12 ms·

From a Model S owner in Tennessee

355 points by bcn 13y ago

skybrian 13y ago
Just wondering, how does the ground clearance in a Tesla S compare to other cars?
- privong 13y ago
  I'm not sure, but I suspect the ground clearance isn't the major factor at play. I believe there are legal limits, such that cars must have at least a certain amount of clearance. So I'd be surprised if the Tesla S had a significantly lower clearance than other vehicles.
  - threeseed 13y ago
    Why isn't the ground clearance the major factor ? The batteries were damaged because an item went through the bottom of the car.
    - privong 13y ago
      I meant it's not a major factor in assessing damage rates relative to other vehicle models, because the clearance is very similar, model-to-model.
  - justin66 13y ago
    Just an anecdote, I've known one guy who had a chunk of old exhaust pipe come up through the floor of his vehicle, almost injuring him. It was a pickup truck with high clearance.
- 3825 13y ago
  Ground clearance on the Model S is 6 inches according to Tesla[0] which puts it at par with a Honda Civic Sedan. [0] http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/images/models/options_top-fixed-transparent.png http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/images/models...
  - jared314 13y ago
    5 inches, because you need to account for the air suspension option that lowers the car at highway speeds. http://www.teslamotors.com/de_AT/forum/forums/air-suspension-and-ground-clearance http://www.teslamotors.com/de_AT/forum/forums/air-suspension...
- joshfraser 13y ago
  I've always thought they look really low on the road, but apparently the data suggests otherwise: http://db.theautochannel.com/db/newcarbuyersguide/rank_car_criteria.php?stylename=Sedan&titleid=326 http://db.theautochannel.com/db/newcarbuyersguide/rank_car_c...
Diederich 13y ago
The other discussions about comparing and contrasting the energy densities and relative safeties of fuel versus high-density batteries are interesting and relevant to safety considerations. The car, at this early stage of its evolution, handling the situation as elegantly as it did is just amazing. However the various safety-related tradeoffs play out, it's obvious that the Model S is seriously and well engineered at every level. I imagine the good folks in Palo Alto are already folding updates into the system. "Shit's on fire, yo! Pull over."
blahedo 13y ago
We're reading this on Tesla's site, and they obviously wouldn't have posted it if it weren't at least somewhat flattering, so we have that lens to view it through. But, the letter does raise the important idea that before we decry how awful the failure mode is ("the car caught on fire!"), it's worth considering what the alternative would be---what happens in similar situations in combustion engines?
- gamblor956 13y ago
  Nothing. Conventional cars are designed not to catch fire when they run over road debris, especially not cars built within the last two decades. At worst, debris may cause a flat if it punctures one of the tires.
  - redthrowaway 13y ago
    >At worst, debris may cause a flat if it punctures one of the tires. That's dismissive hyperbole. Debris regularly causes serious damages to all vehicle types. If the object in question, as in this case, is hard enough and hit with enough force to penetrate the battery, it's hard enough and hit with enough force to seriously damage any system it hits. It may not crack the engine block, but it can destroy radiators/suspension/brakes/fuel tanks/etc. The worst case scenario is most certainly not "a flat".
  - eholder 13y ago
    The term "road debris" can mean anything from dust to entire engine blocks[1]. The debris in question here is a metal tow hitch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_debris#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_debris#Examples See my other comment upthread for an example of a gasoline car catching fire because of cardboard boxes.
  - thomasmeeks 13y ago
    >At worst, debris may cause a flat if it punctures one of the tires. That's just not true. I had about $2k in damage on a Mini Cooper (2006, stock) that hit the remnants of a blown out semi truck tire in the road. Similar situation to the blog post -- a pickup truck cleared it but I did not. I was not in a safe position to swerve. The tire chewed up the lower front bumper and punctured the radiator. I had to immediately pull over and have the car towed. It happened to hit below the foam & all the fancy crash reinforcement on the bumper. Good times. That was just 70lbs of steel-wrapped rubber. I can easily imagine a trailer hitch as described taking out a radiator or oil pan on a modern car. Unlikely to cause a fire for sure, but it'll certainly disable a vehicle.
teslathrowaway 13y ago
> Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm. Clever misdirection.
- pygy_ 13y ago
  The batteries are located under the car, and their base plate is more armored than your usual car undercarriage. edit: floor, floor -> base plate, undercarriage. Thanks grinich for improving my vocabulary.
  - teslathrowaway 13y ago
    And you telling me that reminds me that the misdirection works.
    - pygy_ 13y ago
      I don't understand your point. What is misleading?
      - teslathrowaway 13y ago
        Misdirection is distracting from the issue at hand by pointing to something else. It's a magician's trick. If you can't see the driver mentioning that he felt the vehicle saved his life by not letting the tow hitch penetrate the cabin, and the very deliberate placement of that observation written in a blog post published by Tesla in response to the vehicle catching fire after a common collision scenario, then I don't know what else to say.
        pygy_ 13y ago
        We crossed ways. See my reply in the other thread.
    - city41 13y ago
      If you need a throw away account, maybe that's a sign you just shouldn't say anything?
adestefan 13y ago
These are usually the stories where people point out the submarine term.
Aardwolf 13y ago
Does anyone know what actually cought fire? Can batteries catch fire due to being struck like that? If so, why did it take 5 minutes and how did the car electronics know about it beforehand?
- cdash 13y ago
  I am pretty sure the cells are compartmentalized so I would assume what happened was a slow process of each compartment heating up to a threshold eventually causing a chain reaction.
  - eps 13y ago
    Aren't batteries under the cabin floor though? That hot-swap demo from few months ago seemed to imply that they were.
    - cdash 13y ago
      Yes, they are but I am saying the cells are in their own mini compartments. Think of like a ship has compartments to keep the entire thing from flooding if it is breached. At least that is how I have understood it to be. Obviously this doesn't prevent heat from spreading and could still have a runaway chain reaction like in this case but it does maybe give more time to warn you.
    - revelation 13y ago
      They are, but they have heat vents that spew off into the front, to protect the cabin itself. That is why the front of the car caught fire. The battery itself is also segmented such that thermal runaway doesn't cause a cascade to the whole battery (which is why the driver here had ample time to continue driving and pull over).
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  If you strike the cells, they can be short circuited, leading to heating. Lithium cells can experience thermal runaway [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_runaway#Batteries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_runaway#Batteries] when they're failing, heating adjacent cells causing them to fail. This is why cells are compartmentalized. Think of them like properly engineering bulkheads on a ship. If certain compartments fail, others are safely isolated. The problem is, as long as drivers demand range with electric vehicles, and energy storage is much less than liquid petroleum, the bottom of the vehicle is the only place that large, heavy pack arrangement can go. You make the tradeoff: How much armoring needs to take place to avoid the most common damage/failure scenarios. I have no doubt Tesla is learning quickly from these events, and is plaining alternate or improved methods to armor the pack from road debris and damage.
gfodor 13y ago
Is there literally any reason to believe that Tesla's are more predisposed to catching on fire? Surely hundreds of cars burn and some explode in the U.S. every day. Where are the apologies from their manufacturers?
