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

Re:Because government knows how to do anything?

[Mitchell314]

The bad wiring, the large amount of flammable materials, and 100% O2 environment was obviously an exercise in bad judgement. But the inward hatch design itself, though dangerous in hindsight, was to originally used improve safety for modules landing in the ocean. IIRC an outward opening door design almost got one of the gemini pilots killed.
But that's besides the point. The government didn't build the Apollo 1 command module, that was contracted out.

Re:Because government knows how to do anything?

[Cramer]

To be fair, they did test the flammability of the materials. They just didn't do it right... in a pressurized O2 environment. After the fire, they did the tests correctly, and to their horror, found several things to be "highly flammable". (the glue on the back of the massive amount of Velcro for one)

The inward opening hatch was to improve safety in space, where, under no circumstances do you want that door to have any way of accidentally opening.

Re:Umm 100% O2 had a reason

[Vreejack]

This is true. If you eliminate all the nitrogen from the air what is left is about three pounds of oxygen. Trouble is, they didn't use three pounds. Normally they used five pounds on space flights but apparently it was normal to flush out nitrogen by overpressuring with O2 before launch.