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Days After A Fiery Crash, a Tesla's Battery Keeps Reigniting (mercurynews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Mercury News
Six days after a fiery crash on Highway 101 involving a Tesla Model X took the life of a 38-year-old San Mateo man, the car's high-voltage lithium-ion battery re-ignited while sitting in a tow yard, according to the Mountain View Fire Department... The battery reignited twice in the storage yard within a day of the accident and again six days later on March 29. Two weeks later, in an effort to avoid more fires, the NTSB and Tesla performed a battery draw down to fully de-energize it...
On the company website, Tesla wrote "the reason this crash was so severe is that the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had either been removed or crushed in a prior accident without being replaced. We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash"... Tesla also reported that the vehicle's autopilot function was active at the time of the crash...
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Highway 101 crash and three other accidents also involving Teslas, including a fiery 2014 Model S crash Tuesday in Florida that killed two teenagers. Also under investigation: A Model S crashed into a fire truck near Culver City in January, and the driver reportedly said Autopilot was engaged at the time. And it is looking into a battery fire of a Model X that drove into a home's garage in Lake Forest in August.
Two hours after that story was published, a Tesla smashed into a Starbucks in Los Gatos, California.
On the company website, Tesla wrote "the reason this crash was so severe is that the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had either been removed or crushed in a prior accident without being replaced. We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash"... Tesla also reported that the vehicle's autopilot function was active at the time of the crash...
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Highway 101 crash and three other accidents also involving Teslas, including a fiery 2014 Model S crash Tuesday in Florida that killed two teenagers. Also under investigation: A Model S crashed into a fire truck near Culver City in January, and the driver reportedly said Autopilot was engaged at the time. And it is looking into a battery fire of a Model X that drove into a home's garage in Lake Forest in August.
Two hours after that story was published, a Tesla smashed into a Starbucks in Los Gatos, California.
You need to find a hobby. Trump posts for every story is getting just a tad boring as fuck.
Let me guess, the cameras saw the reflections in the window as a clear way forward.
The driver is cooperating with a police investigation, she says she thought her car was in park and she does not know what happened.
I'm glad my non-electric car has a real park setting on the transmission. One where there is a physical cable attached to the selector that engages a pawl to lock the transmission.
The desperate schmucks who've shorted Tesla would love nothing more than another headline but the implication here (that Li-ON is even less stable than some of us may have realized) affects Tesla only indirectly... and effects their [viable, prospective] competition equally.
Eyebrow raising but otherwise changing nothing.
cocaine
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You Slashtards are always regurgitating the same tired jokes about Beowulf clusters and "will it run Crysis?" Don't like it? Go fuck yourself, asshole.
You should be careful who you insult, pussy boy.
How much longer does Tesla and it's financiers ...
How much longer are YOU going to continue using "it's" when "its" is the correct usage ?
It's = it is.
So whiny. And disingenuous to boot. You know why it's good for the US that the tax credit exists and you know when it ends, because you own a google machine.
Seriously. The autism is strong in this one.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Tell me again how lining the bottom of a vehicle with thousands of Lithium Ion batteries is somehow safer than having a tank of gasoline, diesel, hydrogen, ethanol, propane, and LNG.
Kriston
In any accident that hurts the integrity of the batteries, then they should be drained as standard operating procedure.
If a gas tank was leaking, then would they just let that go too?
If we had this level of reporting on Leafs, Priuses (Priii?) or Volts, there would be no space for any other news. But Tesla, always Tesla. I think its because Tesla attracts a special kind of chimp-user, which reads no guidelines and thinks auto-pilot is like aircraft autopilot in the movies. Note that real aircraft pilots only use it for mid-flight, not at or around super-busy airports! But Teslan Twits engage and then climb into the back seat, expecting the car to "do the rest" - down a busy road! Well, all you get is another Darwin award. No real news here, just another rich fool meeting his folly. Must say the self-igniting thing is new, bit of the Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang or 53 Herbie Bug spark in these things, hey?
Yeah some Internet tough guy might get you!!! Oooooooooooh.
Can someone please provide a car analogy?
Sorry to have to tell you this, but Trump will be pardoned by Pence, just as Nixon was Pardoned by Ford).
Trump's business associates, family members, and lawyers may do hard jail time though.
Nobody said it was safer. But they can be charged with electricity from the sun. You have to wait a long time before the sun grows plants, and they turn into oil that you can refine into gasoline.
Musk wants to tell us this technology the Explodarator Batteries are safe to park in your garage, or to strap to your house.
The takeaway here is that electric car batteries need to be fully discharged before getting towed to the salvage yard.
The battery catching fire is an interesting point. I'd be interested to know if the emergency responders initially followed the published guidelines for cooling the battery or if they stopped when they stopped seeing flames. Regardless, it's an interesting point and an important one for the future.
Regarding the rest of the OP's posting...yeah, 2 teens died in a Tesla in Florida while speeding 50-60 around a corner marked for 30 mph. Yes, a lady crashed her car into a Starbucks. Where are the headlines about some random kid who died in a pickup truck this weekend? I'll bet you $50 it happened. Or the old lady in her Ford Fiesta who ran into a parked car? I'll put $20 on that one. What, no national headlines on those ones? What gives? Or do we think miraculously owning a Tesla makes you immune to being a stupid/careless/human driver? I didn't know Musk was advertising that feature. Is Ford? Honda? Lexus?
