out a match by dipping it in gasoline.
....Maybe, if you're very quick. But the gasoline would be giving off vapor upwards, which the match would run into downwards. I've seen the old "dip your hand in water and you can dunk it in liquid lead" trick, but this sounds more like that "heat up a spoon with duck tape around the handle then put it in cold water*" cruel prank.
*do NOT attempt!
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
The car catching fire is pretty bad, but at least the car's owner didn't get electrocuted. Now *that* would have been a shocker.
I can almost verify this; I was riding along one day (2003 BMW K1200GT) and suddenly my pant leg was saturated with cold fluid.
I quickly pulled over, and yep, it was gasoline... luckily, luiquid form and rapidly evaporating without a ready ignition source.
The bike has never been in an accident, it's been well taken care of - but the fuel lines were obviously not up to the task of carrying gasoline!
A carburetor does not need to "condition" it at all, just deliver a carefully controlled dose.
A gasoline engine with a carburetor runs on air-fuel mixture, not on gas. If you pour gas down the inlet manifold, the engine stops. The carburetor "conditions" the gasoline by mixing it with air in ratio that is prescribed for the given mode (vacuum, RPM, gas pedal, etc. - as many variables as you have money for.) The later carburetors, before they got obsoleted, were quite complex.
Only in vapor form. You can put out a match by dipping it in gasoline. That's part of the reason gasoline is such a good vehicle fuel. It has to be conditioned in a carburetor or a fuel injection system to be very volatile so it's fairly safe as a fuel.
Yes, you can put out a match in gasoline (petrol), but you have to be quick about it. If there's enough vapor about it will certainly go PHOOM!
I've seen plenty of regular cars burning by the side of the road, without even the benefit of striking or being struck by another vehicle. And when the gas tanks begin to boil, that's when the fire fighters are very circumspect about getting near one as an exploding tank can fling flaming fuel for a large radius.
In contrast, this Tesla car fire is dullsville.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Till they fixed this problem I certainly will stay away from any Nvidia product.
The article linked to a letter from Elon Musk. In it he wrote:
"When the fire department arrived, they observed standard procedure, which was to gain access to the source of the fire by puncturing holes in the top of the battery's protective metal plate and applying water. For the Model S lithium-ion battery, it was correct to apply water (vs. dry chemical extinguisher), but not to puncture the metal firewall, as the newly created holes allowed the flames to then vent upwards into the front trunk section of the Model S. Nonetheless, a combination of water followed by dry chemical extinguisher quickly brought the fire to an end."
You should probably know what you're talking about before stating that as fact.
Musk's bottom line is the accident outside Seattle that caused the Model S sedan and its battery pack to go up in smoke would have been far worse had it been a conventional gasoline-powered car. "Had a conventional gasoline car encountered the same object on the highway, the result could have been far worse," Musk, who is also CEO of rocket maker SpaceX, writes on Tesla blog. Just as authorities have reported, he says the Model S struck a "large metal object" as it traveled at highway speeds. It went under the car and struck with a force "on the order of 25 tons." He says the estimate is based on the result: a 3-inch hole through armor plate that compromised the car's battery pack. But from there, he says everything went as it should. The car's "onboard alert system" directed to the driver to stop and get out. The fire was contained by firewalls within the battery pack. Vents in the pack directed the flames down and away from the vehicle. The fire department followed the correct procedure in trying to deal with the fire by puncturing holes in a protective plate and shooting water into the pack. If the same accident had occurred under a conventional car, the thin metal shielding around the gas tank or tubing could have caused gasoline to pool and burn the entire car to the ground. "In contrast, the combustion energy of our battery pack is only about 10% of the energy contained in a gasoline tank and is divided into 16 modules with firewalls in between. As a consequence, the effective combustion potential is only about 1% that of the fuel in a comparable gasoline sedan," Musk writes. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/10/04/elon-musk-tesla-fire/2924423/
Yay uninformed internet conservative!
Duck brand tape is the original tape, capable of being used under water. Originally made for the military. Duct tape is the name given to knockoffs to avoid trademark problems. It's not well suited for use on duct work. So, the previous poster specified duck tape because that's the original, and more correct term.
Search "car fire 2013 -race" About 1,740,000 results.
Eliminates motor sports car fires.
Yes, the burning Tesla is on the first page. However, you could spend the rest of your life just watching all the non-Tesla burning car videos for just one year.
So why is one Tesla on fire such a hot item?
Why is Snark Required?
Here is some interesting information on car fires from the US Fire Administration (USFA->FEMA->DHS) and the National Fire Protection Association.
