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Another Model S fire
- Lagged2Death 13y agoWhy does that fireman's bottom say "CHUNK" on it?
- talmand 13y agoI would expect more of these stories as more of these cars are purchased and on the road. Three fires in six weeks and all three related to accidents. But since it's the new fancy all-electric cars then it's prime for sensational headlines or at least just heavier than usual coverage. Take a Tesla to an empty field, pour gasoline all over it, apply flame, watch headlines of "yet another Tesla catches fire" to appear.
- tankenmate 13y agoI agree this is largely sensationalist / novel news reporting driving this (no pun intended). What I would like to see is an attempt to report the rate of fires / driven miles for both electric and more conventionally power cars; of course taking into account factors like the power / performance of the cars, relative age of the vehicles etc.
- danielweber 13y ago"Dateline" is still on the air, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_C/K#Sidesaddle_fuel_tank_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_C/K#Sidesaddle_fuel_t...
- IanDrake 13y ago>Take a Tesla to an empty field, pour gasoline all over it, apply flame... You forgot step 1 - Short TSLA
- ye 13y agoYou would need to short an insane amount of stock for that to be profitable.
- rdl 13y agoOptions. Also there's potentially SEC stuff which happens to you if you do this, although it's less clear if you're not a professional or licensed, and don't solicit others.
- maxerickson 13y agoAnd then there is the whole thing where if you are trying to manipulate the stock you maybe don't care who the car belongs to.
- IanDrake 13y agoYes, as rdl said, buy out of the money PUTS. You'll 5-10x your money. There are multiple ways to take a short position ;) Anyway, this was in jest. But I also wanted to bring attention to the fact that TSLA is in unique position to be sabotaged for gain, more so than just about any other public company.
- nawitus 13y agoModel S fires could be compared to Nissan Leaf fires, as they're both electric cars. Although Leaf is sold massively more than the Model S (Leaf is the most produced electric car in history).
- johnnymonster 13y agoWhere are you getting your numbers from? The volt sold more than the leaf in 2012 by almost double. At best the leaf sells about 1500 a month. The model S is well over 3k a month as well. so I would like to see your sources on the matter.
- cjg_ 13y agoTesla sold 5.5k cars the last quarter. That's not 3k/month. (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/131106/tesla-shares-model-s-electric-car-sales http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/uni...) The leaf sold 6375 during the same period (us only). I think Teslas number was global sales. But still Leaf out sold teslas the last quarter in the US. http://www.hybridcars.com/eight-us-sales-records-in-eight-months-for-nissan-leaf/ http://www.hybridcars.com/eight-us-sales-records-in-eight-mo... Where did you get your numbers from?
- johnnymonster 13y agoFirst, 5500 is the total cars delivered not sold. looking for my source on total cars sold that quarter.
- nawitus 13y agoWikipedia[1]. I meant an all-electric car. Chevrolet Volt is a hybrid car. Model S only has about 20k sales. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_automobiles#Class_bestsellers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_automobile... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S
- rgbrenner 13y ago"Three fires in six weeks and all three related to accidents." This fire is related to an accident? Can you help me out, and tell me which of the 21 pages I can skip to to read that part. I've clicked on most of the pages, and I just see speculation that goes back in forth about whether there was an accident or not, based on a handful of pics someone posted.
- dangrossman 13y ago> The company said the fire was the result of an accident and was not a spontaneous event. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/autos-tesla-fire-idUSL2N0IS0TL20131107 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/autos-tesla-fire-i...
- rgbrenner 13y agoBut that seems to be based on this: "It's possible that it ran over a piece of metal in the roadway and it got up in the engine compartment," police dispatcher Kathy Bryant said. Apparently speculation by a police dispatcher now counts as confirmed facts.
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- ericcumbee 13y agoIt's interesting that people on HN seem to take whatever Tesla says as the gospel truth. Where as if it had been an established manufacturer (IE runaway toyotas) there would be at least some skepticism until there was at least some objective and trusted third party analysis and reporting.