The era of the self-crashing car.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Forget about the car idea until you build a track to keep them on. In the meantime, we need a large autonomous barge to pick up garbage from tourist towns on the great lakes. We need to incorporate it in a way to reduce truck traffic during tourist season and help solve our long-term waste problems.
Any energy storage system will have inherent danger, and the more concentrated it is, the worse the possible result. But you knew that.
As bad as battery fires are, they don't spread like a chemical fuel fire can and often does.
I am not very sore at the massive per-unit subsidies that Tesla's above-average wealthy customers are getting on cars
So not very sore that you described it using passive-aggressive terms. But yep, Tesla gets the same electric car tax credit that all the other battery electric vehicle car manufacturers can also take advantage of. Unless you are going to claim there is a special subsidy just for Tesla?
News flash: when the government wants something to happen, one lever they use is tax breaks. The government would like to see electric cars happen sooner, so they gave tax breaks. To everyone. Equally.
And yes, new technology is more expensive than older established technology, which in turn means that the initial customers might be more affluent. Not news.
NTSB is basically deputized to solve private sector problems at taxpayer expense. How much longer does Tesla and it's financiers get this free tax benefit?
NTSB is investigating because of the lithium ion batteries, the same battery technology used in every modern electric car. How much longer does GM (Chevy Bolt), Nissan (Leaf), VW (eGolf), Ford (Focus Electric), BMW (i3), etc. etc. get this free tax benefit?
NTSB has, over the years, spent quite a lot of time investigating gasoline car crashes. They've slowed down a lot because they've got a solid knowledge base.
So it's patently unreasonable for you to claim that this is somehow special treatment given Tesla. Tesla cars are the most popular electric cars right now, even though they are expensive; so there are crashes from time to time, just as with gasoline cars.
If the NTSB investigates a Nissan Leaf crash, will you rail against Nissan, or is Tesla just special?
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Yep. I don't think I know anyone who hasn't ever been involved in a car accident. If there are Tesla's on the road, they'll be in accidents. It's not worthy of headlines unless the things go up in a mushroom cloud when hit or something.
Someone give this guy a mod point. Seriously.
To expand...danheskett...the person bitching about the NTSB "solving private sector problems" on the taxpayer dime. You realize what you're complaining about is, literally, the government doing the job we pay them to do right? Are YOU going to hold a car manufacturer accountable for putting a dangerous product on the road? Were you personally going to pony up the cash to fly out to the crash site, check the forensics, go over the debris field, and make sure that what happened was a genuine accident and not the result of some guy cutting corners in the factory to improve his bottom line by 1%?
No? You weren't offering to do that? Gosh, I guess it's a good thing we all pay taxes and the NTSB does this stuff so that the rest of us have at least some slight reasonable reason to believe that manufacturers are making quality products. Yes, even Tesla...but also GM, Ford, Acura, Porsche, Kia, et al. They aren't doing those company's jobs for them. They are, quite literally, capable of shutting those companies down if they find a critical flaw in their product. That's not doing their job for them, that's keeping your disingenuous, passive aggressive, Neanderthal butt safe.
News flash: when the government wants something to happen, one lever they use is tax breaks. The government would like to see electric cars happen sooner, so they gave tax breaks. To everyone. Equally.
Yes. Sort-of. The original tax credit of $7500 was (is? been a few years since I looked it up) based on the capacity of the battery. Basically, there is a credit per kWh of rated capacity and it phases out to a minimum threshold.
Amazingly coincidence, but the first generation of the Chevy Volt had a 16 kWh battery, which just so happened to allow you to claim the maximum credit. The floor was set to be exactly at the capacity of the Toyota Prius. So - buy foreign then you get a token $2500 credit. Buy American and get the whopping $7500. Go crazy and get a Nissan Leaf, like I did at the time, and all that extra battery got you bubkis with respect to federal tax credits.
If the NTSB investigates a Nissan Leaf crash, will you rail against Nissan, or is Tesla just special?
Tesla is special. Managed to wreck that Nissan Leaf 3 times. Luckily it was almost all cosmetic damage, but no NTSB rep ever contacted me... *shrug*
Yes, but we will all benefit from the electric cars eventually. As the batteries get better and the prices come down, they'll be something that most people can afford to use. Unfortunately, getting to that point is rather expensive, hence the subsidies.
In the mean time, people in places that have clean power generation benefit from the reduced emissions from the electric cars being sold.
This is at least the 2nd case of tesla autopilot not playing well with long skinny shaped things like dividers and safety rails. Just sayin' is all...
Yes and in the future, tow truck operators may just keep the wrecked electric vehicles someplace where they can safely burn while fire crews arrive. Or, possibly have a fire suppression system in place to handle it.
If it proves to be at all common, there's probably some protocol that can be put into place to prevent re-ignition.
Yep. I don't think I know anyone who hasn't ever been involved in a car accident. If there are Tesla's on the road, they'll be in accidents. It's not worthy of headlines unless the things go up in a mushroom cloud when hit or something.
Yeah, when I rear ended someone in my Lexus, I don't recall a Mercury News headline. But maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
It's brave of you to admit that.
Right. So after the lion's share of the profit from the investment has been made and all the existing interests have been entrenched at the top of those industries, only then will benefits start trickling down to us.
Were you born stupid or do you just try really hard at it?
I agree with you, 100%. However teslas are for the rich, we can't afford them, so i can see why they get picked on. Kind of like people who total their lambos. Usually makes the regional news at least.
