11 ms·

Federal safety agency launches probe of Tesla battery fires

59 points by elorant 7y ago

byte_c0de 7y ago
Letter: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2019/INIM-DP19005-76719.pdf https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2019/INIM-DP19005-76719.pdf The timing and urgency seems interesting: Letter issued: Nov 24 Due date: Nov 28 (Thanksgiving day in the US) Extension can be requested no later than 5 days before due date (which isn't possible) Is this normal for these types of petitions? Edit: Oh jeez, I totally misread the Issued stamp (which is actually Oct 24). Ignore this comment.
- withinrafael 7y ago
  The letter was issued October 24.
- krisoft 7y ago
  Why do you say it has been issued on Nov 24? All I can find is a stamp with "Oct 24 2019" on the top of the letter. Do you say that it has been backdated?
- toast0 7y ago
  The pdf you linked is stamped October 24, a thursday. Nov 28 is five weeks (35 days) later. I don't know when Tesla received the letter or when it was released to the public, of course. This article is dated November 1st.
imglorp 7y ago
Two fires were mentioned in OP, 2012-2019. Even if it's 200 that get surfaced, look at the alternative: about 180,000 highway vehicle fires per year in the US. Having a compartment full of leaky flammable fluids and hot exhaust components might tend to do that on occasion. The bigger story might be the risk/reward tradeoff of those few battery fires vs everyone's charge capacity. source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/377006/nmber-of-us-highway-vehicle-fires/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/377006/nmber-of-us-highw...
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >Having a compartment full of leaky flammable fluids and hot exhaust components might tend to do that on occasion. Indeed, but you also get animal related fires (I have no clue as to what percentage) as birds, mice, chipmunks etc will build nests in vehicles. I imagine the animal related fires are pretty low and in the case of an EV would be next to non-existent for nest-related fires, I wonder though if EVs though are more at risk of electrical fire from pets chewing on wires. Trying to find any sort of statistics I stumbled upon a wildfire site that documents animal-started fires, the most recent one gave me a bit of a chuckle so I'm including it here: "Bear falls on Sheriff’s vehicle causing crash and fire" https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/08/09/bear-falls-on-sheriffs-vehicle-causing-crash-and-fire/ https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/08/09/bear-falls-on-sheriffs-... There's also the infrastructure damage caused by animals that is documented at https://cybersquirrel1.com/ https://cybersquirrel1.com/
- techstrategist 7y ago
  I don’t think it’s rational to compare to overall highway vehicle fires. Wouldn’t you want to compare against similar luxury vehicles of a similar age?
  - im_with_stupid 7y ago
    I'm not a fan of all of Tesla's management practices, but this does seem to be a bit of a knee jerk reaction. One company has less than 1% of all fires for the industry, and with a component with known combustibility. Even if the electronics failed, leaving the driver stuck inside, you would think the owners would have the foresight to either have something capable of breaking windows or a method by which to break them.
    - pgt 7y ago
      I don't think this is true: "you would think the owners would have the foresight to either have something capable of breaking windows".
      - 7y ago
wcoenen 7y ago
Tesla itself has previously claimed that its vehicles had fewer fires, per miles travelled, than other vehicles in 2012-2018: one per 170 million miles for Tesla, vs one per 19 million miles for all. https://www.tesla.com/nl_BE/VehicleSafetyReport https://www.tesla.com/nl_BE/VehicleSafetyReport
- dfsvvsdzc 7y ago
  how many of those 19 million cars were < 5 years $30k > cost > $100k pampered cars? Strung out million dollar Ferraris and PoS 30 year old death traps shouldn't count towards the normalization.
  - mlindner 7y ago
    If that were true the number of fires would be going down every year. However on average for the last 5-10 years the number of fires is pretty constant. See: https://www.statista.com/statistics/377006/nmber-of-us-highway-vehicle-fires/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/377006/nmber-of-us-highw... If anything there's a gradual trend of increasing number of fires in the last 6-7 years.
QuanticSausage 7y ago
link related: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
- mlindner 7y ago
  This is not related. Please don't spread FUD unrelated to the story.
tempsy 7y ago
