Man In Tesla Model S Fire Explains What Happened 526
An anonymous reader writes "The three recent Tesla fires have raised concerns with a lot of people. One person who isn't concerned, however, is Juris Shibayama, the man whose model S burned in Tennessee. He says: 'I would buy another one in a heartbeat.' From the article: 'Shibayama said that he struck a three-pronged trailer hitch in the middle lane of the interstate. He continued: "About 30-45 seconds later, there was a warning on the dashboard display saying, 'Car needs service. Car may not restart.' I continued to drive, hoping to get home. About one minute later, the message on the dashboard display read, 'Please pull over safely. Car is shutting down.'" He said he had time to remove his possessions, even though, he said: "About 5-10 seconds after getting out of the car, smoke started to come from the front underbody of the car."'"
So. (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation - when you get in a WRECK your car does odd things. I am happy this person came forward and said "had a wreckand the car even warned me to RUN!"
Good design tesla.
Concert (Score:3, Insightful)
> One person who isn't concertinaed
Of course he wasn't concertinaed -- he ran over a hitch, he didn't biff a bridge abutment.
Good Engineering Tesla (Score:1, Insightful)
Good job, lets of safety features worked as intended. I LOVE to see when these sort of active safety systems do their job.
Now move the fucking battery pack so this shit stops. 1/4" aluminum armor 'a good idea' and all, but only because you mounted the battery in a stupid fucking position. Treat it like the gas tank, since it too is the energy storage medium for the car and its most dangerous components. Gas tanks don't need 1/4" armor ... because they don't mount them where shit getting wedge under the car is going to penetrate them, neither should you.
Designing a new car from the ground up without all the old baggage of a 100 years of car building practices may seem like a great idea for efficiency, but its really not considering you're now going to RELEARN a BUNCH of shit that GM, Ford, Nissan, Mazda, Toyota and all the rest learned a long time ago.
Nothing Tesla is doing is new or groundbreaking, theres no reason for throwing the baby out in the bath water, which is what they've done.
Re:huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, cops would get rather annoyed if everyone called them just to tell them they hit something on the road way. He wasn't in an accident that involved another car and at the time he wasn't aware of how much damage had been done to his car. There was no reason to call the cops ever, only the fire department.
Re:Good Engineering Tesla (Score:5, Insightful)
These class of cars crash and burn all the time (some even split in two). Google if you don't believe me. Heck even other conventional cars crash and burn too- A friend's friends were burnt to death in a BMW after a crash - they were stuck and couldn't get out.
This Tesla model seems really safe in comparison. Maybe add some thermal sensors, have a "car about to burn" warning and we're good to go.
Re:is this a dupe article? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mod parent up - this same "proud Tesla owner" is not the third fire, probably the 2nd iirc. This guy had a spot on the front page right after the second fire, b/c it's "all good."
Let's get the facts:
- 3 of these have caught fire and have made headlines
- Cars catch on fire
- Trying to push headlines that make it look like Tesla is the good guy, which they really are - see above two points - only make it seem like the opposite: you don't have to massage a pubic that understands the two key points by trying to somehow fluff it up over and over AND OVER AGAIN. After second fire: "Fiery Tesla Owner Says He'd Buy Again;" third fire: "Everyone take a breath, cars catch on fire all the time," and "Same guy from before said he would buy another, remember? He said it before, and don't forget he said it."
Chill. If the cars are deathtraps, we'll know soon enough...I mean, it's not like these were the only 3 bought right?
Stupid idiot messages (Score:3, Insightful)
A pet peeve with cars is the stupid engine light that gives no clue what the problem is. I have no idea if it's some lower-priority thing like a polution sensor slightly out of spec or something where I need to stop immediately to avoid engine damage. (I know you can buy the code readers, but I don't carry one around in my car typically.)
So the Tesla, with all its sophistication, says 'Car needs service. Car may not restart.' WTF? They might as well replace it with an engine light to save money.
I do agree that 'Please pull over safely. Car is shutting down.' is a little better, but not much.
Re: Good Engineering Tesla (Score:4, Insightful)
What a know it all, arm chair commenter. Have you seen the overall model S safety and notice no one has any permanent injuries despite some crazy crashes? This is due to the regidity and strength of the skateboard battery.
You are quite good at using the word fuck, but that's all you know.
Re:Stupid idiot messages (Score:5, Insightful)
Too much information can be a bad thing. You need to communicate these situations in a simple manner so that they don't distract the driver too much.
Re:Stupid idiot messages (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupid idiot messages (Score:5, Insightful)
"'Car needs service. Car may not restart.' WTF? "
I'd say this is exactly the amount of detail that you need while driving. Really, what would be the added practical value of "Battery bank 7 temperature exceeded threshold level 1 based on mean power over last 15 minutes, click here to see a plot" for your decision to stop now, drive home, or drive directly to the service station?
