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So 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.

by Vvector 13y ago

So 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
I completely agree with your statement about combustion and safety when the do catch on fire. Have you seen a car on fire when it hits the gas tank? its crazy! have you seen a battery on fire? Kinda boring.
- 6689591 13y ago
  Have you ever seen a fire when it hits the gas tank? In real life, not a movie.
  - johnnymonster 13y ago
    yup
tedunangst 13y ago
A more comparable statistic would be how many one year old gas powered vehicles catch on fire each year.
Lagged2Death 13y ago
...there is about a 1 in 1333 chance of the average vehicle catching on fire. Well. There's that chance of the average vehicle burning. There's a breakdown in the PDF "Highway Vehicle Fires (2008-2010)" that points out a lot of the fires in traditional vehicles (about 40%) are started by arson and accidental, non-malfunction sources of ignition. And that there's reason to believe arson is under-reported: NFIRS no longer collects information on suspicious fires that may have been intentionally set. As a result, intentional fires may be undercounted. Moreover, due to the volume of fires, many automobile fires are not investigated for possible arson. Only about a quarter of vehicle fires are considered to be definitely malfunction-related. I want to see Tesla succeed. But I don't think its hype or alarmist to say that they seem to be malfunctioning in this way a lot, catching fire in everyday situations (like driving down the road) that don't seem to ignite many conventional cars. That's probably perfectly natural; new tech always has growing pains.

by Vvector 13y ago

johnnymonster 13y ago

I completely agree with your statement about combustion and safety when the do catch on fire. Have you seen a car on fire when it hits the gas tank? its crazy! have you seen a battery on fire? Kinda boring.

6689591 13y ago
Have you ever seen a fire when it hits the gas tank? In real life, not a movie.
- johnnymonster 13y ago
  yup

tedunangst 13y ago

A more comparable statistic would be how many one year old gas powered vehicles catch on fire each year.

Lagged2Death 13y ago

...there is about a 1 in 1333 chance of the average vehicle catching on fire. Well. There's that chance of the average vehicle burning. There's a breakdown in the PDF "Highway Vehicle Fires (2008-2010)" that points out a lot of the fires in traditional vehicles (about 40%) are started by arson and accidental, non-malfunction sources of ignition. And that there's reason to believe arson is under-reported: NFIRS no longer collects information on suspicious fires that may have been intentionally set. As a result, intentional fires may be undercounted. Moreover, due to the volume of fires, many automobile fires are not investigated for possible arson. Only about a quarter of vehicle fires are considered to be definitely malfunction-related. I want to see Tesla succeed. But I don't think its hype or alarmist to say that they seem to be malfunctioning in this way a lot, catching fire in everyday situations (like driving down the road) that don't seem to ignite many conventional cars. That's probably perfectly natural; new tech always has growing pains.