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With Burning Teslas In the News Ford Recalls Almost 140,000 Escapes
An anonymous reader writes "Tesla received a lot of attention over the Model S fires recently, but they're not the only car company having issues with spontaneous combustion. Ford has issued a recall on almost 140,000 Ford Escapes for potential engine fires. With little media attention on the recall, Musk might have a point about the unfair treatment Tesla gets in the news."
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
You can always tell a pioneer by the arrows in his back.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
You're shifting it wrong!
Nope. Its been brought up hundreds of times before on /, and I've been assured by liberals that any bias I hear in the media is my own imagination, except Fox News. Since Fox isn't the only ones doing Tesla fire stories I can assure you that there is no bias in this and the Ford story must be a non-story.
Is it possible to get a +5 flamebait?
Of course Tesla is getting lots of press, it's because electric cars are new. People (especially Americans) do not like change, they assume that the old way is the best way. With every new technology, you'll have those old bastards still crying about how their gas engines never did this (Even though they do, and on a much larger scale).
The same press will plague the driverless car. Once one or two accidents happen the media will be in an uproar and so will the populace.
Maybe the media scrutiny is that Tesla's actually caught fire, and Ford is proactively recalling because there is a potential fire?
With little media attention on the recall, Musk might have a point about the unfair treatment Tesla gets in the news.
Well you haven't factored in that with a name like "Escape", you know the outcome of any fires will be fine. No such assurance strapping yourself into something named after a guy who lit 200 lightbulbs from a power source 26 miles away.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One would almost think Musk had poured every dime he owned into Tesla and was in a bitter battle against an entrenched and corrupt industry. ... oh wait.
More like, "A neanderthal ICE lover gets angry at progress."
Who cares if Elon Musk could have a talking point. Who would care if Musk made the point?
Ford is doing a voluntary recall after 12 fires in just under 150,000 vehicles, or 0.008% of vehicles sold. Tesla is not doing a recall after 3 fires in @ 20,000 vehicles sold, or 0.015% of vehicles sold. Why is the different media attention any surprise?
You got me.
I love internal combustion engines and hate electric cars
my blood boils at the thought of internal combustion engines being displaced as the standard power plant for consumer vehicles
I really give a shit about this stuff
I have no job and jerk off to photos of Etienne Lenoir in my basement
my live revolves around my love for the internal combustion engine
Puncture either, problems ensue. 3 fires due to punctured battery don't exactly make a car "unsafe at any speed" like the Pinto, Mustang, etc.
Ford will recall and repair 139,917 cars because of 12 fires. Tesla downplays battery fires.
Ford has to physically implement a fix for the cars in question.
Telsa, in theory, has reduced the risk via software patch that makes the car rider higher at speed (to the annoyance of some owners).
Personally I think Telsa should also probably figure out some kind of better under-armor, but it's not like they have done nothing at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
-November 26: 139,917 Ford Escape vehicles from 2013, Recalled for potential oil leaks that may cause an engine fire.
-November 18: 707,176 Chrysler vehicles from 2003-2008, including RAM 2500 4X4 and RAM 1500 Mega Cab 4X4 models, Recalled for the left tie rod assembly, which may break, causing a loss of steering.
-November 18: 265,044 Chrysler RAM 2500 4X4 and 3500 4X4 vehicles from 2008-2012, Recalled for the left tie rod assembly, which may break, causing a loss of steering.
-November 4: 344,187 Honda Odysseys from 2007-2008, Recalled for software that may cause the sudden application of the brakes without the brake lights going on, increasing the risk of a crash.
Not all are due to fire, but all are potentially fatal, and much higher number of cars recalled.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Except he hasn't poured all of his money into it. Not by a long shot. And that's before you factor in his huge US government loan.
Right, because no one can possibly disagree with anything Elon says or does without having to be a neanderthal. Get over yourself. Musk is not some martyred messiah.
You mean the one he repaid, early? Nice try. Shill.
Actually at one point he did:
"Musk said he put everything he had left into the company, even borrowing money from friends. Tesla went on to close the investment round on the last hour of the last possible day. If the fundraise hadn’t come through, the company would have gone bankrupt a few days later."