- codeonfire 13y ago
  The argument is going to be that Tesla batteries cover the entire bottom of the car where other cars have the gas tank under the trunk. Probably, Teslas will get more armor underneath and that will satisfy everyone.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    More armor near the front of the pack, and a redesign of the front of the pack to deflect debris to the sides, so the pack doesn't take the brunt of the force.
  - makomk 13y ago
    Yeah. Notice that these fires have mostly been from damage to the front of the battery pack, well away from where the fuel tank is in other cards.
- JshWright 13y ago
  I suspect the number of cars less than a year old that catch fire after striking road debris is vanishly small. I have nothing other than anecdotes to support my claim, but those anecdotes are based on a little shy of a decade as a firefighter.
hristov 13y ago
So the moral of the story is that first I have to get a personal assistant and then I get a Tesla.
- shyn3 13y ago
  This would be the top comment on reddit. Gg
robomartin 13y ago
Water? On an electrical fire? Caused by Lithium-based chemistry? Not smart? Tesla's make up less than 0.008% of the US passenger car fleet. Perhaps emergency workers are simply not aware of how to properly deal with electric vehicle accidents? Formula 1 had to deal with this as KERS starter to be introduced. I would be nowhere near a 375 Volt DC battery pack playing with water.
- jasoncartwright 13y ago
  http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/20130214_ModelS_Emergency_Response_Guide.pdf http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/201...
  - robomartin 13y ago
    See my other response. Great, until you have a crash that looks like these [0] and you have a bunch of people trying to help victims while walking around in a wet 400 Volt DC environment. Now add more electric cars into the mix for a fun multi-electric car accident. Would YOU walk into that on Elon's recommendation? I'll tell you, I've been around high DC voltages, from a few hundred volts to tens of thousands. Water while handling components? No fucking way. Don't get me wrong. I love electric cars and would have been in line to buy a Tesla SUV had they not pulled that bone-headed design stunt with the falcon wings. At the same time I am a realist in that I understand that there's much to be learned about having thousands of cars with fully charged multi-hundred-volt power systems sharing the road at the same time. The emergency manual says that the pack can easily re-ignite and that it should be under observation for at least 24 hours. That's one of the issues with electrics. You can secure a gasoline powered car by simply draining all of the gasoline and dealing with it chemically. Imagine an electric car catching fire again as it is being towed away on top of a flatbed truck. We are going to have to develop new approaches to all of this. Tesla, I would think, will be at the forefront. So, not diminishing them, just stating reality. [0] http://www.google.com/search?q=serious+car+crash&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=l71-Uo7AHYjRsASDv4GgAw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1479&bih=964 http://www.google.com/search?q=serious+car+crash&safe=off&cl...
ot 13y ago
I wonder, if Tesla were to harden the protective shield of the battery pack and issue a recall for the existing vehicles, they could just deploy the new battery packs through the automatic battery swapping facilities in the supercharging stations. The costs would probably be much lower than normal car recalls, and it would also be an interesting value proposition for the owners: "zero downtime, you get for free a safer car and a fresh battery". Anyway, the more I hear about Model S the more it looks like an exceptional engineering feat.
headgasket 13y ago
You are holding it wrong, don't drive it over large metal objects at high speed. I love the boldness of the Tesla, I'm truly impressed by the PR skill of Mr Musk and his team. Let's hope they have enough data now to diagnose.
- objclxt 13y ago
  > I'm truly impressed by the PR skill of Mr Musk and his team It's certainly a bold strategy, but perhaps a little risky. They must be confident it's not really a problem though, because if there was a real risk of fire in the car putting a release out like this could be problematic if, in the future, another car went up in flames and the driver did not escape uninjured. Slightly unrelated - their PR team does alright, but they've had their fair share of mis-fires (if you'll excuse the pun). This is the same company that put together a libel suit against its critics that was so "gravely deficient" (the judge's words) it was thrown out of court (and a libel-friendly English court at that). [1]:http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/23/top-gear-libel-case-tesla-struck-out http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/23/top-gear-libel-...
  - headgasket 13y ago
    I was not aware of this libel suit; but it fits well with how I perceive the PR handling; what remains in the zeitgeist is a company fighting the right(?) battle using all means. The fact that said suit was gravely deficient most likely went largely unnoticed, and in the immediate it creates a us vs the rest mentality with the owners/enthusiasts; something that shows in this driver's account. Unless the driver is also a stockholder.
- nonchalance 13y ago
  When Tesla does it, it's lauded as bold; but when the same thing is done by Steve Jobs (antennagate), it's derided
  - headgasket 13y ago
    The jealous derided, but all in all it was pretty solid handling; they shipped a few bumpers for free, and discovered they could sell them for 29$ a piece at an even higher markup than the hw. Somehow I don't think this will go away with a free bumper, but with this type of strong will, it will be interesting to watch.
trothoun 13y ago
This does make me wonder if the shape of the Tesla's underbody (very flat [1]) is such that debris is more likely to make a direct rather than glancing impact. Perhaps Tesla should take a leaf out medieval armor design and add more contour to the bottom of their car so that it can shed impacts more successfully. [1] http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/non-make/fe/fe_9171228_600.jpg http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/non-make/fe/fe_9171228_600...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- pdq 13y ago
  It was designed flat for aerodynamics, just like how the door handls retract into the body.
underwater 13y ago
He hit something at freeway speeds that lifted his car into the air yet continued driving, even after he was alerted the collision had caused significant damage to his car?
- dmix 13y ago
  Yeah that's the curious part of the article. Why did he not pull over immediately? Especially if you own an expensive car, I'd want to know immediately if it was damaged... if it was raised off the ground by an object. Did his continued driving contribute to causing the fire to start? Rather than stopping immediately.
  - rickyc091 13y ago
    Quote from the article... "Car needs service. Car may not restart." I continued to drive, hoping to get home. He also stated that after he had hit the object, he still had full control of the car so he didn't feel like he was in any dangerous or had the need to pull over. Quote below. "While driving after I hit the object until I pulled over, the car performed perfectly, and it was a totally controlled situation."
  - loceng 13y ago
    I'm wondering what insurance will say. I wonder if the fire would have occurred if he had immediately pulled over.
- rcthompson 13y ago
  "Car needs service" does not mean "pull over immediately". Pulling over on the side of a freeway isn't the safest thing to do, especially if you're told your car may not restart. Once the car told him to pull over, he did, safely.
  - corresation 13y ago
    Running over a piece of debris so large that it feels like it lifted the car absolutely means "pull over immediately". He had no idea what structural damage occurred to the car, and continuing as is put not only himself but other drivers on the roadway in danger. There is negligible danger pulling over on the freeway. I can only imagine that he didn't want the inconvenience, which is remarkably selfish. That aspect of the story read very poorly.
ck2 13y ago
Pretty sure I'd be dead and my car destroyed if I hit something like that at highway speeds.
nonchalance 13y ago