A more important factor is probably that It is new tech. Do you remember how many creepy, misinformed FUD articles about the internet we had to endure all throughout the 90s? The internet was abducting your children, making their minds goo with extreme violent video games, seeing pornography, and hacking the planet. Now those same things are just a regular day at the office for most folks.
The exceptional becomes the norm in about 20 years always. hell, 20 years ago people who were always on their cellphones were neurotic workaholics or drug dealers. now its like easily 85% of the populace.
20 years from now there simply won't be cars without giant banks of energy in them. You can get your equality of coverage when i can buy a beater electric car basically. Until then, sexy cars get covered in the news. case closed.
-
I am not Musk fanboy. If a smug and undeserved air of superiority would solve the issue, Tesla would have no problems at all. But this is hardly a Tesla-unique problem, and electric car using li-ion batteries is likely to have the same problem. This seems more like a problem with the wrecker service or scrapyard. You wouldn't leave gasoline-powered with a leaking full tank sitting around hoping it something didn't cause a spark, in fact the first thing you do is take out the (lead-acid) battery and drain the tank. There should be complete battery discharge and safing procedure before you even hook up the tow truck, and the company involved should provide for such an issue.
So where's the "Honda crashes into bus!" stories?
Right here
Where are the headlines about some random kid who died in a pickup truck this weekend?
Oh please! He didn't die in the pickup truck.
Or the old lady in her Ford Fiesta who ran into a parked car?
Apparently, not a lot of old ladies drive a Ford Fiesta... but when they do, it's epic. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
> For whatever reason people make this mistake all the time
In my Dodge, if I open the door while the car is stopped, it automatically goes into park.
Humans screw up all the time. Good systems are designed so that mistakes that happen "all the time" don't cause your car to drive through a Starbucks.
> thinks auto-pilot is like aircraft autopilot in the movies. Note that real aircraft pilots only use it for mid-flight, not at or around super-busy airports
Going off on a tangent here, but modern airliners actually auto-land as common procedure. 30 years ago they didn't.
Heck, even my $250 model plane can auto-land, after automatically taking off. It uses open source software on a $30 controller board to do so.
So where's the "Honda crashes into bus!" stories?
Right here
Where are the headlines about some random kid who died in a pickup truck this weekend?
Oh please! He didn't die in the pickup truck.
Or the old lady in her Ford Fiesta who ran into a parked car?
Apparently, not a lot of old ladies drive a Ford Fiesta... but when they do, it's epic. ;)
Hah. I'd hug you if I could. You rock.
Speak for yourself. Some of us can afford a Tesla.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
In my Dodge, if I open the sun visor while the car is stopped, it automatically drips fire down my leg.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/mpi-sues-fiat-chrysler-fires-manitoba-1.4152830
Good systems are designed when it become economically expensive for an auto manufacturer to do otherwise.
I agree with you, 100%. However teslas are for the rich, we can't afford them, so i can see why they get picked on. Kind of like people who total their lambos. Usually makes the regional news at least.
People who think Teslas are "for the rich" and are "Like people [sic] with lambos" are confused about price tags.
A Tesla S starts at $75k. Ceiling around $140k.
A Lamborghini starts at $200-250k and just goes up from there with practically no ceiling (ok, of course there is...but it's high).
Yes, for some folks $75k might as well be $1M for all it matters to them, but there are tons of cars in the $75-90k price bracket, so pinning Tesla as some kind of super rich person toy that is deserving of some special media attention when someone runs it into a tree is just websites looking to sell clicks.
For instance, every single one of these cars has a starting price more expensive than a starting Tesla S (full cash price, no tax credits): Cadillac Escalade, Porsche Panamera, Lexus LX and LS Hybrid, Audi A8...etc
At least my gasoline vehicle is safe, its not got anything dangerous in it like a tank full of flammable liquid that produces explosive vapour, and its not as if self driving is something that would ever be possible on a non-electric vehicle.
Yes, correct. Then, and only then. Maybe, in light of this revelation of yours, one might see why it's counterproductive to purposefully impede the progress.
Worth mentioning that every car today has a giant tank of energy. A gas tank is in no way safe.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Hey, don't lump him in with us! Please stop using autism as a pejorative, it's just as offensive as making racist comments.
Impede progress is one thing. Giving tax dollars to wealthy and upper middle class people so their toys cost less is another.
This is a problem that spans generations. I am no senator's son.
That is actually a new safety feature to prevent fatigue, the fire encourages you to pull over to stretch your legs and the drips stimulate the nerves in your legs to encourage blood flow.
...with Samsung. There are interesting sinergies for unconventional battery applications.
Thanks, I might just take you up on that offer.
I think I'll go fuck myself while playing Crysis on a Beowulf cluster of assholes.
Want to join me?
Tell me how it's less safe.
Petrol is very flammable. Ever seen a petrol car go up? It's an impressive sight.
Diesel isn't (much harder to get going) but it's incredibly slippery, which is why the authorities (fire brigade) have to come up and clean diesel spills really fast and thoroughy because coating roads in a good lubricant is also not safe.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The point that was being made you knuckle-dragging dolt is that it is not a given that our economic structure has to be configured such that the already wealthy can maintain their vice-grip on national wealth by ensuring that the price to play is so high that only they can afford entry, and the rest of us have to content ourselves with the crumbs that fall off the table.
You might be happy with that, but fuck you, the rest of us aren't.
And the thing is even the wealthy, if they weren't so deluded by their bone-headed fixation in seeing the world as some kind of economic video game, would see that *everyone* benefits from a more level playing field where everyone has fair access to opportunity.