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2013/10/31/elon-musk-failure-fear/
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I am no fan of Musk or current electric cars but the fire/safety issue has been seriously overblown. More likely to catch fire in a 10 year old car by far, and as we have seen by the number of recalls posted above, many NEW vehicles have far more severe issues.
While I would not buy a current Tesla, it may be possible in the next few years to buy a hybrid that meets my needs and costs less than 25k.
And like it or not, EVERY manufacturer that is actually selling product in the electric or hybrid niches is helping to improve the products and lower the prices.
Tesla more than most.
Teslas are PROVEN to be very good cars as long as the mileage constraint doesn't impact you.
And you have enough money to help underwrite the R&D process for the rest of us.
No one is out to get him, and if the machines are as safe as he is making them out to be then that will be proven with time. For now, him and his fanatical followers need to relax.
The Ford recall is due to an improperly installed fuel line, which can split and cause a fire without warning. So far there are 12 confirmed reports of this, that does NOT include any fires which happened as a result of a collision.
The Tesla fires were ALL the result of a collision, there were only a couple of them, and no incidents of fire without a collision.
Yes, plenty of people are out to get him- the Competition is running scared. I'm by no means a "fanatical follower"... it'll be quite a while before I ever drive a pussy-mobile myself. But I'm no fan of bullshit reporting, and that's about all I'm seeing.
Get over yourself. Musk is not some martyred messiah.
Sure he is - poor guy, certainly couldn't have lived through that many people trying to crawl up his arse. Probably bled out pretty quickly, at least.
"Tesla received a lot of attention over the Model S fires recently, but they're not the only car company having issues with spontaneous combustion. Ford has issued a recall on almost 140,000 Ford Escapes for potential engine fires. With little media attention on the recall, Musk might have a point about the unfair treatment Tesla gets in the news."
How many of the Escapes have caught on fire, dumbass?
So far? Twelve.
NONE of the Tesla fires have been (as the summary claims) "spontaneous".
In addition, there's a difference between a sample size of 150k and 20k. 12 out of 150k is a much more meaningful number than 3 out of 20k. In addition, Ford has developed a physical fix, while Tesla was able to impliment a fix via software update. If they chose to follow that up with a hardware fix, that has to be designed and implimented.
Given that the incidents in question were all after collisions that probably would have totaled most vehicle anyways, and were nice enough to wait long enough for the people to evacuate the car, I'm not sure it's as serious of an issue as 'spontaneously combusts while parked'.
I don't read AC A human right
So far? Twelve.
Potentially? Statistically speaking... all of them.
Yes I want a car with a spontaneous combustion engine! It might not take me to my destination when I want it to, but it will be very exciting to drive.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
Witch Burning Teslas In the News Ford Recalls Almost 140,000 Escapes
The patch to make the car ride higher is going to mess with the handling and is probably mostly just a publicity stunt. I'd be happier if they hadn't done anything at all and just continued saying 'the car is safe, only the engine bay was damaged by the fire'.
When institutions no less esteemed than the BBC and the New York Times have done "reviews" of Tesla that were somewhere between contrived and falsified (Depending on how polite you care to be.) to make the cars look as bad as possible, I think one can forgive Musk for getting a bit defensive and even coming out swinging when under attack.
Yes, they *are* out to get him (Or at least TSLA.).
Imagine all the people...
I'm not sure. I don't quite bite. I've only seen most of the Tesla fire stories here...and most of them in defense of Tesla. However, I've seen plenty of stories about other car companies having plenty of problems everywhere. I don't think Tesla is being unfairly criticized, but I think the community that has arisen to defend them is extremely vocal...to the point that they actually make the stories about the fires more prevalent. Hell, one story here talked about how common car fires are in general, so why is this now news?
From my point of view: the people making the biggest fuss are the people who are decrying the "big fuss" around the fires. There's probably a term for this - feels, Streisandish...
Since when is paying off your government loan 9 years early a bad thing?
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/early-repayment-tesla%E2%80%99s-atvm-loan
A messiah? Hardly. Just a hard working guy who shuttles cargo and satellites to space and is revolutionizing transportation.
