Tesla Fires and Firestorms: Let's Breathe and Review Some Car Fire Math

cartechboy writes "There are about 150,000 vehicle fires reported every year in the U.S. — about 17 every hour, on average. But when that vehicle fire is a Tesla, the Internet notices. There have now been three fires among roughly 20,000 Tesla Model S electric cars on the road so far. The stock is down, the Feds are asking questions and the Internet is swimming in Tesla news. It may be time to check the facts and review some math (hint: we're looking at roughly one fire for every 33 million miles driven so far) and then breathe. Then look at what we know, what we don't know, and what we should know."

Comments

Re:Thank you for the submission

[Anonymous Coward]

You're welcome Mr. Exxon.

Re:American cars in general...

[Megane]

Nope, Italian cars (Ferrari, Lambo) are the top car for catching fire! I know because I heard it on Jalopnik!

Let them hype all they want

[Tmack]

Makes the stock cheaper for me to buy. Once they figure it out and it recovers, $$$

-T

Re:TFA is a Tesla PR piece

[LifesABeach]

Ya know, I feel real bad for the folks at Tesla, I'd like to volunteer my help to them. I'm offering to test drive a fully equipped Tesla to work, every day just so that Tesla can get some hard evidence of how their cars hold up under I405 traffic conditions. I see one to two car on semi accidents a day, my commute would make an excellent test environment. I will also offer to bring a fire extinguisher just in case something unforeseen happens. I know that the Tesla folks would want to see the initial damage without other damage occurring.