within the pac This is worth noting. The fire did not stop and kept reignighting. The FD had to flip the car on its side and physically gain access by cutting

within the pac This is worth noting. The fire did not stop and kept reignighting. The FD had to flip the car on its side and physically gain access by cutting the car up, to put the fire out. Under this scenario, it seems dubious that compartmentalization would be sufficient. Thermal conductivity at some stage would overcome the situation. Also, you are right to highlight that petrol fuel systems are a cause only on a tiny minority of real-life auto accident related fires (~2%). The safety of petrol engines is actually quite high in this regards (counter-intuitive, perhaps). Plastic has the ability to deform rather than crack (flexibil vs brittle) and also the position of the fuel cells is much more protected. Think about the debris from front-tires -- much more likely to hit the undercarriage (where the Tesla battery is) than behind the rear axel (where many tanks are). Debris hit by the rear tires of course exits behidnd the car in either scenario. This setup is obviously not by chance. The Li Ion battery is probably low for COG reasons and fore-aft weight distribution. Li ION is much heavier than petrol.