What did you do today?
.... hating on electric cars is illogical... worse case scenario is that you choose not to buy one. Believe me, this topic gets the best astroturfing oil money can buy.
"With little media attention on the recall, Musk might have a point about the unfair treatment Tesla gets in the news."
- Ford builds a combustion engine that relies on explosions to run.
- Tesla builds an engine which removes the need for engine combustion completely, yet, still creates an explosion and fire.
Tesla are getting the wrap they deserve. The whole idea of an electrical car is to remove the need for combustion/explosions altogether.
Whilst a engine should never "explode", a combustion engine technically is every time its running.
I really find Tesla has a childish attitude "Why do they always pick on us. Our battery life is great, your wrong, look at our internal 200 page report".
Maybe a different approach of "How can we resolve this? Lets make electric cars better" would work more in their favour?
Unexplanied fires are a matter for the courts.
Model Ssss- I mean Canyonero.
I'll buy that, but not for the reason you think.
Calling someone a hater means that you don't think they're capable of accepting rational argument. Most haters aren't capable of accepting rational argument. So, if you've applied good, solid, rational argument, and opened yourself up for rebuttal, but get nothing but hate in return, you're dealing with a hater. It may be socially frowned upon, but there really is nothing wrong with calling them out on it. They probably won't stop if you do, but they definitely won't stop if you don't.
(But be warned. Name calling is the first resort of the willfully ignorant, and the second resort of hate mongers. Most people who have called me a hater have been haters themselves. Ironic, but that's life.)
Yeah, it was happily parked, until I walked past, and laid a thermite grenade on the hood.
Your credibility (wait, AC and credibility?) takes a hit, when you claim that a parked vehicle burst into flames. I have seen a lot of vehicles on fire, but never a parked vehicle that just suddenly decided to warm itself up. I'll bet you didn't see the fire marshall's report, which probably made mention of an electronic device that was left turned on, or some other logical explanation.
I know you are bashing just for the sake of it, but here is how the last Ford recall went:
The cruise control deactivation switch was live, even when the vehicle was off. It mounts on the master cylinder. If there is a leak, which the master cylinder was prone to, then the switch would short and ignite the brake fluid, which it was prone to. This mostly happened when the vehicle was left alone, as while they were in motion the fluid could not collect.
This is a very well known thing from more than six years ago. It would behoove you to relax, think, and leave the petulant teenage angst in the past where it belongs.
Ford has to physically implement a fix for the cars in question. Telsa, in theory, has reduced the risk via software patch that makes the car rider higher at speed (to the annoyance of some owners). Personally I think Telsa should also probably figure out some kind of better under-armor, but it's not like they have done nothing at all. -- Magento Product Labels Magento One Step Checkout | Magento Gift Wrap Magento Mega Menu | Magento POS
Yes, there certainly are some "news" outlets that are paid to hate Tesla, but for most it's just:
Tesla: interesting, new, sexy; Ford: old, boring, yawn
Ford recalls 140,000 escapes
Conveniently forgets about the 200,000 that didn't escape...
.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
none of the 10x escapes have been either, there is a reason and its not a chunk of shit in the road
Ford recalled 140k cars over a couple fires ... just like Tesla had.
Musk refuses to acknowledge there even might BE a problem.
There aren't 140k Tesla's in existence in total.
Ford actually is fixing the issue. Tesla is refusing to admit there IS an issue.
The issue exists because Musk and his engineers are arrogant pricks who think they know more than they do regardless of the fact that its a brand new car company with no experience.
The Ford Escape costs $22k. The Tesla Model S ... 70k.
And one more time for those not paying attention: Ford issued a recall and is fixing the problem ... Tesla is refusing to even acknowledge the potential problem.
I don't know about you, but I'll take the guy who fixes the problem over the guy who refuses to acknowledge it exists even when he watches it happen himself on video.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The entrenched and corrupt industry ... that recalls and repairs cars that have problems.
Musk doesn't even acknowledge the problem.
Perhaps the reason he's in a battle is because he chooses to fight the wrong battles.
