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Tesla electric car catches fire in Toronto; company has not yet explained
- Scorponok 13y ago"Tesla said it has “definitively determined” that the Toronto fire did not originate in the battery, the charging system, the adapter or the electrical receptacle, noting that these components were untouched by the fire." So... what exactly did catch fire?
- toomuchtodo 13y agoThere is info on /r/TeslaMotors [1] indicating it started near the front of the vehicle. Either an electrical component forward of the passenger compartment, or something in the front luggage compartment (where the motor typically would be in an ICE vehicle). [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/1xuwx7/tesla_fire_in_toronto_garage/cfev2h0 http://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/1xuwx7/tesla_fi...
- deletes 13y agoPictures: http://www.businessinsider.com/february-1st-toronto-tesla-fire-2014-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/february-1st-toronto-tesla-fi...
- IgorPartola 13y agoI forget exactly what it is but there is an important component of the charging system in the front right wheel well that you are not supposed to cut through if you are attempting a rescue of the passenger in a Tesla. They demonstrated that in their emergency responder training videos, saying that it's different from normal cars where you can cut right through the wheel well and here you should not since there are high voltage wires there.
- toomuchtodo 13y agohttp://www.teslamotors.com/firstresponders http://www.teslamotors.com/firstresponders http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/20130214_ModelS_Emergency_Response_Guide.pdf http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/201...
- IgorPartola 13y agoYup. Check out pages 9 and 10. Looks like it is the 12 volt battery.
- maxerickson 13y agoFrom what I can tell the biggest energy draw in the front is would be the power steering.
- cloudwalking 13y agoAll of the accessories run on a 12V system. Presumably part of this system caught on fire.
- undershirt 13y agoNot much to say until we have more info. With all the amazing advancements that Tesla has made, I can't help but be reminded of Apollo 1's fire. And I have no doubts that they will recover as swiftly as NASA did.
- kakali 13y agoYou're comparing the death of 3 astronauts to a fire in a for profit company's product? Your emotional scale needs calibration.
- saraid216 13y ago[deadpan] With Challenger?
- justin66 13y ago> With all the amazing advancements that Tesla has made, I can't help but be reminded of Apollo 1's fire. What the hell?
- lttlrck 13y ago"can't help" - really?
- alkonaut 13y agoI understand that this is new and scary technology and that gives Tesla some more scrutiny than others, but come on, how many cars caught fire that day in Toronto alone, and where are the comments from those manufacturers?
- deletes 13y agoI noticed that USA media is mostly trying to undermine Tesla for some reason. Almost every article only mentions the fires and distorts the circumstances they were in.
- fredgrott 13y agomight be due to the connections between media and congress politicians that have lobbyists betting against Tesla
- ericd 13y agoIt can be easily explained by how ravenously hungry they are for controversy and fear-generating topics. US news media unfortunately has a lot in common with reality TV.
- ben174 13y agoWith 17 car fires per hour in the USA, it seems quite obvious that some of those would be from a Tesla. It's unfortunate that these are the only ones that make the news though. Relative to other cars, Tesla car fires are quite rare.
- DanBC 13y agoI agree, but what is the rate for newish well maintained expensive vehicles? (Not because I disagree, but it's useful to compare similar vehicles).
- gagaga 13y ago>Relative to other cars, Tesla car fires are quite rare. Can you point to a source for that statement?
- parfe 13y agoThere are now substantially more than the 19,000 Model S vehicles on the road that were reported in our Q3 shareholder letter for an average of one fire per at least 6,333 cars, compared to the rate for gasoline vehicles of one fire per 1,350 cars. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/mission-tesla http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/mission-tesla with numbers from http://www.autonews.com/article/20131108/BLOG06/131109827/tesla-firetraps-numbers-dont-back-it-up http://www.autonews.com/article/20131108/BLOG06/131109827/te... When reading any story about a Tesla fire keep in mind that HN users post multiple stories about 100% of Tesla fire events, while 0% of internal combustion stories reach the HN audience. The media create this "issue" by detailing the exceptional Tesla fire events and ignoring commonplace gasoline vehicle fires.
- shas3 13y agoHow many of those are spontaneous? The concern over Tesla is understandable if you consider the voltage and currents associated with running the motor.