Amusing how positive stories about tesla take the top spot on HN while news of the fire was quickly flagged off the front page. Not to question what was said here, but: > Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm. How is that the case? There are cars that are higher off the ground than a Tesla (where it wouldn't have a chance to punch through the floor) and most cars have material in the undercarriage to protect against small blows like this ...
- stcredzero 13y ago
  I've been in an old Subaru Justy whose floor pan had been rusting for years, and it wouldn't have stopped squat coming through and hitting the driver. Once, the car's owner was driving us to a music contest, and we started to hear some scraping. He pulled over and pulled a piece of metal off the bottom of the car, and we kept driving. That's never going to happen with a Tesla S. (Read that both in a good and bad way.)
  - nonchalance 13y ago
    > old Subaru Justy whose floor pan had been rusting for years Now, if Tesla S floor pans never rust, then I'd agree with your conclusion.
    - stcredzero 13y ago
      It's not just that. There's very little metal besides aluminum, and it's quite a bit thicker than the steel floorpan. I would expect the battery cases to be much less vulnerable to corrosion than sheet steel.
      - lttlrck 13y ago
        Aluminium corrodes quite nicely in salty environs.
        stcredzero 13y ago
rch 13y ago
My first car was an early 80's Jeep Grand Cherokee that had been 'modified' by a previous owner. Whoever it was had ripped off anything that might have been EPA mandated, and had then pounded bolts into the vacant holes left in the exhaust manifold. It took months for my father, grandfather, and I to figure out where all the vacuum hoses should go, in order to get it to pass inspection. Even after extensive repairs, well beyond I've described here, the thing would bleed quart after quart of oil as it went down the road. It still did alright for a while, but eventually caught on fire. It happened spontaneously and without warning, while driving home in the snow. No impacts or anything, the thing just overheated and went up in flames. The reporting on these Tesla events make the vehicle sound like my $1 anti-EPA Jeep, but I think it is pretty clear there are a few differences.
stcredzero 13y ago
I mentioned this in another thread about this incident. I was driving a mid 80's Volvo 850 in the early 2000's, and while turning around, I managed to run over a wheel stop and impale my car's oil pan on a piece of rebar sticking out from the top of the wheel stop. From what I remember, the oil pan on that particular year of Volvo station wagon was made out of aluminum of about the same thickness as the battery casing. If an aluminum wall vessel like that is going to encounter a pointy piece of steel with all of the car's momentum behind it, the steel is going through! No getting around it. No designing around it. It's just physics. There was no fire, but this resulted in all of the oil leaving my car's engine. All of the oil. No fire, but it created a situation where I could have wrecked the car and needed to pull over and stop the engine immediately, which I did only because I spotted the trail of oil in the rear view mirror. I never got a warning. In contrast, the Tesla told the driver something was up. IMO, the Tesla system was in better control of its incident and provided clearer and better information.
- makomk 13y ago
  The Tesla Model S may have provided clearer information, but presumably all that would've happened if you hadn't stopped would be that your car would've been a total write-off. In the case of the Tesla Model S this was actually the best case scenario, and they're portraying the fact that this was only a spectacularly fiery total write-off and no-one was injured as a victory.
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    fiery total write-off and no-one was injured as a victory. Works for me!
lumberjack 13y ago
Is this the sort of thing that the guy ran over? http://image.made-in-china.com/43f34j00uKJEycPnlgbk/Triple-Ball-Trailer-Hitch-Mount-with-U.jpg http://image.made-in-china.com/43f34j00uKJEycPnlgbk/Triple-B...
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Yes, that was my impression. If he hit one like the one I have for pulling a large travel trailer, it is a bit larger than the one in your picture, and probably weighs about 25 lb. I wouldn't expect many cars to hit that thing without taking some potentially serious damage. example: http://imgur.com/8Fa0CVf http://imgur.com/8Fa0CVf
- calinet6 13y ago
  Seriously. A car being damaged by hitting that should surprise no one and there should be no controversy or debate. Debris sometimes hits cars. It's not good for them. End of story.
  - JshWright 13y ago
    The vast majority of cars on the road would still be drive-able after striking something like that (though many of them would miss it entirely dues to increased ground clearance). Even the vehicle in the blog post was drive-able, until it burst into flames... Striking road debris is _incredibly_ unlikely to cause a fire in a 'normal' vehicle. The placement and design of the fuel tank makes a puncture incredibly unlikely in the first place, and even in the event of a puncture, the most common outcome (by a wide margin) is that you run out of gas... There are obviously exceptions to this, but it's rare enough than it's a big deal (recall worthy) when a vehicle design lends itself to this sort of event.
ruswick 13y ago
I don't understand how this is supposed to bolster Tesla's image. The fact that the car alerted him to the fact that it was going to combust does not mean that it is OK that the car combusted.
- SeanLuke 13y ago
  This seems to me to be a preemptive announcement. Two fires are a PR problem, not an actual problem. But Tesla has a failure mode with their car that they need to address. It would appear that their "quarter inch armor plate" isn't thick enough to withstand a trailer hitch.
- eholder 13y ago
  That's like saying the fire alarm waking you up at the middle of the night allowing you to safely escape does not mean it is OK that there is a fire burning your house down. It is a true statement, but the situation is definitely preferable to having no notification.
  - jthol 13y ago
    Your analogy only holds if the fire alarm somehow started the fire.
    - alandarev 13y ago
      Which is highly possible if it is collided with a same object same speed.
coloneltcb 13y ago
I love Teslas. If I had the disposable money (and the need of a fulltime car) I'd buy a Model S without hesitation. I think Elon Musk is a brilliant entrepreneur. But this is tripe. I can smell PR and sanitized wordsmithing when I see it--and this post reeks. If that wasn't obvious by the medium of this post--The Official Tesla Blog. Gee, how did it get up there? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, at some point in time the author was in contact with Tesla's PR department? And do you think Tesla PR decided to let someone post something with no oversight whatsoever? And this post just happened to be perfectly on message with the talking points Tesla PR had drafted up? For all we know, every word of this is true, but in this format (a very defensive post on the Tesla Blog giving a 100% pro-Tesla version of the events), Tesla has no credibility. Why not have this person write about this in the user forums and then link to it from the official blog with a foreword from Elon?
- sneak 13y ago
  Do you really think it would be wise for Tesla to not control the message here? That's not evil, it's just smart.
  - coloneltcb 13y ago
    No, not at all evil, if they don't control the message who else will? (HN commenters not withstanding) I'm just saying the way they are going about it insults my intelligence.
mcphilip 13y ago
I'm glad the driver is safe. However, I'm not sure what posting this letter is supposed to accomplish other than show that the driver is still a Tesla supporter. The remainder of the letter seems to be (potentially) counterproductive in that it describes that the car being on fire wasn't as dangerous as it sounds. Tesla isn't going to be able to tackle a perception problem by promoting safety features of the car when in flames.
- mdmarra 13y ago
