Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.
The Ford's being recalled catch fire while stationary after normal use.
The Tesla's catch fire after a high speed incident. Two hit big chunks of metal, the other was crashed.
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/
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
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.
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
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
Actually, it's 30 fires in under 150,000 vehicles - the 12 you're talking about are 12 that made it to consumer's hands. There were a total of 30 that caught fire due to this defect, but a lot of them were still owned by dealerships when it happened.
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...
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?
Unexplanied fires are a matter for the courts.
Model Ssss- I mean Canyonero.
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.
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?
There you go again. "Just like Tesla had"? No. The Tesla fires were after collisions, the Ford fires were after nothing. Why are you so eager to lie? Cars catch fire after collisions frequently - any moving object with enough stored energy to keep the object moving at highway speeds for hundreds of miles is going to cause issues when it is structurally compromised. ICE cars, electric cars, steam vehicles, the log - they all have issues when they massive chunks are ripped out of them. No-one is complaining about the tens-of-thousands of non-Tesla collision-related fires out there (which are usually far less survivable than Tesla's fires). Your bias is showing. It's ugly.
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.
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.'"
Damn those Pesky Facts!
No sig today...
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.
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.'"
Maybe they can successfully rebrand this as a challenge!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."