Until the car reignites again, just to spite people wanting to put it's fire away.
Too bad for you. Russia will reelect Donald TRUMP. Just like we elect Vladimir Putin again, haha.
Do you ever read what others have to say? You should try it sometime. It's a learning experience and prevents you from looking like a not so smart person.
Some firefighters at least do get formal training in handling chemical spills, etc. But I imagine that it's difficult to keep the training materials up to date when technology changes. And I'm not sure what tools your local Pumper unit is supposed to use to "drain" a Tesla battery. Somehow a ax or firehose seem unlikely to be a proper fit to the problem.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
It's not. Nobody could ever claim that.
To accelerate a certain mass, you need a certain amount of force, which requires a certain amount of energy to create.
NO MATTER whether you're powering from AA batteries, nuclear fuel, people pedalling on bikes, or petroleum, that same amount of energy - to make a practical car - has to be contained within the car.
That energy, if released outside of expected parameters, is huge. Literally a bomb. There's no difference between the energy in an exploding petrol tank, and the energy in a lithium battery powering a car (in fact, the lithium battery is technically much less energy, I believe... petroleum is incredibly energy-dense which is why we use it, and why a tank of it can go longer than any Tesla charge).
It's as simple as that. What matters is... how easy is it to release unexpectedly? Shorting a petrol car's electrics might start a fire but it's unlikely to explode immediately. Petrol tanks are designed to withstand fires, obstruct people putting lighted matches into them, fuel pumps are designed to cut off if they take a jolt, etc.
The problem is not the technology, or the energy density. They are all equally as dangerous over a certain margin of error. The problem is the design. Hitting an object with the front of the car somehow damages the battery in a way that it CANNOT be safely isolated without draining the whole battery (which may take hours)? That's assuming the battery is actually intact enough for you to be able to do that by any conventional means. If that battery was "in half", say, how would you safely drain it?
The petrol tank, however, you can cover in sand / foam. You can drain it into the grass, move the car away from it and then just wait for it to evaporate.
For some reason, dealing with a petrol tank is much less scary to me than a block of hundreds of modular batteries each of which is capable of independently catching fire just because they are contacting anything metal, forming a run-away reaction at temperatures that will affect all the nearby cells. Batteries which you can't put water on (you can't do that with petrol either really, but you can at least use it as the carrier for extinguishing foam), which short on contact with metal, which don't have an "off-switch" if they are damaged. Which you can't cover in sand / foam. Which you can't drain without putting metal objects onto them (where?) and pulling current from an already-damaged battery.
Yeah, they sound more dangerous to me than a tank of flammable fluid that fire crews can just spray foam on from a distance, or drain safely into a container.
This is not a technology issue. This is a design / procedure issue. Fire crews will already have had training on how to deal with such fires. They wouldn't let some random guy tow it without thinking it was safe. And they got it wrong. Twice.
And the reason is that the design used has inherent safety problems in such an accident. Sure. It could be a really unfortunate, rare, one-off that's not countered by a simple design change. But it could also just be that the batteries need reinforcing in an isolated fireproof box with an isolator and some material that - on fire - expands and suppresses the battery's ability to keep reigniting.
But "discharging" all that energy means it has to go somewhere. You can't just short the battery to try to make it safe. Is there not a safe dummy load it could short through clearly labelled and fire crews made aware? It doesn't appear to be the case.
What we need is a material that actually stops a lithium battery from working. Something that could be released by a heat-trigger, or by fire crews. We have that for petrol and most flammables. It's fire extinguishing foam. Do we have that for batteries? No. And it seems silly to keep designing batteries on the expectation that someone will worry about that when the emergency happens.
(that Li-ON is even less stable than some of us may have realized)
what ? who youldn't ?
where they born after the 2000s ? Weren't they paying attention with the Samsung Galaxy recently ?
If anything, Sony's problem with bad quality batteries back them (and reconfirmed recently with Samsung) would have told us already that battery LiIon/LiPo battery have a certain tendency to blow up whenever you look wrong at them.
Disconnecting and removing Lithium battery from a damaged device should be standard practice.
And if a Tesla car had such a violent crash that the battery pack integrity seems compromised, not disassembling and removing them is inviting for such troubles.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The battery catching fire is an interesting point. I'd be interested to know if the emergency responders initially followed the published guidelines for cooling the battery or if they stopped when they stopped seeing flames.
As far as I've understood, the crash was this time so violent, that it damaged the integrity of the battery pack.
There might still be some conductors shorted by the deformation here and there, in such was the thermal fuse wouldn't break.
The shorted cell keeps warming and eventually get hot enough to burst into falme re-starting the fire.
A damaged battery on any gadget (not only specificially electric cars) should be considered as a potential hazard and should immediately by removed and put in a secure place (= a place where the pack wouldn't damade anything if/when it reignites).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
What gives? Or do we think miraculously owning a Tesla makes you immune to being a stupid/careless/human driver?
As usual, the answer is "Follow the money".
A lot of people shorted Tesla stock, which basically means they're betting Tesla stock will go down significantly.
When that doesn't happen, these people get very nervous because they will lose a lot of money.
So they make sure the news gets flooded with negative stories about Tesla.
A few years back a man was driving his RV and put cruise control so he could pop into the back and make himself a cup o joe. He crashed. CLEARLY this proves that cruise control in cars should be removed, because it makes people believe that the car is like Knight Rider's cruise control.