I wouldn't be surprised if more details can be found somewhere under "advanced status" or something.
Re:Low expectations (Score:5, Insightful)
The man has some seriously low expectations of a car.
For better or worse, by the standards of 'devices with more than a thousand pounds of Li-ion batteries right underneath the operator', responding to a massive puncture wound with a series of error messages and a controlled shutdown is pretty damn polite...
This doesn't necessarily mean you want to be the lucky driver of one; but I'm impressed that the system held off the worst of the failure cascade long enough for him to make it out alive, rather than just burning him into a grease spot and some mixed oxides right then and there. (I had the pleasure of one of Sony's defective battery packs back in the day, and after having to toss it, and the attached computer, off my lap in a hurry, I've never taken the term 'laptop' quite as literally. Those things go pretty fast, once they start.)
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds like he continued to drive the vehicle after the system warned him not to, though. So I would say this is user error in continuing to drive the car. (Presumably what he hit punctured part of the battery?)
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, 1 in 6300 is a lot
That might be significant if it was statistically significant. One incident does not make it significant.
Now, if there were 10 in 63000, that would be significant, but one in 6300 is not.
In addition, this accident was not caused by a car malfunction, it was caused by an external event.
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also the GP has a point, all kinds of cars do burst into flames every now and then, in 35 years of driving I've seen it happen 3 times. Once to myself in a Datsun on the freeway, my brother-in-law's ford while it was parked in the driveway, both of those were oil fires. The third incident was a mate's prime mover, a large spanner came loose and fell on the battery shorting out the terminals. All three incidents happened in the 80's. The fact that the car was damaged means all bets are off, but it also means that the manufacturer will get feedback on the incident and suggestions on how to fix it. If they don't listen then often they will be "forced" to do so by legislation that could see a lead engineer jailed for manslaughter.
Western governments are almost single-handedly responsible for the massive improvement in both car and road safety over the last 40yrs, free market competition has worked out how to put those legal requirements into a car without it looking like a 1970's Volvo. If road/car safety was left to the "invisible hand" then people would still be driving around with "DIY LPG conversions" - An 80kg LPG cylinder strapped to the roof racks of station wagons, like a torpedo waiting to be launched in the event of a frontal collision.
Re:Service with a Smile (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd make him sing a little song.
Daisy, Daaaaiiiisssssyyyy....
Re:They should sue (Score:5, Insightful)
Any debris impact severe enough to pierce the quarter-inch armor plate on the underside of the battery pack is more than enough to pierce an oil pan, transmission, fuel tank or floorboard of any other vehicle. That is a debilitating debris strike in any vehicle, not a "little tap." In any other vehicle this guy could have ended up with that trailer hitch piercing his leg instead.
That said, this is the second debris strike in as many months... maybe Tesla owners just aren't paying attention to the road?
=Smidge=
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Free market competition has worked out how to put those legal requirements into a car without it looking like a 1970's Volvo.
I beg your pardon? You mean like this? [volvo1800pictures.com]
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:4, Insightful)
However, every ICE vehicle comes with one of those installed under the hood. Most conventional car fires happen at the engine, not the tank. Usually due to a ruptured fuel line or broken fuel filter. The fuel pump then happily keeps spraying fuel onto the fire until the engine finally dies.
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Modern coal plants also release less other pollutants (such as NOx, PAHs, PM2.5, etc) than the vehicle fleet, and other sources (gas, hydro, solar, nukes) are even better.
It also means that all your remaining emissions/pollution is located at the plant. [Except when they're on fire.] Upgrade or replace the plant and you've reduced or eliminated the emissions for every existing electric car, not just new ones. What upgrade could do that with ICE vehicles? Switching to unleaded or low-sulphur diesel were about the only things, everything further improvement (catalytic converters, better efficiency) requires changing vehicles each time. But one you've electrified the fleet, you can "upgrade them" as often as you want by changing their source of electricity.
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The car said it needed servicing and "may not restart", if it were me I'd probably keep driving too.
Only if that warning came up by itself, but this guy had just hit a serious chunk of iron in the road. I would have stopped straight away, even without the warning. Yet he carried on even after a warning as well.
The guy is an idiot. And we are expected us to listen to him giving advice on the subject of car purchases?
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is typical of rich people. Most are pretty darn stupid.
Re:They should upgrade the warning ... (Score:5, Insightful)
> I would give some credit to Western Governments for fuel emissions, but not safety.
I think you should look a bit more at history - check out the federal governments requirements for air bags (and the auto industries initial response).
Also maybe look at the 3 point seat belt, most western governments have made it a mandatory feature.