  There was a more detailed account floating around. Essentially, each battery cell is in its own fire-resistant compartment. The fire crew that responded to the call used procedures that are standard for other electric cars, but are not proper for a Tesla. Essentially, they "punched through" these compartments in an attempt to extinguish the fire, which actually exacerbated the problem by allowing the fire to spread to other battery cells. When the fire department arrived, they observed standard procedure, which was to gain access to the source of the fire by puncturing holes in the top of the battery's protective metal plate and applying water. For the Model S lithium-ion battery, it was correct to apply water (vs. dry chemical extinguisher), but not to puncture the metal firewall, as the newly created holes allowed the flames to then vent upwards into the front trunk section of the Model S. Nonetheless, a combination of water followed by dry chemical extinguisher quickly brought the fire to an end. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-fire http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-fire I saw a Nissan in fire a month or so ago outside of Philly. Car fires happen regardless of engine technology.
  - 001sky 13y ago
    Same problem in the WA fire. You cannot extinguish a LiIon fire without (it seems) cutting the car open. In Wa, they put out the fire and it restarted. They had to flip it over and cut holes in it (presumably, through the floor) see > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6498232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6498232
    - MertsA 13y ago
      The thing to remember with a battery fire is that it's not enough to just put out the flaming electrolyte, when the battery is shorted out you don't just lose all that energy, it gets converted into heat which is what ignites the electrolyte. The battery in a Model S is made up of 11 modules so when one of these modules is shorted you don't have the entire capacity of the battery being turned into heat but depending on if an entire module was shorted out or maybe two adjoining modules that's still a lot of energy and once the whole thing starts burning you might compromise the other batteries in the system. Tesla engineered firewalls in between the battery modules but it's not like it's fireproof forever, it just means the heat has to transfer through conduction and gives the driver additional time before the vehicle goes up or before the fire department gets there. What might be a good improvement is a 2.5 inch fire hydrant fitting under the back of the car that the fire department could connect to to flood the battery compartment with water and just hook the car up to a hydrant for 30 minutes to make sure the fire stays out.
rdl 13y ago
I wonder if the Teslas should have explosive bolts to drop the battery pack if they detect a fire, then move the car away from it.
- rll 13y ago
  Good idea. Explosively eject a massive burning battery pack into the path of the unsuspecting traditional combustible car behind you and watch it burn in your rear-view mirror as you coast away on the backup emergency battery...
  - rdl 13y ago
    Which would increase the safety statistics of the model s over dinosaur burning vehicles, too!
- KevinEldon 13y ago
  Not sure how the car would know it was safe to drop the battery pack; you wouldn't want to drop it in the middle of an Interstate. Even moving the car away (can that happen w/o a battery pack?) how would it know which way to move safely without getting into traffic, hitting guard rails, emergency vehicles, etc.?
  - rdl 13y ago
    It looks like he had minutes in this case, so driving to the side of the road, then confirming dumping core, driving forward 10 meters, and shutting down, seems viable. You could presumably keep enough energy for this in ultra caps or a separate unaffected part of the pack, or do it with inertia.
  - firebones 13y ago
    Halon flooding battery packs?
justinph 13y ago
These cars can raise and lower the suspension, right? Might be useful to have it use scanning LiDAR and detect debris in the road, raise the vehicle when appropriate. They're working on a self-driving model, why not build that in.
libpcap 13y ago
I think the point of that blog post is that the owner is a very rich man who can afford buying a new Tesla every time a hitch strikes the bottom of the car and causes fire.
gandalfu 13y ago
I ask the engineers here, how can the fires be prevented/mitigated? - A different armor plate (titanium? kevlar?) - An automatic fire extinguishing system, perhaps piping grid inside the battery compartment that can feed a cooling agent to the damaged cell? Is price the only constrain? Cost benefit?
jusben1369 13y ago
I'm a big Tesla fan. I'd like to buy one. I like that they're changing our dependency upon gasoline vehicles. I like that they're taking big chances. Having said that, I find their communication style at times to be very disappointing. I hate the weird inference of "Thank God I was in my Tesla and only caught on fire. It would have been much worse in another car" Why do they have to do that? What proof do they have? They've had 3 car fires in the last 5 weeks out of 19,000 units on the road. Stop trying to turn a negative into some sort of positive. We get it's new technology. There probably will be things that need straightened out. The way they positioned their lease was cheesy. This is now cheesy II. Just say "We take this VERY seriously. We don't think there is any structural issues here but we will continue to investigate. Rest assured if the data points to any possible issues we'll be fully transparent and make any adjustments necessary to ensure the safety of our customers." Not some hack rah rah piece on their blog.
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  That would suggest some kind of long term, expensive development and testing slog with investors footing the bill. This letter suggests Telsa is nothing but success and investors get a piece of the pie.
Lagged2Death 13y ago
I am thankful to God that I was totally uninjured in any way from this impact. Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm. Oh really now, isn't this laying it on just a tad thick? How often does this happen? There's junk like this on the road all the time - how often are drivers and passengers actually shish-kabobed by any of it? Tesla's damage-control, image-wise, is surely the envy of industry everywhere, though.
derleth 13y ago
I wonder how much Tesla paid the author to write this.
deleted 13y ago
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- forktheif 13y ago
  And electric cars have better and larger crumple zones making front impacts more survivable. This is due to them not having an inflexible engine taking up most room in the front. Which kind of accident is more common? Bottom impacts or front impacts?
  - deleted 13y ago
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- chrissnell 13y ago
  I'm glad your parents are safe but the design of their car was not what kept it from catching fire, it was more likely the fact that it was diesel. You can put a match to diesel fuel and it won't catch fire; it take a lot of heat and pressure to combust diesel.
  - deleted 13y ago
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- celeryreally 13y ago
  Are you sure you have the speed correct? The approximate top speed of a swift is 170km/h. I find it very hard to believe that the car managed to speed up further to overtake, and subsequently crash without any injury to the occupants.
  - deleted 13y ago
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URSpider94 13y ago
This reminds me of an accident in Illinois a decade ago, in which a couple lost all six of their children after running over a mud flap bracket that had fallen off of a semi. The circumstances sound very much like the case described in the link -- the large piece of debris pierced the gas tank and generated sparks, igniting the vehicle in a matter of seconds. (link at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-11-10/news/9411100233_1_van-wreck-duane-scott-willis-gas-tank http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-11-10/news/941110023...) Who knows exactly how an ICE vehicle would have performed in the current circumstance, or how a Tesla would have performed in the Illinois accident, but it's fair to say that a collision at speed with a large piece of road debris can easily destroy a car and prove fatal to the occupants.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
kayoone 13y ago
Not really ontopic but: Has anyone checked on the owner? Hes a MD, a bodybuilder and pretty successful in eating contests :)
synergy-ek 13y ago
In Russia almost all cars is equipped with 2mm or 4mm metal plate at the bottom of engine. This is goo and simple protection against rocks, debris and junk on the "roads".