Except the subject in those articles is the driver/victim and not the brand of the car. "4-year-old dies in fall from moving pickup", "Pair 'flee' crash after car hits bus in Rowley Regis", "Sandwich woman crashes car ..." where any news involving a Tesla car is "Tesla craches ...". Even taking into consideration the "autopilot" function, long before you know the autopilot was involved or not is the Tesla car doing the stuff.
Tesla is special. Managed to wreck that Nissan Leaf 3 times. Luckily it was almost all cosmetic damage, but no NTSB rep ever contacted me... *shrug*
If you think the NTSB investigates ordinary crashes much less fender benders then the only person special here is you.
Standard training for all firefighters here, and they haven't had equipment as simple as an ax and firehose for decades. If you could standardise the discharge port it would be quite easy for them to carry a discharge cable and it'd be dirt cheap compared to the other equipment they'll be carrying.
I see. So will this be used in the flamethrower?
...all of which are pretty rare.
Yet the fuel in those tanks rarely catches fire and explosions are even rarer. Batteries seem to catch fire much more often, relatively, at least in Tesla vehicles. In other brands of EVs they do not seem to be as frequent.
Don't forget your tinfoil hat or else a "Ruski" will hack you and your car.
The reason the crash was so severe was because that fucking tree wouldn't move out of the way.
In my Dodge, if I open the door while the car is stopped, it automatically goes into park.
If I were you, I wouldn't crow too loudly about FCA safety features.
Good systems are designed so that mistakes that happen "all the time" don't cause your car to drive through a Starbucks.
If only FCA cared about drivers of vehicles other than your Dodge.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes and in the future, tow truck operators may just keep the wrecked electric vehicles someplace where they can safely burn while fire crews arrive. Or, possibly have a fire suppression system in place to handle it.
The fire suppression system in question is an absolute shitload of water. You have to cool the fire to put it out.
If it proves to be at all common, there's probably some protocol that can be put into place to prevent re-ignition.
The packs are going to have to be redesigned with a self-discharge feature that works even when they are damaged.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Searching electric vehicle ems training brings up quite a few resources from DOE, NFPA, and many other organizations. 15 years after the widespread introduction of the Prius as the first modern electric car to sell in large volumes I expect all certified safety organizations have procedures in place for handling electric vehicle accidents.
Here's a good summary from the DOE: https://www.energy.gov/sites/p...
The real question is will you #standwithher in prison?
My co-worker's Tesla ignored the stationary curb on the side of the road. He had to pay an outrageous sum to have one of the front wheels replaced. He had AP2.
There are 100 million ICE cars on the road in USA. And NTSB reports there are 500 vehicular fires that kill 100 people every day.
Since 1 on 800 vehicles on the road are Tesla, we should expect around 0.625 Tesla fire every day or about 18 fires a month or 60 Tesla fires in the first quarter of 2018.
Since every Tesla fire gets national news coverage, I would assume at most two fires happened in that period.
I would conclude Tesla prevented 58 vehicular fires in the first quarter of 2018.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Leave it to a Slashdot regular to recommend treating an electrical fire with water.
Jesus Christ.
actually worse imho. if being a racist is not wanting to have sex with animals, using autism as a pejoritive is like wanting to have sex with animals after you kill them for sport.
> electric car using li-ion batteries is likely to have the same problem
Even RC cars, I have seen small LiPo pack catching fire, it's impressive, even a small 2S the size of a cigarette pack can burn down your house. Lot of video on youtube of battery fire.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
and the more concentrated it is, the worse the possible result
That is absolutely not true. I can't remember off the top of my head if body fat has 10 times or 100 times the energy storage of TNT per unit mass, and I promise you, body fat is far safer of a form of energy storage than TNT is.
In fact, in general, the more dangerous a store of energy is, the less energy it actually stores. You can store a lot of energy, or you can release it quickly, choose one. Gasoline is a class C explosive, also known as a propellant. It isn't even considered an explosive in the colloquial. Remember that.
If you don't think 75K is a lot, you are truly disconnected from reality. I make 140K a year, and the 22K I spent on my last car was more than I wanted to. For somebody to drop 75K on a car tells me they're either foolish, or extremely wealthy.
And I am a gear head. I like fast vehicles. But on my income, I can't afford fast cars, as such, I ride motorcycles. My bike was 15K and can smoke all but the most expensive Teslas, and even those, it'll be close up to 150 MPH where then I'll pull away.
2 teens died in a Tesla in Florida while speeding 50-60 around a corner marked for 30 mph
Funny, around here, the speed shown on the sign is usually half the safe speed.
That goes for the sign showing the safe speed. The one showing the legal speed is only related to how much money they want to extract in speeding fines.
Fuck, and me without mod points...
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
What the fuck are you on about? Tesla's share of EV subsidies are likely to end this year, as there's a set number of vehicles you can get the subsidy on per manufacturer. They know this, and have already factored it into their sales models.
How has the NTSB been "basically deputized to solve private sector problems at taxpayer expense" again? What's the problem being allegedly solved - an investigation into a negligent driver ramming his $100k EV into an unprotected concrete divider? That's kind of their job, just like it would be for any fatal crash where vehicle failure may be suspected, from any manufacturer. A crushed battery pack catching fire in a wrecking yard? I doubt the NTSB guys were working the fire extinguishers.