I've never been one of the tin foil hat $TSLA bears but can't help but notice odd things surrounding Tesla that appear highly questionable. e.g. Elon has tweeted the Cybertruck has 250k+ pre-orders and counting. The pre-order deposit is only $100 (vs. $1000 when the Tesla 3 came out). The fact the deposit is only $100 for a $50k+ truck makes me question whether they intentionally set it at a low price to pump pre-order numbers, knowing full well that in 2 years time the majority of these people will likely not actually purchase the truck at all. And at 250k preorders it means Tesla has raised at least $25M in interest-free loans that they can do whatever with for the 2 years. More than that they have no clear idea on how to scale production of this vehicle at present time, and considering how many Tesla 3 owners have complained about defects with a "standard" Tesla why would anyone believe that Tesla can produce high quality Cybertrucks at scale in a reasonable amount of time to fulfill legitimate preorders?
- aerovistae 7y ago
  Funny you sure sound like one of the tinfoil bears.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    Objectively how does a $100 deposit for a $50k good to be delivered in 2+ years make logical sense? And does anyone actual think that most of these 250k people actually intend to buy the truck when it comes time to put down the $49900+?
    - cagenut 7y ago
      don't think of it as a deposit, think of it as reserving your place in line. whenever tesla gets around to being able to deliver you have to make up your mind, but at least you know you won't have to wait at the back of the line if you decide you do want it. its an option not a deposit. tesla obviously doesn't expect them all to convert, in fact they have their internal numbers on how well the model3 reservations converted so they can make a much more accurate estimate than either you or I. tell me a marketing department for a product that can't be shipped for 2 years that wouldn't kill for a list of not just warm leads, but people who had out and out handed over money! its like they managed to get the customers to pay for the marketing budget.
olivermarks 7y ago
Burning Tesla extinguished with 11 tons of water (German) https://tirol.orf.at/stories/3015765/ https://tirol.orf.at/stories/3015765/
- Kuinox 7y ago
  Lithium react with water, pouring water on it will lower the temperature, but you can't stop a lithium fire with water, you need to wait that your pile of lithium burn.
  - mlindner 7y ago
    In battery fires the lithium is not burning, the electrolyte is. By dumping water on it you simply heat up the lithium causing the fire to continue. You don't want to use water on a battery fire. You want to use smothering agents that block off oxygen so that the liberated gas put off by the heated electrolyte doesn't ignite.
    - Symbiote 7y ago
      Batteries do not contain lithium, they contain lithium compounds. Fires should be doused with lots of water. https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/firstresponders?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/firstresponders?redirect=no
      - Kuinox 7y ago
        Thanks, will sleep less stupid.
- mlindner 7y ago
  By putting water on it they made the fire last longer. That just shows the fire crews need better training on how to handle electric vehicle fires. This is not unique to Tesla. You don't use water, you use non-flammable non-water-based suppressants.
  - 7y ago
kjksf 7y ago
Here's something that will shock you: this story is false. Based on comments so far most people, even those defending Tesla, accepted the false premise that NHTSA decided to investigate Tesla on its own. That's not what happened. Originally the author claimed NHTSA launched "investigation" into Tesla. NHTSA contacted LATIMES and said this is "defect petition", not an investigation, so he reluctantly changed it to "probe" because he "doesn't want to argue over definition of words". Here's the proof: https://twitter.com/russ1mitchell/status/1190352973013995520 https://twitter.com/russ1mitchell/status/1190352973013995520 https://twitter.com/VGrinshpun/status/1191187292288929792 https://twitter.com/VGrinshpun/status/1191187292288929792 is a longer expose of how biased and misleading this article is. The short of it is: someone complain to NHTSA and they are bound by the law to investigate the complaints, hence the "defect petition" (i.e. someone petitioned NHTSA claiming that Tesla's are defective) even if they don't believe any of it. Hence request of relevant documents from Tesla. For context: Russ Mitchell, the author of this article, is a full-on Tesla hater. If you read his LA Times articles you'll see an extreme anti-Tesla bias. His tweeter feed is almost a daily stream of retweeting anti-Tesla news, making anti-Tesla comments. That LA Times allows this guy to report on Tesla is just mind-boggling.
- mlindner 7y ago
  The author of the story claims he has no financial position in any company he reports on in his bio, but it doesn't say he doesn't write paid editorials.
- avn2109 7y ago
  >> "...this story is false." Fake news! In the wild, unambiguously.