355 points by bcn 13y ago

skybrian 13y ago

Just wondering, how does the ground clearance in a Tesla S compare to other cars?

privong 13y ago
I'm not sure, but I suspect the ground clearance isn't the major factor at play. I believe there are legal limits, such that cars must have at least a certain amount of clearance. So I'd be surprised if the Tesla S had a significantly lower clearance than other vehicles.
- threeseed 13y ago
  Why isn't the ground clearance the major factor ? The batteries were damaged because an item went through the bottom of the car.
  - privong 13y ago
    I meant it's not a major factor in assessing damage rates relative to other vehicle models, because the clearance is very similar, model-to-model.
- justin66 13y ago
  Just an anecdote, I've known one guy who had a chunk of old exhaust pipe come up through the floor of his vehicle, almost injuring him. It was a pickup truck with high clearance.
3825 13y ago
Ground clearance on the Model S is 6 inches according to Tesla[0] which puts it at par with a Honda Civic Sedan. [0] http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/images/models/options_top-fixed-transparent.png http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/images/models...
- jared314 13y ago
  5 inches, because you need to account for the air suspension option that lowers the car at highway speeds. http://www.teslamotors.com/de_AT/forum/forums/air-suspension-and-ground-clearance http://www.teslamotors.com/de_AT/forum/forums/air-suspension...
joshfraser 13y ago
I've always thought they look really low on the road, but apparently the data suggests otherwise: http://db.theautochannel.com/db/newcarbuyersguide/rank_car_criteria.php?stylename=Sedan&titleid=326 http://db.theautochannel.com/db/newcarbuyersguide/rank_car_c...

Diederich 13y ago

The other discussions about comparing and contrasting the energy densities and relative safeties of fuel versus high-density batteries are interesting and relevant to safety considerations. The car, at this early stage of its evolution, handling the situation as elegantly as it did is just amazing. However the various safety-related tradeoffs play out, it's obvious that the Model S is seriously and well engineered at every level. I imagine the good folks in Palo Alto are already folding updates into the system. "Shit's on fire, yo! Pull over."

blahedo 13y ago

We're reading this on Tesla's site, and they obviously wouldn't have posted it if it weren't at least somewhat flattering, so we have that lens to view it through. But, the letter does raise the important idea that before we decry how awful the failure mode is ("the car caught on fire!"), it's worth considering what the alternative would be---what happens in similar situations in combustion engines?

gamblor956 13y ago
Nothing. Conventional cars are designed not to catch fire when they run over road debris, especially not cars built within the last two decades. At worst, debris may cause a flat if it punctures one of the tires.
- redthrowaway 13y ago
  >At worst, debris may cause a flat if it punctures one of the tires. That's dismissive hyperbole. Debris regularly causes serious damages to all vehicle types. If the object in question, as in this case, is hard enough and hit with enough force to penetrate the battery, it's hard enough and hit with enough force to seriously damage any system it hits. It may not crack the engine block, but it can destroy radiators/suspension/brakes/fuel tanks/etc. The worst case scenario is most certainly not "a flat".
- eholder 13y ago
  The term "road debris" can mean anything from dust to entire engine blocks[1]. The debris in question here is a metal tow hitch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_debris#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_debris#Examples See my other comment upthread for an example of a gasoline car catching fire because of cardboard boxes.
- thomasmeeks 13y ago
  >At worst, debris may cause a flat if it punctures one of the tires. That's just not true. I had about $2k in damage on a Mini Cooper (2006, stock) that hit the remnants of a blown out semi truck tire in the road. Similar situation to the blog post -- a pickup truck cleared it but I did not. I was not in a safe position to swerve. The tire chewed up the lower front bumper and punctured the radiator. I had to immediately pull over and have the car towed. It happened to hit below the foam & all the fancy crash reinforcement on the bumper. Good times. That was just 70lbs of steel-wrapped rubber. I can easily imagine a trailer hitch as described taking out a radiator or oil pan on a modern car. Unlikely to cause a fire for sure, but it'll certainly disable a vehicle.

teslathrowaway 13y ago

> Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm. Clever misdirection.

pygy_ 13y ago
The batteries are located under the car, and their base plate is more armored than your usual car undercarriage. edit: floor, floor -> base plate, undercarriage. Thanks grinich for improving my vocabulary.
- teslathrowaway 13y ago
  And you telling me that reminds me that the misdirection works.
  - pygy_ 13y ago
    I don't understand your point. What is misleading?
    - teslathrowaway 13y ago
      Misdirection is distracting from the issue at hand by pointing to something else. It's a magician's trick. If you can't see the driver mentioning that he felt the vehicle saved his life by not letting the tow hitch penetrate the cabin, and the very deliberate placement of that observation written in a blog post published by Tesla in response to the vehicle catching fire after a common collision scenario, then I don't know what else to say.
      - pygy_ 13y ago
        We crossed ways. See my reply in the other thread.
  - city41 13y ago
    If you need a throw away account, maybe that's a sign you just shouldn't say anything?

adestefan 13y ago

These are usually the stories where people point out the submarine term.

Aardwolf 13y ago

Does anyone know what actually cought fire? Can batteries catch fire due to being struck like that? If so, why did it take 5 minutes and how did the car electronics know about it beforehand?

cdash 13y ago
I am pretty sure the cells are compartmentalized so I would assume what happened was a slow process of each compartment heating up to a threshold eventually causing a chain reaction.
- eps 13y ago
  Aren't batteries under the cabin floor though? That hot-swap demo from few months ago seemed to imply that they were.
  - cdash 13y ago
    Yes, they are but I am saying the cells are in their own mini compartments. Think of like a ship has compartments to keep the entire thing from flooding if it is breached. At least that is how I have understood it to be. Obviously this doesn't prevent heat from spreading and could still have a runaway chain reaction like in this case but it does maybe give more time to warn you.
  - revelation 13y ago
    They are, but they have heat vents that spew off into the front, to protect the cabin itself. That is why the front of the car caught fire. The battery itself is also segmented such that thermal runaway doesn't cause a cascade to the whole battery (which is why the driver here had ample time to continue driving and pull over).
toomuchtodo 13y ago
If you strike the cells, they can be short circuited, leading to heating. Lithium cells can experience thermal runaway [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_runaway#Batteries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_runaway#Batteries] when they're failing, heating adjacent cells causing them to fail. This is why cells are compartmentalized. Think of them like properly engineering bulkheads on a ship. If certain compartments fail, others are safely isolated. The problem is, as long as drivers demand range with electric vehicles, and energy storage is much less than liquid petroleum, the bottom of the vehicle is the only place that large, heavy pack arrangement can go. You make the tradeoff: How much armoring needs to take place to avoid the most common damage/failure scenarios. I have no doubt Tesla is learning quickly from these events, and is plaining alternate or improved methods to armor the pack from road debris and damage.