A few examples of highway accident investigations currently underway from the NTSB that have nothing to do with Tesla:
a motorcycle accident
a pickup truck with a trailer hit a school bus
an electrical conduit broke off of a tunnel and hit a Semi
But yeah, this is TOTALLY A SUBSIDY FROM THE TAXPAYER TO TESLA FOR RICH PEOPLE TO BUY RICH THINGS OMG.
Idiot.
> For whatever reason people make this mistake all the time
In my Dodge, if I open the door while the car is stopped, it automatically goes into park.
I noticed this on a rental I had recently, of course the only reason I opened the door when it was still in gear was because of that stupid confusing knob "shifter" that gives little indication of position unlike a traditional shift lever.
My older car doesn't automatically go into park but it does sound a lot of alarms if you open the drivers door while not in park.
Yeah, why wouldn't the NTSB come and look into you backing into a pole in a shopping center parking lot. What the fuck are these guys doing all day if not looking into minor non-injury minor accidents from randoms that can't keep from hitting shit with their cars?
You know the NTSB gets involved when there's a good chance of there being a flaw that caused the accident, there are special circumstances such as multi-vehicle pile up or raging fire, or there is a fatality, right?
You don't need an NTSB investigation, you need a licensing authority that actually expresses concern about people's ability to not hit shit with their cars.
The problem is that the car is basically built around the battery.
I agree, we could even say, that you basically are buying a giant battery from Tesla, and for that price, they throw in a car bolted on it for cheap.
(Given the relative price).
It's even more noticeable with manufacturer where the car and the battery can by sold separately (e.g.: Renault - the 45kWh battery costs around 10k EUR)
It is installed into the vehicle partially with adhesives,
Maybe in the latest models? (the platform used to build model 3 upon, maybe ? I haven't been following that in details)
But older platfroms where designed with battery swapping in mind, I've read. Supposedly, once the shield is disassembled, the battery module should be coming out relatively easily). I'll have to find back 3rd party sources.
Similarly a lot of other cars have also been planned with battery swapping. Most manufacturer though the idea seemed logical.
which is why Tesla probably never actually swapped a single customer battery.
I though it was the general lack of interest from the public which caused manufacturers of e-cars such as Telsa to drop the idea of battery swaps.
Already back the first Tesla, but nowadays nearly all electric vehicle (except for the cheapest alternative entry-level in the range) have batteries that enable the driver to driver for at least 2-3 hours in a row. By which time taking a break is *extremely strongly* recommended. (Or even mandatory for professional drivers in some European jurisdictions - such as FR and CH, at least). And thus leaving the car plugged-in for half an hour or an hour while taking a leak, having a coffee, eating something or even taking a power-nap is perfectly acceptable for most drivers of e-cars, thus the general lack of interested for swap by owners.
Only the marginal "drive 8 hours straight without a stop ! go pee in a plastic bottle !!!" insane crowd would be clamoring for fast swaps.
Here's Elon Musk wrap-up about the abandoned battery swap : they invited 100 clients to test the battery swaps, only 5 them did swap battery and each only swapped once, no-one trying again. (Okay, it's not a third party's analysis, it's Elon himself and he might be telling whatever is needed to make the investors happy and confident).
But, you can find similar analysis about consumer battery swap from every single other company which did consider the idea.
Renault-Nissan CEO similarly reporting they're dropping swaps, also due to lack of interest from the public.
General sum-up about the trend.
Note that this is specific for consumer cars.
In some professional settings, battery swaps make actually entirely sense.
Buses and vans are such things : it makes more sense to swap the driver and the batteries while the remaining of the giant vehicle is used on the next shift (with a fresh rested new driver and a new fully charged battery pack).
Instead of having the drivers napping in a hammock and the giant fricking vehicle staying plugged into a charger.
(They didn't actually swap the battery in their stage demonstration, either; Tesla has literally never shown a single battery swap.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
- 1.16 : bolt un-screwer visible.
- 1.30 : lower shield + battery assembly being visibly lowered.
- 2.00 : lower shield + battery assembly being visibly raised.
Did they do an actual full blown battery swap ? Probably not. (Elon doesn't even mention how the disconnect/reconnect the batteries from the liquid cooling loop. Redundant Zero-spill Quick-disconnect valves, perhaps ?)
But they proved that it's not impossib
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
His batteries aren't giving slowly killing people and causing wars as he drives down the road.
Hah. I'd hug you if I could. You rock.
Huh. That's an interesting response. Usually when I give people links to stories about children dying, people tell me that I'm "sick" and to "get help". Glad to see I'm winning you people over. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Then you really are shit at budgeting.
When will Tesla owners have to start paying for their road usage? Since they aren't paying the gas tax which pays for the roads.
Spotted the Tesla investor. Within the first 3 words!
The battery catching fire is an interesting point. I'd be interested to know if the emergency responders initially followed the published guidelines for cooling the battery or if they stopped when they stopped seeing flames. Regardless, it's an interesting point and an important one for the future.
Regarding the rest of the OP's posting...yeah, 2 teens died in a Tesla in Florida while speeding 50-60 around a corner marked for 30 mph. Yes, a lady crashed her car into a Starbucks. Where are the headlines about some random kid who died in a pickup truck this weekend? I'll bet you $50 it happened. Or the old lady in her Ford Fiesta who ran into a parked car? I'll put $20 on that one. What, no national headlines on those ones? What gives? Or do we think miraculously owning a Tesla makes you immune to being a stupid/careless/human driver? I didn't know Musk was advertising that feature. Is Ford? Honda? Lexus?
