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NHTSA did review all the fire incidents involving Tesla cars and found that the outside shell in the bottom was too thin and the debris broke it and damaged the

NHTSA did review all the fire incidents involving Tesla cars and found that the outside shell in the bottom was too thin and the debris broke it and damaged the batteries to cause fire. As far as I know that's a legitimate issue media has brought up and Tesla then took steps to make the shell stronger so that debris couldn't damage the batteries.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago
Sure, if by "too thin" you mean it fails under impacts from objects like concrete blocks and receiver hitches that would puncture the passenger compartment, gas tank, or probably even the oil pan of a gasoline engine. The media loves to portray new things as dangerous. Perhaps it actually was too thin because these completely reasonable failures were able to happen, causing bad press that they ought to have guarded against with total overkill undercarriage shielding.
- userbinator 10y ago
  Physically damaging batteries can directly cause a fire, whereas a punctured gas tank won't unless the leaking fuel finds a source of ignition. This is a failure mode unique to electric cars with batteries located there.
  - mdorazio 10y ago
    Wait, what? There were over 160,000 vehicle fires on highways in 2013 [1]. ICE vehicles catch on fire all the time, often even without a punctured gas tank, and definitely can catch on fire with a punctured gas tank. If you damage a vehicle's fuel source, whether it's lithium-ion or gasoline, you're going to have a bad time. [1] http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/vehicle-fires/highway-vehicle-fires http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...
    - userbinator 10y ago
      How many of those were caused by running over things on the road?
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Vehicle fires are mostly from overheating or electrical fires. The gas tank being resistant to puncture, heat, and other things is something that is actually tested, electric vehicles on the other hand are much newer and these standards aren't there yet. Batteries can explode when internally shorted, I had quite a few of 18650's explode on me over the years (usually through a fault of my own) the explosion isn't like a party popper it can be quite big and violent, and while explosions are some what not uncommon the battery flaming out completely when internally or externally shorted is. The Tesla has a few 1000's of 18650's cells even if a small number of those short during an accident it can cause allot of damage. Another important difference between batteries and gas is that emergency workers (and anyone who's involved in the accident) can identify when the gas is leaking out, it's also much easier to stop the gas from catching on fire as wetting the vehicle or using other fire retardants will usually prevent the gas from catching fire. On the other hand you can have an internally shorted battery pack which can catch fire or explode at any moment and you would have no clue that it can happen. Now don't take me wrong this isn't some anti-Tesla or anti-EV scare BS, this isn't some conspiracy either but saying that there are no valid concerns about the safety of the battery pack is ludicrous. We know how petrol cars work, we've been using them for 100+ years, we know when to look for a gas leak, we know how to deal with an oil/engine fire, EV's are a whole new ball game, eventually there will be a case where a Tesla or any other EV gets into a car accident and there will be a hot terminal somewhere in that car due to a short and someone will going to get zapped, at some point one of those batteries will explode and cause casualties, and many other things will happen that will be unique to EV's.
      - mdorazio 10y ago
        Great response, just a few small nitpicks: Using water on a gasoline or oil fire is a bad idea (the fire spreads since gas and oil are lighter than water), so fighting vehicle fires for ICE vehicles where the fuel tank has ruptured is a non-trivial problem for firefighters. The "easy" vehicle fires are ones where just the engine compartment and maybe the interior are on fire, but the fuel lines and tank are still in tact. In some ways a battery fire is easier to put out since it won't spread the same way and responds well to water. Exploding 18650s tends to only happen with cheap, poorly manufactured variants. Most of the time if they short they will overheat, bulge, and sometimes catch on fire. Having enough of them actually explode to cause injury to vehicle occupants is probably about as likely as a fuel tank exploding in an ICE vehicle accident. Granted, there might be a higher fire risk for electric vehicles in severe collisions that damage the undercarriage area where the batteries are stored.
- chc 10y ago
  Given that the consequences were really bad (your car caught on fire) and the problem was easily fixed, it sounds like a reasonable complaint, even if the circumstances where it happened were pretty extreme.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    A lot of rare problems can be 'easily' fixed with thick expensive metal plating. That's not enough to make a complaint reasonable.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  FWIW, damaging your car's oil pan is super easy, it's really soft steel. My neighbour wrecked his Audi A3 going about 4 mph down a severely potholed road.
kbenson 10y ago
That's not what was reported at the time[1]. The NHTSA found no defect trend[2]. Tesla decided to make changes to prevent the problem anyway, including reinforcing that battery compartment and raising ride height when at speed, which should reduce the chance of anything like that happening again, but there's no evidence that their engineering was at fault (they indicated their cars had driven 90 million miles at the time, and only two fires were reported). 1: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/28/nhtsa-closes-investigation-into-fire-accidents-of-tesla-model-s-report.html http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/28/nhtsa-closes-investigation-in... 2: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchResults?searchType=ID&targetCategory=I&searchCriteria.nhtsa_ids=PE13037 http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchResults?searchType...