I'll be sure to trust the guy who tells me his cars are safe WHILE he's watching the video of the car on fire ... and tells me thats not a concern.
Musks problem's are his own. He chooses to make his life harder than it needs to be. He also chooses to not acknowledge a known issue and make any modifications other than silly token gestures, to make the car safer.
Its not a question of which car has less reported accidents only, its also a question of how they respond to issues that come up. This tells you FAR more about how the company runs internally than anything else.
What we know from Musks' response is that he has no problem overlooking issues that can entirely destroy the car AND potentially kill its occupants ... and he won't even pay us any lip service about looking at it. He just arrogantly denies its existence.
That does not make me feel safe about riding in a Tesla. We have no idea what else he just sweeps under the rug in the same way, but hasn't yet been caught on video.
Its not even a hard problem to solve in new model years, move the fucking battery pack to a location that isn't fucking retarded, like every other car manufacture who doesn't put a massive energy storage unit against the road.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The things that the two Teslas that burned out hit would have totaled any comparable sized gasoline car, likely causing hurt to the people in the car and very likely created hazardous oil spills. The people inside the car would not have had the chance to drive the car to a safe location to get out safely, but would have had to leave the car in the middle of a busy road, if they would have been able to get out at all. The chance that more vehicles would have been crashed, possibly hitting the original vehicle is quite real in such a scenario. Maybe there wouldn't have been a fire with the gasoline cars in these situation, but in terms of hazard or financial damage, the gasoline cars would most likely have been less safe and more expensive in a similar situation. Cleanup of oil spills is a lot more expensive than just putting out a fire, even if it was an electric car fire.
The third Tesla was crashed by a drunk guy and almost the entire undercarriage was knocked off. That may have not caused a fire if it had been a gasoline car, but it most certainly was not road debris.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Tesla's under armor is quarter inch aluminum plating. The only way to seriously improve on that would be to put something engine sized, shaped and weighed in the front trunk to take the blow. There are a large number of disadvantages to do so, both in daily usage and in safety. The car would be way heavier and you'd have a large lump of metal causing all sorts fo hurt and damage in case of a frontal crash. You can armor a car against all sorts of conceivable harm, but there's a practical limit. I think that Tesla thought of these scenarios and weighed out all options and scenarios and came to this compromise for a reason.
So far, the Tesla cars have worked as designed. Flames coming out may seem scary, but in reality, nobody got hurt and costs haven't been that different when compared to a similarly sized and priced gasoline car in the same situation. These cars have some rather fundamental differences to gasoline cars and we have yet to come to terms with that. If you look at statistics for gasoline cars, which have rather low standard deviations, you'd see that they aren't exactly safe in comparable crashes, nor in fire hazard safety. Because of the low number of Teslas and the short time they are around, it's extremely hard to say something statistically about them yet. All we get to read about are three crashes where they caught fire due to the battery compartment getting pierced. We have no idea how they are going to hold in the first 100000 crashes they will have, ranging from fender benders to getting squashed between two large trailers or falling off a cliff. I'm sure we'll see some things where a Tesla will do worse than the average gasoline car in those circumstances, but we'll also be seeing situations where they will be doing better. Tesla have but a lot of thought to the design of their car and they have used the possibilities of rearranging the complete propulsion to improve on safety in a lot of cases. Their simulations and internal testing have proven their choices to be the safest compromise they could come up with. So far, real world crashes have not significantly changed their safety model. There probably will be incidents in the future where they can only say "we didn't think of that", but these fires aren't one of them.
