Musk Lashes Back Over Tesla Fire Controversy 487
Nerval's Lobster writes "A small handful of Tesla electric cars have caught fire, driving down the company's stock price, and finally prompting CEO Elon Musk to tackle the issue in a new blog posting. 'Since the Model S went into production last year, there have been more than a quarter million gasoline car fires in the United States alone, resulting in over 400 deaths and approximately 1,200 serious injuries (extrapolating 2012 NFPA data),' he wrote in that posting. 'However, the three Model S fires, which only occurred after very high-speed collisions and caused no serious injuries or deaths, received more national headlines than all 250,000+ gasoline fires combined.' Responsible journalism on the matter, he added, has been 'drowned out' by 'an onslaught of popular and financial media seeking to make a sensation out of something that a simple Google search would reveal to be false.' According to his own figures, Tesla suffers an average of one fire per 6,333 cars, versus a rate of one fire per 1,350 gasoline-powered cars. Every Tesla vehicle includes internal walls between the battery modules, in addition to a firewall between the battery pack and the passenger compartment — enough shielding, in the event of a fire, to prevent pens and papers in the glove compartment from combusting. 'Despite multiple high-speed accidents, there have been no deaths or serious injuries in a Model S of any kind ever,' Musk continued. 'Of course, at some point, the law of large numbers dictates that this, too, will change, but the record is long enough already for us to be extremely proud of this achievement.' Tesla is about to push an 'over-the-air update' to its vehicles' air suspension that will create more ground clearance at highway speeds. In theory, that could reduce the chances of impact damage to the underbody, should the vehicle roll over an object — and that, in turn, could lower the chances of fire."
How about NEW cars? (Score:2, Insightful)
250K gasoline car fires, yes, but how many of those cars were 12 months old???
People are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
People are really bad at understanding statistics.
The masses will believe that electric cars are dangerously subject to spontaneous burning as a result of this press coverage, despite the extraordinarily solid safety record of the Tesla cars.
This is (to me) substantially similar to those people who frequently call violent crime a "growing problem" and probably comes from the same lazy, sensationalist reporters.
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many ran over heavy, jagged pieces of metal at highway speeds?
Re:People are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
People are really bad at understanding statistics because the Mainstream Media purposely skews reporting to maintain current power structures. If the media did a halfway accurate job of reporting how well the Teslas perform compared to traditional cars, you would have a ton of lawmakers, lobbyists, power brokers, and other old-money individuals all 'making phone calls' to get those involved removed. Real journalism has died. Instead, we have 'mainstream journalism' and 'fringe journalism.' The truth is found more often in fringe journalism.
It's just like watching an NFL game on TV and trying to figure out who the announcers are rooting for.. Guess what? They're rooting for a close game and whatever team has the momentum. If Tesla gains enough 'momentum' and mainstream acceptance (industry is large enough to gain its own power brokers), you will start seeing sensational articles about how great the Tesla is.
Financial media (Score:5, Insightful)
Now there's an institution that doesn't get enough scrutiny, especially the financial news channels. Bloomberg and their ilk aren't so far removed from Fox and Sky (or CNN) in terms of the actual product they deliver, which is sensationalist tripe, delivered by eye candy.
What passes for journalism today is often little more than a series "factoids" carefully chosen to fit a particular narrative - pro bono omnium hominum.
More TSA thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
>> Tesla is about to push an 'over-the-air update' to its vehicles' air suspension that will create more ground clearance at highway speeds.
This is probably all a stupid kneejerk reaction. The suspension was likely already at the ideal height as determined by a lot of windtunnel etc research. Doing this will certainly create more lift under the car and so quite a lot less efficiency all in the name of being seen to be doing something visible (but actually pointless and only negative) in response to a microscopically small chance of another similar accident.
It just occurred to me that this is a whole lot like the retarded thinking behind the creation and continued existence of the TSA.
except these are fires are on the road (Score:5, Insightful)
so you need to compare all the miles driven between gasoline and electric cars, not just their numbers.
Sine gasoline care drive about 3 Trillion miles a year in the US, and the total Tesla mileage. probably isn't even a million limes yet, it paint a different picture, doesn't it Elon?
Miles driven before incident is the measure that's used, not how many are on the road.
the hyperbolization by press continues (Score:5, Insightful)
I read a story early this morning talking about Musk's posting, and the author described the three car fires as "engulfed in flames" [forbes.com]. Similar language was used in early October; engulfed, erupted, etc.
In one case, the car provided dashboard cautions immediately after collision with road debris, then warnings, then the driver pulled over a couple of minutes later, the pack was smoking, he was able to get his belongings, etc. The interior of the car remained accessible and intact.
