Third Tesla Fire Means Feds To Begin Review

cartechboy writes "In early October, a Tesla caught on fire in Washington state — and that created a little bit of a stir. Then just before Halloween a second Tesla caught fire. Yesterday, a third Model S caught fire in Tennessee. With the third fire in the books, all happening in similar fashion, today federal investigators are saying they are going to take a look at the situation more closely. As electric car maker's stock shares continue to tumble, some are saying the fires aren't a big deal."

Comments

LOL Tesla

[Anonymous Coward]

But I thought fuel cells were what was unsafe not Tesla cars? Isn't that what Musk wanted us all to believe?

Re:LOL Tesla

[NettiWelho]

Whats the rate of regular cars catching on fire vs. Teslas?

Anyone have any statistics handy?

Re:LOL Tesla

[ColdWetDog]

Listen to fire department radio traffic in any medium to large city and you will undoubtedly hear calls for car fire on a regular basis. Most of those are the result of poorly maintained, older vehicles - fifteen year old cars that have never had any fuel lines inspected, much less replaced. A few accidents spark fires, but that isn't common. Newer vehicles, not so much.

Too early to tell if there is some inherent problem with the Tesla, but it certainly warrants an independent review.

Re:LOL Tesla

[Grishnakh]

The third accident link is nothing more than some incomprehensible Twitter gibberish rather than a real article, but for the first two fires, each one involved a serious, high speed collision, which in most gas cars probably would have resulted in injuries for the driver or worse. In both cases, the driver walked away even though the battery pack caught fire (which did not spread to the passenger compartment).

This is much ado about nothing.

Re:LOL Tesla

[Kilo Kilo]

I've seen relatively new cars catch fire while parked. It happens more often than most people think. A quick google image search for "car fire" will show a bunch of cars either parked or sitting on the side of the road without any visible damage (aside from the fire of course). My fire dept has gotten called out a few times for a "car fire extending to the house" because a parked car burst into flames for whatever reason.

However, my experience doesn't mean that there isn't something wrong with the Tesla, just that I wouldn't be surprised if an investigation didn't find anything.

Also, Tesla does have an emergency response guide and Fire Dept's need to start reading up on these cars. It even has a nice little note at the bottom of the pages reminding us to wear our goddamned SCBA at a car fire.

Re:LOL Tesla

[Nethemas the Great]

How many people have been injured in a Tesla? Would a fellow that runs a successful rocket company not know a little something about hydrogen? You have done nothing to invalidate Elon's claims.

Re: LOL Tesla

[Albinoman]

Go to Youtube and watch the video of him taking a camera crew on a tour of SpaceX. He litterally walks through saying what components are and what their function is in the big picture. I doubt any other CEO or the head of NASA could do that. Best part is none of it is patented. So yeah, he probably knows more than you about hydrogen. Besides, you'd still have to get around the problem of hydrogen making steel brittle.

Re: LOL Tesla

[Albinoman]

You're twisting the truth a little. This last fire is a twitter pic and the car has obviously been in an accident, that's it. The first was the puncture we all know about. The second was a guy who went through a concrete barrier and hit a tree. In both of those the passengers walked away, an impressive feat for the second one.

Point is there's been nothing "spontaneous" about these fires. If anything it shows a great track record for protecting the passengers.

Gasoline is FAR safer

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK there are only 15,000 car fires per year (discounting arson). Obviously gasoline is safer.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120919132719/http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/894/FireStatisticsUnitedKingdom2003PDF1724Kb_id1124894.pdf

Re:Gasoline is FAR safer

[ShanghaiBill]

In the UK there are only 15,000 car fires per year (discounting arson).

The important metric is not "car fires per year" but "car-fires-causing-serious-injury-or-death per mile(or km)-driven".

Re:Gasoline is FAR safer

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK

Nobody cares about that stupid CCTV ridden country.

Probably not a big deal?

[reiserifick]

Model S fires are extremely photogenic, but as far as I can tell, all three of these fires involved debris (or firefighters) puncturing the battery shield and hitting the battery, rather than something spontaneous. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'd hazard a guess that the results would have been similar with a gasoline powered car.

Re:Probably not a big deal?

[brainboyz]

That's my thinking as well. They've got a 1/4" plate of steel shielding the battery, but there's a lot of force involved in hitting stationary objects at speed. That's like blaming standard car design when debris severs a fuel line and ends up pouring fuel all over the exhaust manifold, or cracking the oil pan to similar effect.

Hitting things in your car is dangerous, news at 11.

There will *always* be a fire risk

[NewtonsLaw]

Whenever you store a lot of energy in a small space and have the potential for rapid release then there will always be a fire risk.

Gasoline, electricity, kinetic energy -- it all poses a fire risk in the event of an uncontrolled release of that energy.

If you want 100% safety then walk.

Uh-oh, I forgot about the risk of spontaneous human combustion!

We're stuffed!

Damn, they even confiscated my asbestos underwear!

What are we to do now?

Re:Because government knows how to do anything?

[Dunbal]

They were good enough to burn the crew of Apollo 1 to death, too. I'm sorry but what is with all this fed worship coming from the US lately? You guys want big, central government? Be careful what you wish for...

Established car companies offering all electrics..

[perpenso]

So now feds are the experts on high-tech cars?

Someone is sure an expert on electric car fires, gas car competitors?

Those competitors are also offering all electric vehicles:
General Motors: Spark
Ford: Focus
Fiat (Chrysler): 500e
Toyota: RAV 4
Honda: Fit
Nissan: Leaf

Re:Compare the Right Stats

[Flere Imsaho]

The difference here is that the Tesla's didn't crash, they ran over something.

"This was a significant accident where the car was travelling at such a high speed that it smashed through a concrete wall and then hit a large tree, yet the driver walked away from the car with no permanent injury.”

Slashdot - "We don' need no stinking facts"

Re:Because government knows how to do anything?

[TubeSteak]

As opposed to a country without a government agency to review poor product designs and force recalls in the interest of public safety?

You want small, decentralized government? History already shows us what a shit show that was.