Keep in mind, cars aren't designed to be safe, they are designed to be affordable, attractive, profitable and pass mandatory safety tests. Ralph Nadar changed that perspective momentarily, but we've only been going through small iterations in safety regulations since that. Car companies mostly have been improving as a reaction to those iterations. Only a few car companies have actively been improving their designs without the pressure of regulations or comparative crash tests. Most companies will only test cars to give good results in common tests that they know their vehicle will be rated on. Once they receive a good or excellent grade in those tests, they're done. They know how to improve safety on their vehicles, but they can't justify the cost of that because they won't be able to recuperate those in a higher sales price. A good example of this is Saab. They lost, because they couldn't make their cars competitively priced, even though they were safer in a lot of circumstances. People just aren't aware, or not prepared to pay for the extra safety. Maybe it's time another Ralph Nader would submit the 50 most popular cars on the road this day to a 55mph rear impact, or a t-bone. Even the regular sized dummies have a very low survival rate in such crashes. Car companies know how to make those crashes survivable, they prepare their race cars in such a way that almost always, inhabitants of those can just walk away from such crashes. Maybe they should start testing with real world testing dolls. Use the extremes of the human physique to test with so you can assume that anybody in between those extremes will be safe. A non-overweight 5.5-6ft doll might not get hurt in a crash, but over 50% of inhabitants of vehicles are so far from that, that they will get hurt in a sim
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Toyota gets the shaft - silly Amelicans!
Happened when I was at primary school. Something shorted out and started a fire and burnt several cars.
IIRC E36 BMW coupes caught fire occasionally because the cabling into the boot(trunk) lid would get brittle over time and split when it was flexed. In mine it manifested itself as the central locking failing because some wires shorted out. I'd imagine there's a sensor for the alarm, or supply for the central locking that's live even with the ignition off, so it's not a big leap of faith to see that a parked car could catch fire due to something shorting out.
Cars have quite a lot of 'live' when off electrical equipment - cooling fans for example - that can be on at any time, so faulty or ill designed wiring could cause problems in stationary cars.
And this is how fanboys really think.
Musk's aerospace work is a product of an artificial system: he used government money to hire experienced aerospace engineers who had been trained with government money (either directly or via a previous contractor). Since the US version of crony capitalism requires that all government work be contracted out to private business for profit, someone was needed to give the impression of success of private enterprise's collaboration with government - and it happened to be him.
Similarly, a Tesla is just a Lotus with increased cost, reduced range, longer fill-up time, and the "fuel tank" right underneath your butt to warm your hole if you happen to run over any shit in the road. If you want an electric vehicle, well, they've been around for longer than the ICE, and these days you have several options to choose from, most of which are cheaper and aren't made by companies which want to control every aspect of sales+maintenance (competition to drive down costs? thanks!) and which deny imperfection in their products.
Do you even understand the circumstances involved in the three crashes? It's like saying the director of Ford is denying that his cars are fundamentally unsafe because they start crumpling up when you slam them into walls at 50mph or higher, or they catch fire when you deliberately *puncture their fuel tank*.
I think if you look at what Space X has done it is fairly revolutionary, such as the rocket hovering and landing vertically. As for the model S, it has zero in common with the Lotus. Even the Roadster only shares around 12% of its parts with the Lotus and the chassis was heavily modified. Later Lotus adopted many of the changes that Tesla had made.
As for a longer fill-up, every morning I get up to a full tank. I don't have to stand outside filling my car up. For most of my driving I spend less time filling up than I did with my Prius, and for the times it takes longer, well, I just spend the money I would spend on gas on a really nice meal while charging with the money I would have spent on gas. I often find myself staying even longer talking with other owners. Unlike a gas station, I find that the social dynamics are far different. It's like a bunch of Ford Mustang owners hanging out or pick your vehicle. There's also really no way to compare the smooth instant near-silent torque and acceleration as well.
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Your credibility (wait, AC and credibility?) takes a hit, when you claim that a parked vehicle burst into flames. I have seen a lot of vehicles on fire, but never a parked vehicle that just suddenly decided to warm itself up.
And because you've never seen it, it never happened. But my dad's Toronado did the same thing in our driveway. He hadn't touched it for hours. It was probably his fault, because he was an alky, but that doesn't alter the point — we don't need any owner incompetence for such a story, because Ford does things completely ass-backwards. For instance, power is always in the door, and the switch grounds, rather than the opposite. Does that sound like a good idea to you? Doesn't sound good to anyone but Ford, in fact. Probably they don't do this in newer cars, I hope. They will have found new and stupid ways to fuck up by putting things backwards and upside down from how everyone else does it.
