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Third Tesla Fire Means Feds To Begin Review

Posted by samzenpus on from the some-like-it-hot dept.

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."

7 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Probably not a big deal? by reiserifick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Probably not a big deal? by brainboyz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. Re:LOL Tesla by NettiWelho · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    Anyone have any statistics handy?

  3. Re:Gasoline is FAR safer by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".

  4. Re:LOL Tesla by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re: LOL Tesla by Albinoman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Because government knows how to do anything? by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!