gfodor 13y ago

Is there literally any reason to believe that Tesla's are more predisposed to catching on fire? Surely hundreds of cars burn and some explode in the U.S. every day. Where are the apologies from their manufacturers?

codeonfire 13y ago
The argument is going to be that Tesla batteries cover the entire bottom of the car where other cars have the gas tank under the trunk. Probably, Teslas will get more armor underneath and that will satisfy everyone.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  More armor near the front of the pack, and a redesign of the front of the pack to deflect debris to the sides, so the pack doesn't take the brunt of the force.
- makomk 13y ago
  Yeah. Notice that these fires have mostly been from damage to the front of the battery pack, well away from where the fuel tank is in other cards.
JshWright 13y ago
I suspect the number of cars less than a year old that catch fire after striking road debris is vanishly small. I have nothing other than anecdotes to support my claim, but those anecdotes are based on a little shy of a decade as a firefighter.

hristov 13y ago

So the moral of the story is that first I have to get a personal assistant and then I get a Tesla.

shyn3 13y ago
This would be the top comment on reddit. Gg

robomartin 13y ago

Water? On an electrical fire? Caused by Lithium-based chemistry? Not smart? Tesla's make up less than 0.008% of the US passenger car fleet. Perhaps emergency workers are simply not aware of how to properly deal with electric vehicle accidents? Formula 1 had to deal with this as KERS starter to be introduced. I would be nowhere near a 375 Volt DC battery pack playing with water.

jasoncartwright 13y ago
http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/20130214_ModelS_Emergency_Response_Guide.pdf http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/201...
- robomartin 13y ago
  See my other response. Great, until you have a crash that looks like these [0] and you have a bunch of people trying to help victims while walking around in a wet 400 Volt DC environment. Now add more electric cars into the mix for a fun multi-electric car accident. Would YOU walk into that on Elon's recommendation? I'll tell you, I've been around high DC voltages, from a few hundred volts to tens of thousands. Water while handling components? No fucking way. Don't get me wrong. I love electric cars and would have been in line to buy a Tesla SUV had they not pulled that bone-headed design stunt with the falcon wings. At the same time I am a realist in that I understand that there's much to be learned about having thousands of cars with fully charged multi-hundred-volt power systems sharing the road at the same time. The emergency manual says that the pack can easily re-ignite and that it should be under observation for at least 24 hours. That's one of the issues with electrics. You can secure a gasoline powered car by simply draining all of the gasoline and dealing with it chemically. Imagine an electric car catching fire again as it is being towed away on top of a flatbed truck. We are going to have to develop new approaches to all of this. Tesla, I would think, will be at the forefront. So, not diminishing them, just stating reality. [0] http://www.google.com/search?q=serious+car+crash&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=l71-Uo7AHYjRsASDv4GgAw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1479&bih=964 http://www.google.com/search?q=serious+car+crash&safe=off&cl...

ot 13y ago

I wonder, if Tesla were to harden the protective shield of the battery pack and issue a recall for the existing vehicles, they could just deploy the new battery packs through the automatic battery swapping facilities in the supercharging stations. The costs would probably be much lower than normal car recalls, and it would also be an interesting value proposition for the owners: "zero downtime, you get for free a safer car and a fresh battery". Anyway, the more I hear about Model S the more it looks like an exceptional engineering feat.

headgasket 13y ago

You are holding it wrong, don't drive it over large metal objects at high speed. I love the boldness of the Tesla, I'm truly impressed by the PR skill of Mr Musk and his team. Let's hope they have enough data now to diagnose.

objclxt 13y ago
> I'm truly impressed by the PR skill of Mr Musk and his team It's certainly a bold strategy, but perhaps a little risky. They must be confident it's not really a problem though, because if there was a real risk of fire in the car putting a release out like this could be problematic if, in the future, another car went up in flames and the driver did not escape uninjured. Slightly unrelated - their PR team does alright, but they've had their fair share of mis-fires (if you'll excuse the pun). This is the same company that put together a libel suit against its critics that was so "gravely deficient" (the judge's words) it was thrown out of court (and a libel-friendly English court at that). [1]:http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/23/top-gear-libel-case-tesla-struck-out http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/23/top-gear-libel-...
- headgasket 13y ago
  I was not aware of this libel suit; but it fits well with how I perceive the PR handling; what remains in the zeitgeist is a company fighting the right(?) battle using all means. The fact that said suit was gravely deficient most likely went largely unnoticed, and in the immediate it creates a us vs the rest mentality with the owners/enthusiasts; something that shows in this driver's account. Unless the driver is also a stockholder.
nonchalance 13y ago
When Tesla does it, it's lauded as bold; but when the same thing is done by Steve Jobs (antennagate), it's derided
- headgasket 13y ago
  The jealous derided, but all in all it was pretty solid handling; they shipped a few bumpers for free, and discovered they could sell them for 29$ a piece at an even higher markup than the hw. Somehow I don't think this will go away with a free bumper, but with this type of strong will, it will be interesting to watch.

trothoun 13y ago

This does make me wonder if the shape of the Tesla's underbody (very flat [1]) is such that debris is more likely to make a direct rather than glancing impact. Perhaps Tesla should take a leaf out medieval armor design and add more contour to the bottom of their car so that it can shed impacts more successfully. [1] http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/non-make/fe/fe_9171228_600.jpg http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/non-make/fe/fe_9171228_600...

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
pdq 13y ago
It was designed flat for aerodynamics, just like how the door handls retract into the body.

underwater 13y ago

He hit something at freeway speeds that lifted his car into the air yet continued driving, even after he was alerted the collision had caused significant damage to his car?

dmix 13y ago
Yeah that's the curious part of the article. Why did he not pull over immediately? Especially if you own an expensive car, I'd want to know immediately if it was damaged... if it was raised off the ground by an object. Did his continued driving contribute to causing the fire to start? Rather than stopping immediately.
- rickyc091 13y ago
  Quote from the article... "Car needs service. Car may not restart." I continued to drive, hoping to get home. He also stated that after he had hit the object, he still had full control of the car so he didn't feel like he was in any dangerous or had the need to pull over. Quote below. "While driving after I hit the object until I pulled over, the car performed perfectly, and it was a totally controlled situation."
- loceng 13y ago
  I'm wondering what insurance will say. I wonder if the fire would have occurred if he had immediately pulled over.
rcthompson 13y ago
"Car needs service" does not mean "pull over immediately". Pulling over on the side of a freeway isn't the safest thing to do, especially if you're told your car may not restart. Once the car told him to pull over, he did, safely.
- corresation 13y ago
  Running over a piece of debris so large that it feels like it lifted the car absolutely means "pull over immediately". He had no idea what structural damage occurred to the car, and continuing as is put not only himself but other drivers on the roadway in danger. There is negligible danger pulling over on the freeway. I can only imagine that he didn't want the inconvenience, which is remarkably selfish. That aspect of the story read very poorly.