I currently own a 1992 F250 7.3 and have owned a 1985 Thunderbird, and have worked on a plethora of other Fords because that's what you do with Fords.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nothing is perfect. Percent of bad products is the key, not pure quantity. ( and how its taken care of afterward )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
the thing is I have seen a vehicle burst into flames for no "apparent" reason.
a faulty voltage regulator can burst into flames even when the vehicle is off. Now it has to be faulty in just the right way but it can happen.
I also started a car fire once. a guy needed a jump so I hooked up the cables he turned over his truck just as the engine caught the voltage regulator melted it's plastic housing and then started burning the oil and grease on the case.
So far tesla's have to have physical damage to the battery packs and even then they warn you to pull over immediately to which the drivers are ignoring.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Eh, hover-rockets are not revolutionary in 2013. If practical deployment could be demonstrated rather than a flashy demo, that'll be a significant step (apologies if I've missed recent news). I can't see SpaceX as anything more than an artificial firewall between the government and government-trained engineers which allows Musk to siphon off some cash. It's not like Paypal, which was genuinely a private entrepreneurial affair, or even Tesla, which (ignoring the big government loan) was operating in the private sphere.
Social dynamic what? Are you arguing that you're okay with the time it takes to "fill up" during the day because you can spend time talking with other Tesla owners? That's.. well, it's weird, and it sounds like you're clutching at straws... but if you're genuinely so interested in your model of car that you can regularly hang around making enjoyable social encounters on the basis of it, I guess you'd count as an enthusiast. You're quite entitled to this hobby, but I doubt most people are that keen in their model of car. I'm certainly not! a car's a tool to me, and if a Tesla were the best option then I'd buy one, but I'd certainly not want to hang around with dudes who like chatting about Teslas. It's just not my err "scene".
Damn those Pesky Facts!
No sig today...
This is a very well known thing from more than six years ago.
I blame Fight Club
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
From TFA, "9,469 Escape are being re-recalled. There have been no fires."
Ford is recalling the 2013 escape. no fires, there might be potential fires it's a voluntary recall.
Telsa has had 3 fires, no voluntary recalls, won't even admit there's a problem.
That's why Tesla get shit in the news. Take of your bias goggles.
did you forget to take your meds?
Musk does all that himself? Proof please? Because I'm pretty sure his employees are the ones doing all that work.
Where exactly did I say it was bad? Please quote specifically where I claim this.
I'm a shill? Yeah, sure. Aren't you supposed to be too busy fluffing Musk to be posting to Slashdot?
There were 30 road crashes in the USA yesterday that caused several cars to catch fire (i.e. the total number of cars catching fire was more than 60).
All of them petrol cars.
Mostly Ford and GM. I do not believe any of them were Escapade. One or two may have been.
So are Ford and GM recalling another 20 lines because they catch fire in a road traffic accident?
No?
Are they even acknowledging the problem that petrol can combust and this is a dangerous thing?
No?
So why pick on Tesla?
Ford sells how many vehicles and how many models? Telsa has a history of how many vehicles sold?
And Tesla's safety record? How many months old is it? Testing facility at Tesla is a joke compared to any other manufacturer and
only those with more money or sperm cells than brain cells would buy one.
Ford is doing a recall on an event that occured at roughly 8 times less rate than Teslas fires. They didn't gloss over it and say everything is perfect. They took a good amount of time to determine if there was an issue and came to the conclusion that there is. It's a voluntary recall.
There was certainly a case of it some years ago in the UK. A spate of a single model (a Ford again, IIRC) bursting into flames while quietly parked at a particular motorway service station. The particular model was a favourite with sales reps, who would drive from London with pedal to the metal, then stop at this particular station for a break. A plastic fuel pipe ran above a bit of the engine which got very hot under this form of heavy usage. with essentially no cool-down mileage after the high speed run. Round about the time the rep was finishing his coffee, the plastic melted and poured fuel onto the overheated engine. Whoof!
So it can happen. Maybe this scenario, or one like it, has replayed.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
So quite where you think you're going with this is unknown.