Where are the headlines about those other Tesla stories you're complaining about? Because I sure didn't see them here on slashdot. The first I heard of them was as valid context provided to this story, which is a pretty standard practice.
This story is news and headline worthy, because it shows that an EV battery in a crashed vehicle is more dangerous and volatile that people realize, and it requires special equipment and expertise to deal with. Right now I'm wondering about the life-cycle of these batteries, Teslas will eventually become junkers, what's going to happen in 20 or 30 years when some teenager is trying to charge the battery in their grandfather's old Tesla?
I stole this Sig
Leave it to a Slashdot regular to recommend treating an electrical fire with water.
Leave it to an anonymous coward to comment when they know jack about shit. Lots and lots of water is exactly how you put out lithium battery fires. (The notion that the lithium in the battery will catch fire when exposed to water is absurd, it's not free.)
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ walked on water. Maybe you were thinking of Elijah, or maybe those three dudes in the furnace?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Tesla will automatically go into park also. The algorithm is more complex than just the door open though. From what I remember it is any two of three things that will cause auto engagement of park. I know one is the door, one is the weight sensor in the driver seat. I am not remembering the third right now.
If they only made the battery out of the significantly more explosive magnesium, there would be no fire to worry about later.
https://newatlas.com/solid-state-magnesium-battery/52386/
Why is Elon Musk's brother on the Tesla board of directors? I'm not making this up. His brother -- no industry experience, not an investor, just a nepotist -- is on the Tesla board of directors. Why?
I think you have that entirely backwards. An important part of budgeting is not wasting money.
High crimes, like treason, can't be pardoned.
They had the same problem with the electric super car Richard Hammond drove off a cliff.
Ship has sailed, time to jump on the euphemism merry go round, like the 'tards.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In short, this is a known characteristic of this type of system.
The situation is where you are following another vehicle going about your same speed. It moves out of the way and there is a fire truck (or some other stationary object) direct ahead and stopped. The system doesn't recognize the stopped object and in fact will accelerate back to the programmed cruise speed instead of stopping.
So this is one (of many!) reasons the Autopilot & similar systems say that the driver must remain continually aware ready to re-take control of the vehicle at any moment.
The problem with this scenario is--as nearly every autopilot crash so far has demonstrated--that this goes 100% counter to human nature.
Once the autopilot has driving a few hundred or a few thousand miles successfully, the human driver starts to trust it more and more, and tune out more and more. Monitoring a very good autopilot system is b-o-r-i-n-g and, interestingly, the better the system the more boring it becomes.
Any human in this situation is going to tune out for lengthy periods of time.
Instead of human plus automated driving adding together to achieve a system that is safer than either alone (which seems to be the case for currently available collision avoidance systems which never take control of the vehicle except in rare collision situations) you end up with a system that combines the worst characteristics of human and automated driving.
The human zones out way too often (again, a predictable outcome of this type of system) while the Level 2 automated system has many, many blind spots.
That doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, my damn cat chewed up a 1S pack wiring and shorted it. I was lucky the house didn't burn.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
> "the reason this crash was so severe is that the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had either been removed or crushed in a prior accident without being replaced. We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash"
Not even in your own controlled crash tests? Does that mean cars are only expected to crash where a safety barrier has been conveniently placed for that purpose?
He might send a SWAT team to your house...
The accident is more a sign that EMS personnel and scrap yard employee training is going to have to be updated for the handling and management of large automotive lithium ion batteries. Not just for Teslas but for other electric cars and possibly in the future urban VTOL vehicles as well.
Yeah, when I rear ended someone in my Lexus, I don't recall a Mercury News headline. But maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
Obviously not, if you rear ended someone... or for that matter, if you bought a Lexus
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Those other cars are not trying to sell the public on a goverment subsidized electric car with tax incentives even tho they keep exploding...
The President of the United States certainly can pardon someone for "High crimes", including treason.
The only limitations on the Presidential pardon is that it can only be used to pardon someone for Federal crimes (so, the power does not extend to state and local crimes) and can't be used to pardon someone from an impeachment or conviction thereof (however, the sole "punishment" that impeachment can dish out is removal from office -- impeachment can not be used to imprison or fine someone).
See Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution:
While you did prove a point that they exist, it is not the same sensationalism that Tesla stories get. Not one of your articles is from a major news source and I bet you had to actively look for them. These Tesla stories pop up without even having to search. Aggregate sites just pump them out like crazy. There is a real issue from many companies and wealthy stockholders who shorted Tesla, and desperately want them to fail so they profit. I find that an entirely backwards way to make money and I don't see the slightest reason why shorting a stock should be a real thing. It's worse than just betting that a company will lose, it's actively taking part in making them lose so you can get money on it.
If you can't afford $1,200 a month on a car payment (an approximate payment on a $70k loan) while making $140k a year...well I was going to say you're pretty shitty at budgeting. But that's completely untrue. You might have plenty of other things that you budget your money on. But given that your take home should be at least $7-8k a month, you should be able, if you chose, to cover the cost of that car.
I'm not saying you should. I'm not saying it's the most prudent use of your money. But for you to arbitrarily imply that that's out of someone's price range, or "foolish" implies your priorities are the right ones. Spoiler: They're not...they're just yours, and that's fine.
...all of which are pretty rare.
I guess that totally depends on where you live. If you live in a major metropolitan area, not even a "super rich one" (Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston, San Diego, Nashville, etc) they're not particularly rare. Sure, they're rarer than Honda Civics, but that's bell curve economics for you...the more expensive a car is the fewer you'll see. But Tesla hardly exists in some rarified airspace uninhabited by other manufacturers.