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- themstheones 13y agoIt's bound to happen. There's too much energy stored in the batteries.
- benjamincburns 13y agoGo look up the energy density of gasoline as compared to Lithium Ion batteries. I'd much rather deal with a battery fire in a Model S than any kind of gasoline-fueled fire in a "normal" car. Battery fires are much simpler to contain, as batteries don't tend to vaporize into massive fireballs.
- noonespecial 13y agoEdit: Totally agree with parent: just in case there was any confusion Don't mind if I do: Gas = 132MJ/Gal = 36.7 KWh/gal X 20 gallons in your average grocery getter = 734 KWh Tesla battery = 60KWh : 12.2 TeslaBattery = 1 Tank gas None of that matters. When the gas burns, all of its energy becomes heat. The energy released when a battery burns is only tangentially related to how much electric power it makes when doing its designed chemical reaction. The battery is a fire risk because it "contains too much energy" is nonsense.
- benjamincburns 13y agoYes, I agree. Reread my comment. Also note that mine is a sibling to yours, not in response to yours. ;-)
- stonemetal 13y agotangentially related to how much electric power it makes when doing its designed chemical reaction. Yeah but how much electric power it makes when doing it designed chemical reaction is only tangentially related to how much energy(note no mention of electrical energy during normal operation just energy) it contains. Rather akin to saying "a gallon of gasoline doesn't contain that much energy because we are using it to turn a water wheel and a gallon of liquid falling a few feet doesn't contain that much energy."
- gcb1 13y agolol. posted on a tesla forum by someone with bmw i3 blog link signature. totally not a bmw "community manager".
- sz4kerto 13y agoThis argument is called 'ad hominem'. Does not matter who posted it -- it definitely happened.
- CognitiveLens 13y agoThis is probably going to come across a little fanboyish, but I would be interested in knowing the rate of Tesla fires (Mean Time Before Fire?). Cars catch on fire in accidents all the time, so I'm wondering if the Tesla fires are being covered more because it's a magical technology fire and therefore more dramatic than a your usual car-destroyed-in-accident fire.
- astrodust 13y agoA lot of them "catch fire" when people can't make their lease payments or want to liquidate an over-priced asset.
- smackfu 13y agoI would think most gasoline cars catch on fire because there is severe damage to the front-end, the fuel lines are ruptured, and gasoline ends up on the hot engine and ignites. I would think a major advantage of an electric car is that it doesn't have that mode of failure. So replacing it with another mode of failure that also results in front-end fires is... not great.
- johnnymonster 13y agoYou can see car fire statistics here: http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/reports/vehicles.shtm http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/reports/vehicles.shtm 44% of car fires happen due to mechanical failure. Wire insulation is 28% of car fires. and fuel in the engine area was 18% of fires.
- rayiner 13y agoVery objective title...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- agnuku 13y agoIs it better to be in a car that is more likely to save your life and burst into flames in an accident or or one that has lower safety ratings and lower likelihood of catching fire?
- NickM 13y agoI'd say it's better to be in a car that is more likely to save your life (e.g. a Model S), and is also less likely to burst into flames in an accident (e.g. any electric vehicle on the market). In a major accident, gasoline cars are still statistically much more likely to catch fire than EVs, which is exactly why it doesn't make the news when a gas car catches fire.
- JeremyMorgan 13y agoI still don't think we can draw any conclusions from this. Unless all 3 cars caught fire in the exact same way I still think we need a few more incidents to be even close to finding the facts (as horrible as that sounds).
- johnnymonster 13y agoTesla has done a very good job of providing post mortem reports on each of their car fires. I'm sure they will do the same for this one as well in the coming weeks.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ye 13y agoGas cars catch on fire all the time during accidents. The car saved his life by not collapsing onto him during an accident.
- jchung 13y agoIronic that this fire took place in Smyrna, TN, where Nissan North America manufactures Nissan Leafs.