Note that sample size means:
Tesla 1-5 such events may happen with the next similar size sample. 0.005%-0.025%
Ford: 8-16 such events may happen with the next similar size sample. 0.006%-0.012%
Second: those events with Tesla were in collisions. How many Fords have caught fire in a collision, not due to defect? You need to add those numbers in to that 12 figure.
Thats very interesting since brake fluid is specifically designed to have a high flashpoint and deal with lots of heat. It sounds almost as if ford never heard of a fuse either.
But even if this is 100% true and accurate, it doesn't relate to the tesla because someone actually investigated tje problem and ford actually did something about it (recall) other than complain about bad press and pointing to other car fires to justify it qs common or not as bad or something.
"Musk doesn't even acknowledge the problem." - what problem? car sometimes catch fire in accidents? Try putting a spark in a pool of gasoline
"What we know from Musks' response is that he has no problem overlooking issues that can entirely destroy the car AND potentially kill its occupants " - and a tank of gasoline can't do that?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
But even if this is 100% true and accurate, it doesn't relate to the tesla because someone actually investigated tje problem and ford actually did something about it (recall) other than complain about bad press and pointing to other car fires to justify it qs common or not as bad or something
Unfortunately, your comment is not 100% true and accurate. Tesla issued a firmware update that stops the vehicle from squatting automatically at high speeds, because drivers have demonstrated that they can't handle the responsibility of not driving over things. That's not doing nothing. That's seeing what they can do about the problem, discovering they can do something about it in software, and issuing a patch.
Further, so far the statistics bear out the assertion that it is not a life-threatening problem, so it's hard to determine what you're complaining about in the Tesla response. While I hesitate to draw conclusions from such a small data set, the statistics suggest that he's correct.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Tesla is catching fire at a rate 3.5x that of those Ford Escapes (12/139K over 2 years vs 3/20K over 1 year). What I wonder - which car fire is more toxic/dangerous for the environment and first responders? My inclination is to say the Tesla.
With Tesla it is news, with Ford is just Business As Usual
RTFA. Ford is not recalling all vehicles. it is recalling the 2013 Ford Escape.
did you forget to take your meds?
Maybe they can successfully rebrand this as a challenge!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
My aunt's Jeep Cherokee (mid-80's model) caught fire in her driveway. (This was in the late 80's, so it's been a while...) It hadn't been driven in hours, was parked overnight, and suddenly caught fire. Nothing else was burned. The cause of the fire was faulty wiring in the Jeep itself. It shorted, and the vehicle's battery provided enough juice to set the rest of it on fire. It probably didn't help that those old Jeeps were a mechanical mess that bathed their engine's external parts in leaked oil. (Most vehicles are designed to keep the oil contained.)
It's not illogical for a poorly-engineered or poorly-built vehicle to "just catch fire", and it does happen.
I must have been dreaming that night I was woken up in the early morning by the firemen saying they just put out my car that was parked down the street, when there wasn't much left of it except a metal shell. I guess someone one just stole my car and at the same time needed to illegally dump a car that had burned in a "real" fire. As far as the report from the fire department, they just assumed it was faulty wiring in the car, and didn't put much effort into it since if is something that "just happens" when you are unlucky and have a car that is more than a year or two old.
I am curious as to more information on this as right now I'm believing you to be full of shit. I've tried to find this recall on nhtsas website and I can find no mention of it. For trucks in that era have mostly been recalled for lighting and I did find one dealing with brakes, but that had to do with the vacuum assist hose coming off making it harder to push the brakes.
Beyond that, the master cylinder is always kept in the engine compartment, and all electronics in the engine compartment are designed to get wet. So even if fluid did leak on to it, it'd be in a sealed box, which would mean nothing would happen. So please, model and approximate year of the truck or it didn't happen.
Ford know about fuses: they cost 2c each. If you sell 140,000 Escapes it all adds up!
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Thats very interesting since brake fluid is specifically designed to have a high flashpoint and deal with lots of heat. It sounds almost as if ford never heard of a fuse either.
Yes and no, it's very easy to get close to the flash point initially if the person driving the vehicle is heavy on the brakes, or they're doing a lot of stop-go-stop-go driving, such as in heavy traffic. And brake fluid stays hot for a very long time, unless it's cold outside.