ck2 13y ago

Pretty sure I'd be dead and my car destroyed if I hit something like that at highway speeds.

nonchalance 13y ago

Amusing how positive stories about tesla take the top spot on HN while news of the fire was quickly flagged off the front page. Not to question what was said here, but: > Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm. How is that the case? There are cars that are higher off the ground than a Tesla (where it wouldn't have a chance to punch through the floor) and most cars have material in the undercarriage to protect against small blows like this ...

stcredzero 13y ago
I've been in an old Subaru Justy whose floor pan had been rusting for years, and it wouldn't have stopped squat coming through and hitting the driver. Once, the car's owner was driving us to a music contest, and we started to hear some scraping. He pulled over and pulled a piece of metal off the bottom of the car, and we kept driving. That's never going to happen with a Tesla S. (Read that both in a good and bad way.)
- nonchalance 13y ago
  > old Subaru Justy whose floor pan had been rusting for years Now, if Tesla S floor pans never rust, then I'd agree with your conclusion.
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    It's not just that. There's very little metal besides aluminum, and it's quite a bit thicker than the steel floorpan. I would expect the battery cases to be much less vulnerable to corrosion than sheet steel.
    - lttlrck 13y ago
      Aluminium corrodes quite nicely in salty environs.
      - stcredzero 13y ago

rch 13y ago

My first car was an early 80's Jeep Grand Cherokee that had been 'modified' by a previous owner. Whoever it was had ripped off anything that might have been EPA mandated, and had then pounded bolts into the vacant holes left in the exhaust manifold. It took months for my father, grandfather, and I to figure out where all the vacuum hoses should go, in order to get it to pass inspection. Even after extensive repairs, well beyond I've described here, the thing would bleed quart after quart of oil as it went down the road. It still did alright for a while, but eventually caught on fire. It happened spontaneously and without warning, while driving home in the snow. No impacts or anything, the thing just overheated and went up in flames. The reporting on these Tesla events make the vehicle sound like my $1 anti-EPA Jeep, but I think it is pretty clear there are a few differences.

stcredzero 13y ago

I mentioned this in another thread about this incident. I was driving a mid 80's Volvo 850 in the early 2000's, and while turning around, I managed to run over a wheel stop and impale my car's oil pan on a piece of rebar sticking out from the top of the wheel stop. From what I remember, the oil pan on that particular year of Volvo station wagon was made out of aluminum of about the same thickness as the battery casing. If an aluminum wall vessel like that is going to encounter a pointy piece of steel with all of the car's momentum behind it, the steel is going through! No getting around it. No designing around it. It's just physics. There was no fire, but this resulted in all of the oil leaving my car's engine. All of the oil. No fire, but it created a situation where I could have wrecked the car and needed to pull over and stop the engine immediately, which I did only because I spotted the trail of oil in the rear view mirror. I never got a warning. In contrast, the Tesla told the driver something was up. IMO, the Tesla system was in better control of its incident and provided clearer and better information.

makomk 13y ago
The Tesla Model S may have provided clearer information, but presumably all that would've happened if you hadn't stopped would be that your car would've been a total write-off. In the case of the Tesla Model S this was actually the best case scenario, and they're portraying the fact that this was only a spectacularly fiery total write-off and no-one was injured as a victory.
- stcredzero 13y ago
  fiery total write-off and no-one was injured as a victory. Works for me!

lumberjack 13y ago

Is this the sort of thing that the guy ran over? http://image.made-in-china.com/43f34j00uKJEycPnlgbk/Triple-Ball-Trailer-Hitch-Mount-with-U.jpg http://image.made-in-china.com/43f34j00uKJEycPnlgbk/Triple-B...

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Yes, that was my impression. If he hit one like the one I have for pulling a large travel trailer, it is a bit larger than the one in your picture, and probably weighs about 25 lb. I wouldn't expect many cars to hit that thing without taking some potentially serious damage. example: http://imgur.com/8Fa0CVf http://imgur.com/8Fa0CVf
calinet6 13y ago
Seriously. A car being damaged by hitting that should surprise no one and there should be no controversy or debate. Debris sometimes hits cars. It's not good for them. End of story.
- JshWright 13y ago
  The vast majority of cars on the road would still be drive-able after striking something like that (though many of them would miss it entirely dues to increased ground clearance). Even the vehicle in the blog post was drive-able, until it burst into flames... Striking road debris is _incredibly_ unlikely to cause a fire in a 'normal' vehicle. The placement and design of the fuel tank makes a puncture incredibly unlikely in the first place, and even in the event of a puncture, the most common outcome (by a wide margin) is that you run out of gas... There are obviously exceptions to this, but it's rare enough than it's a big deal (recall worthy) when a vehicle design lends itself to this sort of event.

ruswick 13y ago

I don't understand how this is supposed to bolster Tesla's image. The fact that the car alerted him to the fact that it was going to combust does not mean that it is OK that the car combusted.

SeanLuke 13y ago
This seems to me to be a preemptive announcement. Two fires are a PR problem, not an actual problem. But Tesla has a failure mode with their car that they need to address. It would appear that their "quarter inch armor plate" isn't thick enough to withstand a trailer hitch.
eholder 13y ago
That's like saying the fire alarm waking you up at the middle of the night allowing you to safely escape does not mean it is OK that there is a fire burning your house down. It is a true statement, but the situation is definitely preferable to having no notification.
- jthol 13y ago
  Your analogy only holds if the fire alarm somehow started the fire.
  - alandarev 13y ago
    Which is highly possible if it is collided with a same object same speed.

coloneltcb 13y ago

I love Teslas. If I had the disposable money (and the need of a fulltime car) I'd buy a Model S without hesitation. I think Elon Musk is a brilliant entrepreneur. But this is tripe. I can smell PR and sanitized wordsmithing when I see it--and this post reeks. If that wasn't obvious by the medium of this post--The Official Tesla Blog. Gee, how did it get up there? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, at some point in time the author was in contact with Tesla's PR department? And do you think Tesla PR decided to let someone post something with no oversight whatsoever? And this post just happened to be perfectly on message with the talking points Tesla PR had drafted up? For all we know, every word of this is true, but in this format (a very defensive post on the Tesla Blog giving a 100% pro-Tesla version of the events), Tesla has no credibility. Why not have this person write about this in the user forums and then link to it from the official blog with a foreword from Elon?

sneak 13y ago
Do you really think it would be wise for Tesla to not control the message here? That's not evil, it's just smart.
- coloneltcb 13y ago
  No, not at all evil, if they don't control the message who else will? (HN commenters not withstanding) I'm just saying the way they are going about it insults my intelligence.

mcphilip 13y ago

I'm glad the driver is safe. However, I'm not sure what posting this letter is supposed to accomplish other than show that the driver is still a Tesla supporter. The remainder of the letter seems to be (potentially) counterproductive in that it describes that the car being on fire wasn't as dangerous as it sounds. Tesla isn't going to be able to tackle a perception problem by promoting safety features of the car when in flames.

