3 ms·

> Yes, normal combustion engines catch on fire, but they don't explode in a fireball when they hit debris on the highway To be fair, none of the debris I've ev

by Natsu 13y ago

> Yes, normal combustion engines catch on fire, but they don't explode in a fireball when they hit debris on the highway To be fair, none of the debris I've ever seen or hit on the highway would have made holes in a quarter inch steel plate, and I have driven the better part of 25k miles/year commute over some very busy highways for approximately the past decade, so I've seen such random debris as chairs & couches in the middle of the road in addition to the usual assorted vehicle parts. There is also a car fire roughly every 3 minutes, just to keep things in perspective. I say that as we are guaranteed to see more fires given enough time. With them averaging out to one every 3.x minutes, it's only a matter of time before we go through this again.

threeseed 13y ago
> There is also a car fire roughly every 3 minutes, just to keep things in perspective. Are you joking ? How does that keep anything in perspective ? There are over 1b cars in the world and 50k Teslas. That's 0.005% of the total car population.
- Natsu 13y ago
  > How does that keep anything in perspective ? The Tesla has been available for 140 days, as of the time I'm posting this and using the June 22nd release date[1]. So my back-of-the-napkin estimates say there have been about 63,000 car fires in that time so that 0.005% of the car population is responsible for 0.000048% of the car fires in the past 140 days, which does not seem disproportionate. There are other, even better ways to compare the risk for which I do not have data available. Feel free to research your own numbers and compare. [1] http://www.teslamotors.com/model-s-has-arrived http://www.teslamotors.com/model-s-has-arrived
  - mikeash 13y ago
    June 22, 2012.
    - Natsu 13y ago
      Oops. That makes things even more ridiculous, if there have been 3 battery incidents in all this time. Put 505 days into my calculation instead of 140... As to the point about them all being new cars, well, new cars are safer. If safety is what we're after then yes, a modern car is a good thing. If you're saying that the safety will decay as they age, well, that's reasonable but only time will allow us to correct our calculations there. That might mean that we need more time to make a full determinations, but that's not a bad thing. This tells us about their current safety which is what's relevant now.
      - Natsu 13y ago
        That leaves approximately 227,250 fires since the Tesla has been introduced, of which Teslas are known to be responsible for three. Or 0.000013% of all car fires in the relevant time. That said, the other test might be more relevant, as there were more actual Teslas on the road in the past 140 days, rather than at day zero of launch. I don't have the figures to calculate, say, fires/#miles driven.
  - threeseed 13y ago
    But remember we are talking about an expensive, new car with a lot of modern safety features. Which is the complete opposite of most of the cars you see around the world. My point was that comparing Tesla's record with existing cars will never make sense since we simply don't have all of the facts. It seems obvious though that Tesla being a very different design will have different incident characteristics.

by Natsu 13y ago

threeseed 13y ago

> There is also a car fire roughly every 3 minutes, just to keep things in perspective. Are you joking ? How does that keep anything in perspective ? There are over 1b cars in the world and 50k Teslas. That's 0.005% of the total car population.

Natsu 13y ago
> How does that keep anything in perspective ? The Tesla has been available for 140 days, as of the time I'm posting this and using the June 22nd release date[1]. So my back-of-the-napkin estimates say there have been about 63,000 car fires in that time so that 0.005% of the car population is responsible for 0.000048% of the car fires in the past 140 days, which does not seem disproportionate. There are other, even better ways to compare the risk for which I do not have data available. Feel free to research your own numbers and compare. [1] http://www.teslamotors.com/model-s-has-arrived http://www.teslamotors.com/model-s-has-arrived
- mikeash 13y ago
  June 22, 2012.
  - Natsu 13y ago
    Oops. That makes things even more ridiculous, if there have been 3 battery incidents in all this time. Put 505 days into my calculation instead of 140... As to the point about them all being new cars, well, new cars are safer. If safety is what we're after then yes, a modern car is a good thing. If you're saying that the safety will decay as they age, well, that's reasonable but only time will allow us to correct our calculations there. That might mean that we need more time to make a full determinations, but that's not a bad thing. This tells us about their current safety which is what's relevant now.
    - Natsu 13y ago
      That leaves approximately 227,250 fires since the Tesla has been introduced, of which Teslas are known to be responsible for three. Or 0.000013% of all car fires in the relevant time. That said, the other test might be more relevant, as there were more actual Teslas on the road in the past 140 days, rather than at day zero of launch. I don't have the figures to calculate, say, fires/#miles driven.
- threeseed 13y ago
  But remember we are talking about an expensive, new car with a lot of modern safety features. Which is the complete opposite of most of the cars you see around the world. My point was that comparing Tesla's record with existing cars will never make sense since we simply don't have all of the facts. It seems obvious though that Tesla being a very different design will have different incident characteristics.