From 2008-2010 "Approximately one in seven fires responded to by fire departments across the nation is a highway vehicle fire. This does not include the tens of thousands of fire department responses to highway vehicle accident sites.". The leading factors in ignition where "mechanical failure" (44.1%) and "electrical failure" (22.3%). 1
The actual number of highway car fires in that period was approximately 582,000, or an average of over 500 car fires every day on American highways.2
In this accident which involved an electric car a large piece of sparking metal debris was run over by the car and thrown up with enough force to slice through the cars stored energy compartment, in this case one of the batteries. The driver was alerted via the display to a problem and instructed to pull over immediately due to the fact that one of the batteries was now leaking and smoldering. A short time later the burning ember reached critical temperature and was able to ignite the softer materials in the adjoining 'frunk', the carpeted front side trunk located where most cars have an engine. The other 15 battery compartments, having not been skewered by a giant metal spike, remained unharmed due to the firewalls and other protection, as did the passenger compartment.
If the owner had been driving a gas powered car and that metal spike had instead been driven up into the gas tank, ripping it open and showering the fuel with sparks as it was dragged along the highway, would the driver have had any warning other than a loud bump and then the passenger compartment being consumed by flames?
This is not the first Tesla fire, there was another involving the Roadster resulting in a recall of 439 vehicles. The source of the fire in that instance was not the advanced battery at all, it was one of the old style 12V lines (Tesla vehicles still include a regular 12V battery for lights/instruments and 'ignition') being in a bad position near a headlight and susceptible to damage that could spark a fire. Going back to the statistics above we have over 100 car fires each day (22.3% of 500) caused by those 12V wires and components being damaged and shorting out. For example Honda recalled over 140,000 (non-hybrid) Fits in the US this year because the wiring in a 12V door switch could get wet, short out and start a fire. GM had the same problem last year and had to recall almost half a million vehicles.
Well, you can run an ICE just fine by pouring gas down the intake manifold. When I was younger and stupider, I did that with my ancient Oldsmobile. Yes, it required a bit of subtlety, but not as much as you'd expect.
Carburetors got quite complex because people expected perfect engine response, at all throttle settings, at environmental conditions ranging from startup at 10,000 feet in the winter to running below sea level at 120 degrees F in the summer, and the government expected minimal emissions in all those situations. But, basic though inefficient operation can be accomplished with a straw and a gas reservoir.
And the worms ate into his brain.
And this is why IMR and LiFePO4 are displacing LiCo chemistries - the oxygen is better contained. LiCo batteries evolve oxygen gas when heated, making their failure spectacular, violent, and when packed in metal cans, very nearly a detonation. LiNiCo offers some advantage in stability, without sacrificing the energy density that keeps people using LiCo. IMR (lithium manganese spinel) is very stable, requiring an external heat source or abuse like short-circuiting to fail spectacularly. They can also deliver more current, since LiCo is limited by how fast you can draw them down without making them likely to blow up by forming metallic lithium inside the cell. LiFePO4 store less energy still, but can deliver thick chewy amps because of its stability.
As I understand it, no electric cars use the old LiCo chemistry, or we'd have seen a far more exciting fire in this Tesla.
If you're planning on putting matches out by throwing them into the gas tank, gasoline is just the BEST vehicle fuel. Plus, it's so cheap and easily obtainable. You can just back your car up to those gasoline lakes and fill 'er up.
But it's good to know I can throw a match into the gas tank and be perfectly safe. That's probably why internal combustion cars never catch fire.
Clearly, this Tesla fire is proof that electric cars can never work.
You are welcome on my lawn.
When you consider that only a dozen gallons of it contains enough energy to transport a vehicle loaded to 3,000 lbs over 400 miles, it's hard to imagine getting any similar amount of energy into a container and not have be incredibly dangerous.
Solar panel. *ducks*
The original tape was just rubber adhesive applied to a type of waterproof canvas called "duck cloth". Hence "duck tape".
The modern plastic-coated cloth tape is correctly called "duct tape", which is the industry it comes from. Although, just to confuse things further, they don't use duct-tape to tape ducts any more, they use much thinner silver plastic tape. So you can buy "Duck Brand Duct Tape" which is neither duck tape nor duct tape.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I actually drove right by a vehicle fire today, on the 51 freeway in north Phoenix, around maybe 7th ave or so. It was a 90s-model Chevy pickup truck, with the engine compartment and front tires on fire (smelled fantastic, by the way). The thing I thought most impressive was that the lighted sign only about a mile before it already said there was a vehicle fire ahead, but when I got there it seemed like it had only started minutes before because of how small it was (hell, the tires hadn't even popped yet), and the fire truck didn't even have any people outside of it. I thought that it was really efficient for those lighted sign people to get that up so quick, they're really on the ball. I thought the government was shut down, but I still get a helpful sign that says there's a vehicle fire ahead, presumably at the base of the column of black smoke that I can clearly see.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I have a question: Why do you need a 3,000 lb vehicle to transport you to the grocery store and back?
What a troll question as he was obviously using the weight and distance as an example of energy density. But you just have to make this about something other than the safety of gasoline and/or electric vehicles, don't you?
Now I have a question: How much gasoline does it take to push a 3,000 lb agenda?
