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Man In Tesla Model S Fire Explains What Happened
An anonymous reader writes "The three recent Tesla fires have raised concerns with a lot of people. One person who isn't concerned, however, is Juris Shibayama, the man whose model S burned in Tennessee. He says: 'I would buy another one in a heartbeat.' From the article: 'Shibayama said that he struck a three-pronged trailer hitch in the middle lane of the interstate. He continued: "About 30-45 seconds later, there was a warning on the dashboard display saying, 'Car needs service. Car may not restart.' I continued to drive, hoping to get home. About one minute later, the message on the dashboard display read, 'Please pull over safely. Car is shutting down.'" He said he had time to remove his possessions, even though, he said: "About 5-10 seconds after getting out of the car, smoke started to come from the front underbody of the car."'"
I've know two people had trucks catch fire in the last year or so.... A Chevy Silverado and a Ford F150. You know what stupid things they did to cause this? One was parked in the driveway outside his house the other was being driven down the interstate.... Where's the relentless news coverage on these incidents? Even better is the response from the companies, for letters stating it was not their fault.
That being said, 1 in 6300 is a lot. We should develop safer battery systems for these cars.
Oh right let's see. The battery is protected by a thick steel plate that was punctured by ridiculously heavy road debris--you know, ramming into shit with your car is a bad idea. There was the one in Mexico that hit a concrete wall at 100mph and caught fire too. Don't know about contestant #3.
The battery compartment is thermally isolated from the car. There's firewalls.
The batteries have a dense thermoreactive foam around each cell. When the battery catches fire, every heat-damaged cell (primarily the burning ones) releases a thick insulative foam that prevents heat from damaging the other cells and causing a bigger fire. This also protects the passenger compartment.
So far they haven't EXPLODED INTO GIANT FIREBALLS.
How much safer do you want it?
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