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

Sure, if by "too thin" you mean it fails under impacts from objects like concrete blocks and receiver hitches that would puncture the passenger compartment, gas tank, or probably even the oil pan of a gasoline engine. The media loves to portray new things as dangerous. Perhaps it actually was too thin because these completely reasonable failures were able to happen, causing bad press that they ought to have guarded against with total overkill undercarriage shielding.

userbinator 10y ago
Physically damaging batteries can directly cause a fire, whereas a punctured gas tank won't unless the leaking fuel finds a source of ignition. This is a failure mode unique to electric cars with batteries located there.
- mdorazio 10y ago
  Wait, what? There were over 160,000 vehicle fires on highways in 2013 [1]. ICE vehicles catch on fire all the time, often even without a punctured gas tank, and definitely can catch on fire with a punctured gas tank. If you damage a vehicle's fuel source, whether it's lithium-ion or gasoline, you're going to have a bad time. [1] http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/vehicle-fires/highway-vehicle-fires http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...
  - userbinator 10y ago
    How many of those were caused by running over things on the road?
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Vehicle fires are mostly from overheating or electrical fires. The gas tank being resistant to puncture, heat, and other things is something that is actually tested, electric vehicles on the other hand are much newer and these standards aren't there yet. Batteries can explode when internally shorted, I had quite a few of 18650's explode on me over the years (usually through a fault of my own) the explosion isn't like a party popper it can be quite big and violent, and while explosions are some what not uncommon the battery flaming out completely when internally or externally shorted is. The Tesla has a few 1000's of 18650's cells even if a small number of those short during an accident it can cause allot of damage. Another important difference between batteries and gas is that emergency workers (and anyone who's involved in the accident) can identify when the gas is leaking out, it's also much easier to stop the gas from catching on fire as wetting the vehicle or using other fire retardants will usually prevent the gas from catching fire. On the other hand you can have an internally shorted battery pack which can catch fire or explode at any moment and you would have no clue that it can happen. Now don't take me wrong this isn't some anti-Tesla or anti-EV scare BS, this isn't some conspiracy either but saying that there are no valid concerns about the safety of the battery pack is ludicrous. We know how petrol cars work, we've been using them for 100+ years, we know when to look for a gas leak, we know how to deal with an oil/engine fire, EV's are a whole new ball game, eventually there will be a case where a Tesla or any other EV gets into a car accident and there will be a hot terminal somewhere in that car due to a short and someone will going to get zapped, at some point one of those batteries will explode and cause casualties, and many other things will happen that will be unique to EV's.
    - mdorazio 10y ago
      Great response, just a few small nitpicks: Using water on a gasoline or oil fire is a bad idea (the fire spreads since gas and oil are lighter than water), so fighting vehicle fires for ICE vehicles where the fuel tank has ruptured is a non-trivial problem for firefighters. The "easy" vehicle fires are ones where just the engine compartment and maybe the interior are on fire, but the fuel lines and tank are still in tact. In some ways a battery fire is easier to put out since it won't spread the same way and responds well to water. Exploding 18650s tends to only happen with cheap, poorly manufactured variants. Most of the time if they short they will overheat, bulge, and sometimes catch on fire. Having enough of them actually explode to cause injury to vehicle occupants is probably about as likely as a fuel tank exploding in an ICE vehicle accident. Granted, there might be a higher fire risk for electric vehicles in severe collisions that damage the undercarriage area where the batteries are stored.
chc 10y ago
Given that the consequences were really bad (your car caught on fire) and the problem was easily fixed, it sounds like a reasonable complaint, even if the circumstances where it happened were pretty extreme.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  A lot of rare problems can be 'easily' fixed with thick expensive metal plating. That's not enough to make a complaint reasonable.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
FWIW, damaging your car's oil pan is super easy, it's really soft steel. My neighbour wrecked his Audi A3 going about 4 mph down a severely potholed road.

kbenson 10y ago

That's not what was reported at the time[1]. The NHTSA found no defect trend[2]. Tesla decided to make changes to prevent the problem anyway, including reinforcing that battery compartment and raising ride height when at speed, which should reduce the chance of anything like that happening again, but there's no evidence that their engineering was at fault (they indicated their cars had driven 90 million miles at the time, and only two fires were reported). 1: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/28/nhtsa-closes-investigation-into-fire-accidents-of-tesla-model-s-report.html http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/28/nhtsa-closes-investigation-in... 2: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchResults?searchType=ID&targetCategory=I&searchCriteria.nhtsa_ids=PE13037 http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchResults?searchType...