mdmarra 13y ago
There was a more detailed account floating around. Essentially, each battery cell is in its own fire-resistant compartment. The fire crew that responded to the call used procedures that are standard for other electric cars, but are not proper for a Tesla. Essentially, they "punched through" these compartments in an attempt to extinguish the fire, which actually exacerbated the problem by allowing the fire to spread to other battery cells. When the fire department arrived, they observed standard procedure, which was to gain access to the source of the fire by puncturing holes in the top of the battery's protective metal plate and applying water. For the Model S lithium-ion battery, it was correct to apply water (vs. dry chemical extinguisher), but not to puncture the metal firewall, as the newly created holes allowed the flames to then vent upwards into the front trunk section of the Model S. Nonetheless, a combination of water followed by dry chemical extinguisher quickly brought the fire to an end. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-fire http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-fire I saw a Nissan in fire a month or so ago outside of Philly. Car fires happen regardless of engine technology.
- 001sky 13y ago
  Same problem in the WA fire. You cannot extinguish a LiIon fire without (it seems) cutting the car open. In Wa, they put out the fire and it restarted. They had to flip it over and cut holes in it (presumably, through the floor) see > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6498232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6498232
  - MertsA 13y ago
    The thing to remember with a battery fire is that it's not enough to just put out the flaming electrolyte, when the battery is shorted out you don't just lose all that energy, it gets converted into heat which is what ignites the electrolyte. The battery in a Model S is made up of 11 modules so when one of these modules is shorted you don't have the entire capacity of the battery being turned into heat but depending on if an entire module was shorted out or maybe two adjoining modules that's still a lot of energy and once the whole thing starts burning you might compromise the other batteries in the system. Tesla engineered firewalls in between the battery modules but it's not like it's fireproof forever, it just means the heat has to transfer through conduction and gives the driver additional time before the vehicle goes up or before the fire department gets there. What might be a good improvement is a 2.5 inch fire hydrant fitting under the back of the car that the fire department could connect to to flood the battery compartment with water and just hook the car up to a hydrant for 30 minutes to make sure the fire stays out.

rdl 13y ago

I wonder if the Teslas should have explosive bolts to drop the battery pack if they detect a fire, then move the car away from it.

rll 13y ago
Good idea. Explosively eject a massive burning battery pack into the path of the unsuspecting traditional combustible car behind you and watch it burn in your rear-view mirror as you coast away on the backup emergency battery...
- rdl 13y ago
  Which would increase the safety statistics of the model s over dinosaur burning vehicles, too!
KevinEldon 13y ago
Not sure how the car would know it was safe to drop the battery pack; you wouldn't want to drop it in the middle of an Interstate. Even moving the car away (can that happen w/o a battery pack?) how would it know which way to move safely without getting into traffic, hitting guard rails, emergency vehicles, etc.?
- rdl 13y ago
  It looks like he had minutes in this case, so driving to the side of the road, then confirming dumping core, driving forward 10 meters, and shutting down, seems viable. You could presumably keep enough energy for this in ultra caps or a separate unaffected part of the pack, or do it with inertia.
- firebones 13y ago
  Halon flooding battery packs?

justinph 13y ago

These cars can raise and lower the suspension, right? Might be useful to have it use scanning LiDAR and detect debris in the road, raise the vehicle when appropriate. They're working on a self-driving model, why not build that in.

libpcap 13y ago

I think the point of that blog post is that the owner is a very rich man who can afford buying a new Tesla every time a hitch strikes the bottom of the car and causes fire.

gandalfu 13y ago

I ask the engineers here, how can the fires be prevented/mitigated? - A different armor plate (titanium? kevlar?) - An automatic fire extinguishing system, perhaps piping grid inside the battery compartment that can feed a cooling agent to the damaged cell? Is price the only constrain? Cost benefit?

jusben1369 13y ago

I'm a big Tesla fan. I'd like to buy one. I like that they're changing our dependency upon gasoline vehicles. I like that they're taking big chances. Having said that, I find their communication style at times to be very disappointing. I hate the weird inference of "Thank God I was in my Tesla and only caught on fire. It would have been much worse in another car" Why do they have to do that? What proof do they have? They've had 3 car fires in the last 5 weeks out of 19,000 units on the road. Stop trying to turn a negative into some sort of positive. We get it's new technology. There probably will be things that need straightened out. The way they positioned their lease was cheesy. This is now cheesy II. Just say "We take this VERY seriously. We don't think there is any structural issues here but we will continue to investigate. Rest assured if the data points to any possible issues we'll be fully transparent and make any adjustments necessary to ensure the safety of our customers." Not some hack rah rah piece on their blog.

AsymetricCom 13y ago
That would suggest some kind of long term, expensive development and testing slog with investors footing the bill. This letter suggests Telsa is nothing but success and investors get a piece of the pie.

Lagged2Death 13y ago

I am thankful to God that I was totally uninjured in any way from this impact. Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm. Oh really now, isn't this laying it on just a tad thick? How often does this happen? There's junk like this on the road all the time - how often are drivers and passengers actually shish-kabobed by any of it? Tesla's damage-control, image-wise, is surely the envy of industry everywhere, though.

derleth 13y ago

I wonder how much Tesla paid the author to write this.

deleted 13y ago

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forktheif 13y ago
And electric cars have better and larger crumple zones making front impacts more survivable. This is due to them not having an inflexible engine taking up most room in the front. Which kind of accident is more common? Bottom impacts or front impacts?
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chrissnell 13y ago
I'm glad your parents are safe but the design of their car was not what kept it from catching fire, it was more likely the fact that it was diesel. You can put a match to diesel fuel and it won't catch fire; it take a lot of heat and pressure to combust diesel.
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celeryreally 13y ago
Are you sure you have the speed correct? The approximate top speed of a swift is 170km/h. I find it very hard to believe that the car managed to speed up further to overtake, and subsequently crash without any injury to the occupants.
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URSpider94 13y ago

This reminds me of an accident in Illinois a decade ago, in which a couple lost all six of their children after running over a mud flap bracket that had fallen off of a semi. The circumstances sound very much like the case described in the link -- the large piece of debris pierced the gas tank and generated sparks, igniting the vehicle in a matter of seconds. (link at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-11-10/news/9411100233_1_van-wreck-duane-scott-willis-gas-tank http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-11-10/news/941110023...) Who knows exactly how an ICE vehicle would have performed in the current circumstance, or how a Tesla would have performed in the Illinois accident, but it's fair to say that a collision at speed with a large piece of road debris can easily destroy a car and prove fatal to the occupants.

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kayoone 13y ago

Not really ontopic but: Has anyone checked on the owner? Hes a MD, a bodybuilder and pretty successful in eating contests :)

synergy-ek 13y ago

In Russia almost all cars is equipped with 2mm or 4mm metal plate at the bottom of engine. This is goo and simple protection against rocks, debris and junk on the "roads".