But the original point stands...Teslas are no more "for the rich" than any of those other cars I mentioned. When was the last time you saw a national headline about someone wrecking their Lexus, Porsche, Cadillac, etc? I practically guarantee they get wrecked with pretty much equal frequency.
I'm sure there are things in your budget I'd consider "wasteful" and I'm sure there are things in mine that you'd consider wasteful.
A household "budget" by definition is "an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time" and if you run yours and you can afford something while meeting the other obligations that you need/should cover, then that's a successful budget. Whether it is irresponsible is a much bigger question that every family/city/country has to decide independently and as a unit.
Also, totally not the point of the original post which was about disproportionate coverage of Tesla compared to other similarly priced vehicles (and far disproportionate compared to less expensive ones).
I was only responding to the person who said that the car being considered "expensive" means that you're bad at budgeting. Whether you can afford it in your budget or not isn't the point at all.
Also, totally not the point of the original post which was about disproportionate coverage of Tesla compared to other similarly priced vehicles (and far disproportionate compared to less expensive ones).
Doesn't really matter. I wasn't responding to your original post.
That's primarily because cars like Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt/Bolt are not nearly as fast or aggressive as Teslas. So people don't drive them as foolishly and the accidents they get in are less likely to cause catastrophic damage to the battery pack. It's more an issue that "supercars" capable of driving very fast have a tendency of getting into more spectacular wrecks when those wrecks do occur.
An at least marginally interesting question would be, should the government get into the business of regulating availability or use of such "supercars?" Should you need, for example, a special driver's license rider to purchase a car capable of 4s 0-60? Insurance companies already charge a premium for such cars. Perhaps municipalities should consider it if it becomes a problem as more and more electric powertrains make such impressive acceleration attainable for the average driver.
3 Hours Later another Tesla was given a speeding ticket, and in a completely separate incident a Tesla was given a failure to blink ticket!
Do we really need a news story for every driver of a Tesla in the world who breaks the law?
I'm not happy with it, but I'm also educated and experienced enough with how business and economics work to realize that this is an emergent behavior inherent to the system that "The Wealthy" didn't plan or pay for. They may be smarter about using it to their advantage than you but their advantage is more about timing than birthright. So, no, you're wrong in thinking that I take for granted that society has to be structured in this fashion. In fact, quite the opposite. What differs between me and you in this regard is just that I'm smart enough to recognize that this is the situation correcting itself, while you've been brainwashed into biting the hands that feed you.
People crash into buildings all the time by stepping on the gas instead of the brake, and when the car moves they step on it harder causing it to accelerate faster. This is literally an everyday occurrence and until collision avoidance systems become mandatory, this can happen in almost any car. Very few cars (maybe some Volvos?) will stop you from driving into a building.
The article you linked to mentioned there was a recall. "The changes are designed to automatically prevent the vehicle from moving under certain circumstances, even if the driver doesn't select 'park'", the article said. That's precisely the change I posted about.
Even if he was forced to resign or impeached, the next President will pardon him, just like happened with Nixon.
These people all stick together, shit after Trump leaves office, he'll be best friends with Hillary again, which isn't surprising as they're birds of a feather.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
jesus you guys are slow. he means hes racist and thinks that autistic people should be killed.
In my Dodge, if I open the door while the car is stopped, it automatically goes into park.
That only became a "feature" after dodge killed Sulu.
I own a Dodge which originally had the new-type shifter without the auto-park ability. It was a known problem; my local dealership informed me a month before his death that Dodge was aware of multiple accidents occurring due to vehicles not going into park properly and "a fix is being developed" but wouldn't go into effect for another year.
After the publicity surrounding his death they fast-tracked and pushed out a software fix maybe a month later.
Correcting my own comment: they killed Chekov, not Sulu.
Two hours after that story was published, a Tesla [driven by some idiot] smashed into a Starbucks in Los Gatos, California.
Tesla's don't kill Starbucks, people kill Starbucks.
Amen
After the publicity surrounding his death they fast-tracked and pushed out a software fix maybe a month later.
Is that why Slashdot doesn't yet have a software fix allowing us to edit comments for a few minutes after posting to correct minor errors?
On the contrary, a good system that notices mistakes like that should be able to tell that your attention is flagging, and intentionally drives your car through the Starbucks, probably to pick up a latte.
I already have a care with "giant banks of energy in them".
I can recharge it in 3 minutes and get 400+ miles of range out of it.
*shrug*
True, but a gasoline fire can be doused without needing special tools. Odds are someone driving by you on the highway has a fire-extinguisher capable of putting out a fire if you're trapping a burning car.
Good luck if that's a burning Tesla battery. I hope a dump-truck full of sand is driving by...
Mental lapses and over confident is a human nature. I recently helped my uncle installing the new rack and bumper he ordered from 4WheelOnline for his 2001 Dodge Ram. For some reason he doesn't like the EV's and fancy features that supposed to do everything he should be checking on the vehicle.
As I read your comment, the quote at the bottom of the page is:
Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. -- Gilb
How do you figure?
https://www.cbpp.org/sites/def...
https://timebusinessblog.files...
If you were as smart as you think you are you'd be ruthlessly putting yourself on the correct side of that divide for the sake of your offspring because it will be nearly impossible to cross it by the time a child born today has grandchildren unless something major changes.
Please explain your stance that the problem is correcting itself. I think this is denial so you don't have to man up.