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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."
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
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.
Whats the rate of regular cars catching on fire vs. Teslas?
Anyone have any statistics handy?
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
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
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.
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"
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
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.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!