- smackfu 13y agoSome might say "suspicious". (I mean, that would be a pretty sweet black hat move by Nissan.) Edit: I was joking, you silly people.
- bentcorner 13y agoI'd be very surprised is this was actually the case. Otherwise we would have heard of Prius' and Insights catching fire a long time ago. Besides, if Tesla went and crashed a few hundred cars and could not reproduce the fire I'd feel pretty good about their safety. They may have already done this as part of road/crash certification.
- talmand 13y agoLooks like we need a new "Road Debris Hitting the Undercarriage" safety testing.
- ajb 13y agoThat would be a really dumb move, because apart from anything else, leaf sales will probably go down too.
- tokenadult 13y agoReuters wire service reporting just in: "Tesla Motor Inc's Model S electric car has suffered its third fire in six weeks, sending its shares down about 7 percent in early Thursday trading." http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/autos-tesla-fire-idUSL2N0IS0TL20131107 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/autos-tesla-fire-i...
- johnnymonster 13y agoWhy is this one accident getting so much attention. In 2011 there were 500 vehicle fires every single day! http://www.nfpa.org/research/fire-statistics/the-us-fire-problem/highway-vehicle-fires http://www.nfpa.org/research/fire-statistics/the-us-fire-pro... tesla has 3 fires in 6 weeks. I'd say thats pretty damn good! Leading cause of highway vehicle fires, "mechanical failure" http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/reports/vehicles.shtm http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/reports/vehicles.shtm
- smackfu 13y agoBecause Teslas aren't running on flammable fuel. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
- johnnymonster 13y agoMost gas powered car fires are caused by mechanical and electrical related problems, nothing to do with the actual fuel.
- smackfu 13y agoWell, yeah, fuel doesn't ignite itself in a car in working order. Something else has to cause the fire. But according to the report, only 28% of fires started with the fuel igniting. So that's less than I expected.
- Vvector 13y agoSo with 250M vehicles in the USA, there is about a 1 in 1333 chance of the average vehicle catching on fire. Tesla has about 15k Model S cars sold in the USA. If there are 12 Tesla fires per year, we get around that same 1 in 1333 number. Are Tesla cars less likely to catch on fire? Maybe. There isn't enough data to determine yet. Are Tesla cars much safer than gas vehicles when they do catch on fire? Yes! This should be the focus.
- johnnymonster 13y ago
- deletes 13y agoQuote from the forums: >>police said that the tesla fire was caused by car running over a tow hitch.<< http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/23581-Ugh-Another-Model-S-fire-2013-11-06/page21 http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/23581-Ugh-Anot...
- matthuggins 13y agoHere's the Google cache mirror since the site seems to be down: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/23581-Ugh-Another-Model-S-fire-2013-11-06 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.tes...
- Glyptodon 13y agoI don't know if anybody else has ever witnessed a gasoline car fire but I for one find it quite impressive that these "fires" are so minor that first responders can just walk up and use suppressant. With a gasoline vehicle fire that actually gets going you often see the road cleared so the thing can just burn into a giant fireball leaving behind nothing beyond a steel skeleton and 30 ft of charred ground. Even at 100+ yds you can feel the heat from a gasoline vehicle inferno.
- matthewmcg 13y agoBonus points for the ISO-8601 date format in the headline!
- xfs 13y agoWow, this story has already been flagged into oblivion and disappeared from the front page in under one hour.
- stormcrowsx 13y agoIn all the tesla fires it looks like the front hood compartment burns most. Looking at this picture you'd have time to get out of the car, and unbuckle kids from a car seat in the rear. I'd say it speaks to the safety of electric cars. In a case where a gas tank is ruptured and catches fire it can spread through the entire undercarriage as the gas spills out of the tank onto the pavement.
- hippich 13y agoI think Tesla needs to add fire suppression system found on some police cars. Shouldn't add too much price to already quite expensive car. See here it in action - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSm6Dnu0EPM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSm6Dnu0EPM