Third Tesla Fire Means Feds To Begin Review

cartechboy writes "In early October, a Tesla caught on fire in Washington state — and that created a little bit of a stir. Then just before Halloween a second Tesla caught fire. Yesterday, a third Model S caught fire in Tennessee. With the third fire in the books, all happening in similar fashion, today federal investigators are saying they are going to take a look at the situation more closely. As electric car maker's stock shares continue to tumble, some are saying the fires aren't a big deal."

Re:Anybody know the denominator?

[HornWumpus]

Found my own answer: 21,500. From later in the same Forbes article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2013/11/05/tesla-makes-record-delivery-of-model-s-promises-a-pioneering-approach-to-servicing-its-cars/ [forbes.com]

Re:Gasoline is FAR safer

[mythosaz]

15000 fires / 28700000 gas cars =0.000523
3 fires / 21000 Teslas = 0.000143

Re:LOL Tesla

[Grishnakh]

A town of 20,000 people isn't likely to have 3 high speed crashes in 2 years either. This isn't a good way to look at statistics.

Re:Is Tesla being set up?

[Grishnakh]

Considering the bizarre timeline (3 in a couple months, all of a sudden?), the tolerances and safety features surrounding the batteries, and the publicity that all of the victims milked with copious amounts of photos and interviews, could this be an illicit attempt to get Tesla banned?

The fire rate is basically identical to that of gasoline car fires according to the previous post by ShadowRangerRIT (15k files/year in the UK out of 28.7M cars vs. Tesla's 21,500 cars with 3 fires, but many of those Teslas haven't been on the road a full year).

And at least two of the "victims" have publicly said they want new Teslas to replace their crashed ones.

Re:LOL Tesla

[Howitzer86]

Car manuals will warn you not to park over dry leaves or grass because the catalytic converter can become very hot. You don't have to hit anything at all to burn up a gas powered car.

Re:Normally skid plates only in off-road vehicles

[Nethemas the Great]

I believe it's actually aluminum, but they've also designed the battery compartment to point any fire forward away from the passenger compartment. If a gas tank ruptures you're in a very dangerous situation and have very good odds of not living let along walking away unharmed. In the case of a Tesla, 3 for 3 have been able to walk out unscathed. The Mexico fire was from a Model S that had blasted through a concrete barricade while exceeding 100MPH and coming to rest smashed against some trees. I challenge you to find any car of any year, any make, gas, electric, etc. perform as well. No one thinks twice about these very common incidents in gas autos.

Umm 100% O2 had a reason

[NotSoHeavyD3]

From my understanding they used 100% O2 because that's what the used when the thing actually went into space. They used 100% O2 in space because that meant they could use less pressure which means they could make the capsule lighter. (Since the heavier it is the more fuel you need which makes the whole thing more difficult.)

I had a friend who ran over a piece of metal...

[Radical Moderate]

...in her Nissan years ago. It shot through the floor and barely missed her, she's lucky she wasn't killed. In a Tesla, the skidplate and battery will protect you. Sure, the car will catch on fire, but you can escape. So a Tesla is actually safer than a conventional car, it will sacrifice itself to protect you. Better have good insurance.

Why is this even news?

[Pr0xY]

I really don't understand why every fire in a Tesla car is so news worthy. According to the NFPA (http://www.nfpa.org/safety-information/for-consumers/vehicles) there were an average of 152,300 car fires between 2006 and 2010. That's the same as 417 per day, and about 17 car fires per hour.

Cars catch fire. There have been somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 Telsa Model S's on the road. (3/15000) * 100 = 0.02% failure rate.

Meanwhile there are about 250 million cars on the road in the US last I looked. (152300/250000000) * 100 = 0.06% failure rate for cars on average.

So even with there being 3 fires, they are below the average. Additionally, there have been zero injuries in the 3 fires so far.

So... why is this news?

Re:LOL Tesla

[AK Marc]

We couldn't say for sure whether or not he was better of keeping the hood closed.

Reminds me. Gasoline (and Diesel) cars are "expected" to catch fire. You should leave the hood down. Modern cars have an insulation layer under the hood. It's not there to protect the hood, but to help smother the fire. The mounts melt under fire temperatures, dropping the fire blanket on the engine. No idea if it works, but it's there and designed to work that way.

Unless you have a fire extinguisher handy, in which case, open the hood and spray. Despite the warnings, water works great on oil-based fires, so long as the spray is fine enough (misty). Throwing a cup of water on a grease fire in a large pot of grease is likely fatal, but a fine spray over the top would help.