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150,000 gasoline car fires per year / three trillion miles driven per year = one fire per 20 million miles driven for ICEs. three Model S car fires / 100 mill
by lxmorj 13y ago
150,000 gasoline car fires per year / three trillion miles driven per year = one fire per 20 million miles driven for ICEs.
three Model S car fires / 100 million miles of Model S driving = one fire per 33 million miles driven for the Model S.
I'm assuming someone was injured in a car fire last year, and so far no one has been injured in a Tesla fire. So far, then, Tesla Model S fires occur on average 50% less, and are some non-zero amount safer when they do occur.
Sounds pretty OK to me...
- makomk 13y agoWhat's the age breakdown on those fires? That is, if you just look at cars of a similar age to the Model S, how does that affect the number of car fires? I wouldn't be surprised if most of those fires are in cars far older than any currently-existing Model S.
- lxmorj 13y agoFair, but lots of fires are from internal issues. I think only 60% of car fires are due to collisions. All three Tesla fires were from collisions. You'd have to have more data than my attention span will allow to calculate whether the collision-to-fire ratio is higher in a Tesla than a ICE vehicle. You'd need the total number of collisions, and the percentage of those that resulted in a fire. You'd likely have to do some analysis about driving habits too. Perhaps limit the data to comparable luxury cars. People bombing around in a luxury car likely have different collision rates than the average Joe. More because the car is faster? Fewer because the care more about the vehicle? I don't know...