59 points by elorant 7y ago

Letter: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2019/INIM-DP19005-76719.pdf https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2019/INIM-DP19005-76719.pdf The timing and urgency seems interesting: Letter issued: Nov 24 Due date: Nov 28 (Thanksgiving day in the US) Extension can be requested no later than 5 days before due date (which isn't possible) Is this normal for these types of petitions? Edit: Oh jeez, I totally misread the Issued stamp (which is actually Oct 24). Ignore this comment.

withinrafael 7y ago
The letter was issued October 24.
krisoft 7y ago
Why do you say it has been issued on Nov 24? All I can find is a stamp with "Oct 24 2019" on the top of the letter. Do you say that it has been backdated?
toast0 7y ago
The pdf you linked is stamped October 24, a thursday. Nov 28 is five weeks (35 days) later. I don't know when Tesla received the letter or when it was released to the public, of course. This article is dated November 1st.

imglorp 7y ago

Two fires were mentioned in OP, 2012-2019. Even if it's 200 that get surfaced, look at the alternative: about 180,000 highway vehicle fires per year in the US. Having a compartment full of leaky flammable fluids and hot exhaust components might tend to do that on occasion. The bigger story might be the risk/reward tradeoff of those few battery fires vs everyone's charge capacity. source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/377006/nmber-of-us-highway-vehicle-fires/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/377006/nmber-of-us-highw...

ryanmercer 7y ago
>Having a compartment full of leaky flammable fluids and hot exhaust components might tend to do that on occasion. Indeed, but you also get animal related fires (I have no clue as to what percentage) as birds, mice, chipmunks etc will build nests in vehicles. I imagine the animal related fires are pretty low and in the case of an EV would be next to non-existent for nest-related fires, I wonder though if EVs though are more at risk of electrical fire from pets chewing on wires. Trying to find any sort of statistics I stumbled upon a wildfire site that documents animal-started fires, the most recent one gave me a bit of a chuckle so I'm including it here: "Bear falls on Sheriff’s vehicle causing crash and fire" https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/08/09/bear-falls-on-sheriffs-vehicle-causing-crash-and-fire/ https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/08/09/bear-falls-on-sheriffs-... There's also the infrastructure damage caused by animals that is documented at https://cybersquirrel1.com/ https://cybersquirrel1.com/
techstrategist 7y ago
I don’t think it’s rational to compare to overall highway vehicle fires. Wouldn’t you want to compare against similar luxury vehicles of a similar age?
- im_with_stupid 7y ago
  I'm not a fan of all of Tesla's management practices, but this does seem to be a bit of a knee jerk reaction. One company has less than 1% of all fires for the industry, and with a component with known combustibility. Even if the electronics failed, leaving the driver stuck inside, you would think the owners would have the foresight to either have something capable of breaking windows or a method by which to break them.
  - pgt 7y ago
    I don't think this is true: "you would think the owners would have the foresight to either have something capable of breaking windows".
    - 7y ago

wcoenen 7y ago

Tesla itself has previously claimed that its vehicles had fewer fires, per miles travelled, than other vehicles in 2012-2018: one per 170 million miles for Tesla, vs one per 19 million miles for all. https://www.tesla.com/nl_BE/VehicleSafetyReport https://www.tesla.com/nl_BE/VehicleSafetyReport

dfsvvsdzc 7y ago
how many of those 19 million cars were < 5 years $30k > cost > $100k pampered cars? Strung out million dollar Ferraris and PoS 30 year old death traps shouldn't count towards the normalization.
- mlindner 7y ago
  If that were true the number of fires would be going down every year. However on average for the last 5-10 years the number of fires is pretty constant. See: https://www.statista.com/statistics/377006/nmber-of-us-highway-vehicle-fires/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/377006/nmber-of-us-highw... If anything there's a gradual trend of increasing number of fires in the last 6-7 years.