As for a fuse? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the way the wiring was done, since the setup on most cars these days uses the ECM for it. I suppose they could use a fusable link, but that's overkill. In turn, running a single fuse for just that part is also overkill. Probably what ended up happening was some electrical engineer said "it doesn't need to be fused because it's carrying 3v, and the chance of it causing a fire is low." And that's probably true. Unless of course something else happens, and two parts of the design team weren't talking about "what ifs" and all that.
Om, nomnomnom...
I'm saying that the time needed to charge, generally 30 minutes for 80%, is not a big deal and that it is not the same as filling up a car at a gas station. Also, usually one doesn't have to wait for charging because every morning you basically have a full tank. Unless you're regularly driving over 250+ miles at a time the whole charging time is not an issue at all.
It takes me less than 10 seconds when I get home at night to plug in the car and about 5 seconds in the morning to unplug it in the comfort of my garage. It takes a lot less time than the weekly fill-ups of my ICE car. The charging time becomes completely irrelevant because I'm sleeping or otherwise not driving anyway. I don't have to stand out in the rain to fill up my car. I don't have to fish out my credit card, enter my zip code, etc.
The times I do have to charge, the experience is typically far more pleasant than filling up at a gas station. The locations are typically at malls or other places where there's restaurants and other amenities close by so I have many options available during the time it takes to charge. Hell, I could surf the internet using the car's built-in 17" screen if I want. Soon even the charging time will be irelivant once the battery swapping option becomes available if I want to pay for the service, and battery swapping takes a lot less time than filling up a gas tank without ever having to set foot outside of the car.
The whole it takes forever to charge really is a non-issue.
Now with other cars like the Nissan Leaf it is a more serious issue because the range of the car sucks so you're doing it much more frequently.
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Anyone who thinks anyone is getting treated fairly in the "news" needs to research who owns the news outlets, who censors them, and who decides what it is people are told to think. Of course, anyone who has such a problem is certainly not reading slashdot.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
http://www.ksbw.com/news/central-california/santa-cruz/santa-cruz-cyclist-struck-by-motorist-on-hwy-1-dies/-/5738976/22778526/-/ocirx/-/index.html
A fan boy? Again, hardly. I did make about ~$600K off Tesla stock by buying it around ~$17/share, selling most of it at $190, and then buying it back up at $127. I'm pretty happy about that, but that doesn't make me a fan boy.
Musk used his own money to fund a rocket company. It's his fault if some of the launches on the manifest are government-purchased? Lets not even begin to discuss how incompetent and dysfunctional NASA is as a government institution.
And a Tesla Model S a Lotus? This isn't even arguing over. It was rated by Consumer Reports as their best car. Ever. It was rated by the NTHSA as their safest car. Ever. The Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt aren't even in the same class of vehicle.
Feel free to bitch on an internet forum. It'll make you feel better, but it doesn't change the world nor make you any more wealthy.
The cars that have been around in the past 10 years have had no problems, yet newer cars have design flaws. Who the hell is designing this garbage?
I've never known a CEO to be so thin-skinned as Musk. Whether it's a rocket with a failed engine or a battery that goes dead, civil, honest doubt about his products is consistently painted a dishonest, malicious slander.
His brand-new, untested cars caught fire. It was in the news because it was a new thing.
No one is out to get him, and if the machines are as safe as he is making them out to be then that will be proven with time. For now, him and his fanatical followers need to relax.
Hello.
I have a 99 explorer with the updated switch wire with a fuse. I believe the recall covered millions of trucks/suvs/vans.
>but never a parked vehicle that just suddenly decided to warm itself up.
I have seen a car long parked & in the cool shade car begin smoking under the hood, then burst into flames. Birmingham Alabama in November. It was unique & sadly hillarious. Sure there is 'some' reason (loose electrical wire in this case), but yep it can & does happen. Unique & uncommon but brother I've seen it!
ps: poor lady sprinted out of her office building super sad, the nearby buiding's wall was black with soot. The fire dept could only mitigate the melted steel- no chance to save the vehicle.