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
Well considering that he has a degree in Physics, specifically material physics, and was planning to earn his PhD in Applied Physics (with a focus on advanced batteries), and he probably has a better understanding of how the batteries on the Model S are designed, I'll take his word on what the correct procedure is for extinguishing his batteries
I once saw a car running on propane with the hose from the propane tank poked into the carburetor.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Here's another one: why do you live 400 miles from a grocery store?
I get your sarcasm clearly, but why does everyone think local and state government has shutdown just because the federals have? City, county and state should still be running in a federal shutdown, unless they've taken the opportunity to grab a vacation and blame it on the feds.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
What a stupid post. It is no-brainers like you that shut down the government to make a point.
Listen, probably anyone who buys a Tesla also invests in companies including Tesla, because they like it and believe in it.
The best electric car in the world.
If you read the blog post, you can see that even though an L shaped piece of metal levered up and punctured quarter inch armor (which ordinary cars don't even have), the engineering design worked perfectly, flame was compartmentalized and directed downward, no flame entered the passenger compartment, and total combustible power was 1% of an ordinary car. Even after being punctured, instead of exploding the vehicle told the driver to get off the road and exit the vehicle. That's a smart car! And the company dealt with him very professionally too.
In the end, you are just a FUD-monger subhuman and your posts are not worth the electricity it takes to read your drivel and I ask you politely to get off slashdot and crawl back into your asshole. The rest of us want to work hard, do a good job, and make enough money to buy one one day.
Incidentally although I have not invested in Tesla and don't even have a car I have gotten in one and had a salesman give me a test drive.
The car is fricking awesome. It was built by an awesome businessman who took his money and built yet another one or two awesome things with that. This story is so high in the stratosphere above your grimy imaginings I don't expect you to understand, I just hate the idea of your poison leaching out of your septic tank into the wide world.
From what I understand, the point of the whole "hot spoon with duct tape" thing is not that it's supposed to explode, but rather that it's a cruel prank to heat up the duct tape's adhesive without the person realizing it before it sticks to and burns their hand. That video author "cheats" by holding it with a cloth, rather than gripping the duct tape directly. Of course the spoon doesn't explode, as some people claim. That still doesn't mean you should be doing it, since there's something else going on that's potentially dangerous.
Not really. Duck tape was actually a generic term from early in the 20th century coming from duck cloth to a variety of strip products using duck cloth backing, some with adhesive, some not.. It fell out of use and was trademarked first in the 1970s, after ductape in fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape
it's hard to imagine getting any similar amount of energy into a container and not have be incredibly dangerous.
Your imagination must not be very good then. Diesel for one is substantially less volatile than gasoline and actually has a higher energy density too.
And if you want to move into the realm of impractical for cars, then you could go for #6 fuel oil.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The Duck brand has nothing to do with the early history of the tape. The whole story is covered in duct tape. The first duck tape was developed by Revolite. The name "duck" was a mix of being made from cotton duck, named based on the "Dutch word doek, which refers to a linen canvas once used for sailors’ white trousers and outerwear", and that the resulting product had a duck-like resistance to water.
"Ductape" was the originally trademarked name for a heat-resistant version of the tape sold for duct work, developed by a different company.
The Duck brand is the current owner of the original tape design. But they didn't acquire that name until almost 50 years after the "duck cotton" name started.
I'm guessing he's relying on his engineers and not shooting from the hip, regardless.
My bicycle doesn't violate any federal safety standards, and it only weighs about 20lbs.
My motorcycle also complies with all federal safety standards, and it weighs less than 1/4 of an average automobile.
My question is, "Why do we need cars the size of locomotives to bring the kids to school or to go shopping?"
You are welcome on my lawn.
I understand your reasoning. But it's kind of a good argument for Federal fuel economy standards, isn't it?
There's no incentive for car manufacturers to make lighter vehicles, so it will never happen. Plus, you have people who want to drive locomotives because fuck you that's why.
The only reason we're going to break the cycle of cars getting bigger and heavier is to set some standards. Because even if gas goes to $20/gallon, there's going to be some rich prick who says, "I need my 8,000 lb SUV because I'm the biggest dog on the block". So now everybody else has to get a bigger car so they're safe from John Galt in the SUV. In the meantime, all that weight causes the roads to breakdown sooner, which we've all got to pay for and all the other external costs like pollution and the wars that are necessary to keep a steady supply of cheap gasoline coming.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's safe until you burn it. Then it changes the composition of the atmosphere. Safety is not guaranteed at that point.
I carry >$100 worth of groceries home on my bike regularly. Got these nifty snap-on panniers and handlebar basket.
I'm not against driving cars. We own two. My point is that we don't all need to be driving >3000lb cars and nobody needs to be driving an 8000lb SUV unless they're using it for business.
This notion of "My family is much more valuable than any other family so I have to buy an SUV as big as a locomotive so that if there's an accident I can be sure whoever had the misfortune of being rear-ended by my wife pays the ultimate price.
Monday, when you're commuting to work, count the number of large SUVs on the highway with only a single passenger - the driver.
You are welcome on my lawn.