QuanticSausage 7y ago

link related: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

mlindner 7y ago
This is not related. Please don't spread FUD unrelated to the story.

tempsy 7y ago

I've never been one of the tin foil hat $TSLA bears but can't help but notice odd things surrounding Tesla that appear highly questionable. e.g. Elon has tweeted the Cybertruck has 250k+ pre-orders and counting. The pre-order deposit is only $100 (vs. $1000 when the Tesla 3 came out). The fact the deposit is only $100 for a $50k+ truck makes me question whether they intentionally set it at a low price to pump pre-order numbers, knowing full well that in 2 years time the majority of these people will likely not actually purchase the truck at all. And at 250k preorders it means Tesla has raised at least $25M in interest-free loans that they can do whatever with for the 2 years. More than that they have no clear idea on how to scale production of this vehicle at present time, and considering how many Tesla 3 owners have complained about defects with a "standard" Tesla why would anyone believe that Tesla can produce high quality Cybertrucks at scale in a reasonable amount of time to fulfill legitimate preorders?

aerovistae 7y ago
Funny you sure sound like one of the tinfoil bears.
- tempsy 7y ago
  Objectively how does a $100 deposit for a $50k good to be delivered in 2+ years make logical sense? And does anyone actual think that most of these 250k people actually intend to buy the truck when it comes time to put down the $49900+?
  - cagenut 7y ago
    don't think of it as a deposit, think of it as reserving your place in line. whenever tesla gets around to being able to deliver you have to make up your mind, but at least you know you won't have to wait at the back of the line if you decide you do want it. its an option not a deposit. tesla obviously doesn't expect them all to convert, in fact they have their internal numbers on how well the model3 reservations converted so they can make a much more accurate estimate than either you or I. tell me a marketing department for a product that can't be shipped for 2 years that wouldn't kill for a list of not just warm leads, but people who had out and out handed over money! its like they managed to get the customers to pay for the marketing budget.

olivermarks 7y ago

Burning Tesla extinguished with 11 tons of water (German) https://tirol.orf.at/stories/3015765/ https://tirol.orf.at/stories/3015765/

Kuinox 7y ago
Lithium react with water, pouring water on it will lower the temperature, but you can't stop a lithium fire with water, you need to wait that your pile of lithium burn.
- mlindner 7y ago
  In battery fires the lithium is not burning, the electrolyte is. By dumping water on it you simply heat up the lithium causing the fire to continue. You don't want to use water on a battery fire. You want to use smothering agents that block off oxygen so that the liberated gas put off by the heated electrolyte doesn't ignite.
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    Batteries do not contain lithium, they contain lithium compounds. Fires should be doused with lots of water. https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/firstresponders?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/firstresponders?redirect=no
    - Kuinox 7y ago
      Thanks, will sleep less stupid.
mlindner 7y ago
By putting water on it they made the fire last longer. That just shows the fire crews need better training on how to handle electric vehicle fires. This is not unique to Tesla. You don't use water, you use non-flammable non-water-based suppressants.
- 7y ago

kjksf 7y ago

Here's something that will shock you: this story is false. Based on comments so far most people, even those defending Tesla, accepted the false premise that NHTSA decided to investigate Tesla on its own. That's not what happened. Originally the author claimed NHTSA launched "investigation" into Tesla. NHTSA contacted LATIMES and said this is "defect petition", not an investigation, so he reluctantly changed it to "probe" because he "doesn't want to argue over definition of words". Here's the proof: https://twitter.com/russ1mitchell/status/1190352973013995520 https://twitter.com/russ1mitchell/status/1190352973013995520 https://twitter.com/VGrinshpun/status/1191187292288929792 https://twitter.com/VGrinshpun/status/1191187292288929792 is a longer expose of how biased and misleading this article is. The short of it is: someone complain to NHTSA and they are bound by the law to investigate the complaints, hence the "defect petition" (i.e. someone petitioned NHTSA claiming that Tesla's are defective) even if they don't believe any of it. Hence request of relevant documents from Tesla. For context: Russ Mitchell, the author of this article, is a full-on Tesla hater. If you read his LA Times articles you'll see an extreme anti-Tesla bias. His tweeter feed is almost a daily stream of retweeting anti-Tesla news, making anti-Tesla comments. That LA Times allows this guy to report on Tesla is just mind-boggling.

mlindner 7y ago
The author of the story claims he has no financial position in any company he reports on in his bio, but it doesn't say he doesn't write paid editorials.
avn2109 7y ago
>> "...this story is false." Fake news! In the wild, unambiguously.