- aestra 13y agoAnecdote alert! A friend of mine told me a story about how his car spontaneously caught on fire sitting in his driveway while he was sleeping. The fire department had to investigate. I don't recall the cause though. Wasn't anything too crazy.
- bostonpete 13y agoPeople drive electric cars in Toronto? I can't imagine they get much range in the winter...
- dangrossman 13y agoModel S is the best-selling car in Norway, which is further north than Toronto. Very low temperatures means it runs a battery heater; it still gets 175-250 miles range in well-below-zero winter days with the cabin heater blasting. There are tons of great Model S winter performance videos on YouTube, as well as independent reviews. Consumer Reports did a Model S winter range test you can read about IIRC.
- sureshv 13y agoOn average Toronto winters are as cold or colder than Oslo - Latitude is not the only determining factor.
- hdevalence 13y agoNote, however, that further north doesn't necessarily mean colder. For instance, looking at the climate data on Wikipedia indicates that Oslo and Toronto have about the same average highs/lows in the winter months. Meanwhile, Winnipeg (Winterpeg) is a full 10 degrees latitude south of Oslo, but is much, much, colder. As as aside, though Europe's warmer climate is often attributed to the Gulf Stream, evidence suggests it's actually a consequence of angular momentum. See, for instance, https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/issue.aspx?id=999&y=0&no=&content=true&page=5&css=print https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/issue.aspx?id=999&y... and the paper in PDF form here: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/pubs/Seager_etal_QJ_2002.pdf http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/pubs/Seager_etal...
- beltex 13y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxR99bGYEAQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxR99bGYEAQ
- redthrowaway 13y agoSeems like they're taking the right approach: offer compensation, figure out what went wrong, then fix it. New technology will always have problems; how you approach those problems will determine how successful you ultimately are.
- bane 13y ago> New technology will always have problems; And no matter how well you test your technology, once you get in the hands of the public, they'll do all kinds of things with your stuff that you could never imagine or test for.
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoWhich is funny because (according to random citation needed sources), gas-powered cars have electrical failures and resulting fires quite a lot compared to Teslas.
- dopamean 13y agoThis is the part that gets me. In my life I can think of 3 instances of cars catching on fire that I witnessed personally. One was a neighbor who's suv caught on fire in their garage and burned their house down. I dont even remember what brand the car was but with Tesla it's headline news worthy.
- latifnanji27 13y agoWhy is Tesla, when it catches fire, the only car to make it on hackernews?
- Houshalter 13y agoBecause it's a new technology and of interest to Hacker News, and because other cars don't generally spontaneously combust.
- dangrossman 13y ago> other cars don't generally spontaneously combust They do. Check out YouTube, or the anecdotes in the other comments here. I'll throw in another -- one of my neighbors' cars spontaneously caught fire sitting in his driveway after midnight. The fire department had to come put it out, along with the front of his house it started to set fire to.
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoCar drove by my house way back when, smoking rather alarmingly. Stopped a few dozen meters further on, fire from under the hood, firefighters dropping by to extinguish it. Adventures in one's youth. No clue what caused it; probably a short circuit, and given how there's oil and gasoline everywhere, it kinda keeps going.
- seancoleman 13y agoThis reminds me of what Elon Musk stated in an interview (paraphrased): It's not enough for new technology to simply be as good or 2x better than incumbent technology; it needs to be 10x better to overcome industry standard inertia.
- mladenkovacevic 13y agoIt's weird but I've seen a number of Tesla's on the streets of Toronto. A close neighbor of mine has one too as I see him pulling out of the street parallel to mine on most mornings. Is there a dealership in Toronto or something?
- highsea 13y agoThere's one at Yorkdale.
- nasalgoat 13y agoThey're also building one in Scarborough.
- lutusp 13y ago> It's weird but I've seen a number of Tesla's on the streets of Toronto. It would be interesting to know the Tesla's operating range during the cold part of the year in Toronto and environs. Most batteries are temperature-sensitive and don't charge or discharge as efficiently as they do in warmer climates.
- VeejayRampay 13y agoFunny how a Tesla catching fire always makes the news. Were I a conspiracy loon, I'd swear there is a disproportionately thorough coverage of those events by the media.