Meanwhile, I've witnessed, fought, and heard from friends who had car fires. It typically goes something like this: smoke from somewhere. Seconds, maybe 30 if you're lucky, there are flames. Within a minute or two the car is unsalvageable. In a crash in a gasoline car, the car can be on fire within seconds, and it can be a massive fire; rear collisions break up the fuel systems, front crashes cause both oil and gasoline to leak all over hot engine exhaust parts.
Firefighters generally don't rush to car fires because by the time they got the dispatch call, the car was already gone anyway; they're there mostly to put it out so the wrecker can collect it. Seriously, go look on youtube at car fires. Within the space of a minute or two, the car is well past the point of no return.
The hyperbolization here is amazing. Years ago Bose had a little problem with their car audio systems; the electrolytic capacitors would leak the electrolyte, which would then drip down the circuit board. In some cars, the amplifier board was positioned such that this would cause a short that would at the least cause smoking, and caused several fires.
One owner described driving down the highway, hearing the stereo crackle and drop out, looking in the back window and seeing smoke, racing over to the breakdown lane and getting out and the back shelf was already in flames; he barely had time to stop the car and escape an INTERIOR PASSENGER COMPARTMENT FIRE. In a less-than-a-year-old Audi. Reportedly Audi's regional rep inspected the burned-to-the-ground car and the customer got a replacement car.
Audi, Infiniti, Corvette, and a couple of other companies were affected; recalls were made for everyone except Audi; a bunch of Audi owners banded together when Audi refused to fix the damaged speakers, and kept selling defective units to replace failed ones. nhtsa refused to discuss with us whether they had reports of other fires or failures and refused to allow owners to speak to the person handling the investigation; Audi USA repeatedly claimed they hadn't ever heard of any malfunctions or fires, when we knew they'd paid for replacement vehicles a decade prior, and continued to claim as such even after other owners had sent in registered mail complaints and received confirmation.
Lo and behold, nhtsa finally got interested and Audi revised the amp board and did a voluntary recall. Presto, no more failures. They spent years milking owners (the amps would last a few years at most before failure.)
Then there's all the exotic cars that go up in flames; car enthusiast sites cover them routinely. Funny how Ferrari and Lambo never seems to get mentioned in the press as having a lot of car fires, huh? That's what the best money in PR gets you: shit swept under the rug fast.
Age of cars and maintenance matter as well (Score:5, Insightful)
The age of the cars matters as well, as does the relative state of maintenance.
It's a reasonable assumption/statement that all Tesla Model S cars are essentially new and likely to be in near perfect maintenance condition.
If the gasoline car fire numbers were adjusted to only include cars within the age range of Tesla Model S cars and (if possible) the number of cars still within factory warranties, I would imagine the number of gasoline car fires would be significantly lower.
Re:People are bad (Score:4, Insightful)
People are really bad at understanding statistics.
You give them too much credit. A good portion of the population _chooses_ ignorance over logical and rational conclusions. The only explanation is that when it comes to educating oneself, many people say it's "too hard" which basically equates to "I don't f#cking feel like it". (other factors, such as blind fundamentalism, is another matter)
Need fires per miles driven. (Score:4, Insightful)
That is, if the fires per tesla car is 1/6,000, with a total of 6 billion miles driven, and the fires per gas car is 1/1,300 with a total of 12 billion miles driven (because people drive gas cars much further), then tesla would still be more dangerous than a gas car.
Note, I personally believe that a Tesla car is safer and less prone to fires than a gas powered car, but the statistic we really need has not been given.
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:4, Insightful)
While the fuel will burn the same, the amount of time and mileage before a fire occurs is important. If 90% of models are end-of-lifed and junked out before there's a statistically significant chance of fire in that model, then it's much less of a problem than if it's new cars that are catching on fire, because not only is there a probability of an older, rarer-in-service model having a fire, but there's now a problem of new models, of which there are many more in service, catching fire.
Most of the car fires that I've seen have involved carbureted vehicles, which are older, possess a greater quantity of fuel up in the engine bay (in the fuel bowls), and have moving parts that have an opportunity go gum up and stick (the floats and the needles-and-seats). While fuel pressures are low, the rubber lines, fuel pump diaphragms, and carburetor gaskets are all places that are close to significant amounts of electricity and thus are fairly likely to spark off if a leak occurs.
I don't want to comment on the abortion that is TBI, but most post-fire EFI vehicles that I've seen have had passenger compartment fires, not engine/drivetrain/fuelsystem fires. Certainly there are burned-up EFI vehicles, but again, it should not happen to new vehicles.
Re:People are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
We need a karma-neutral "whoosh" modifier for when the responder to a joke is about 5 steps behind on the discussion thread....
Re:People are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Every single night I see murders and stabbings on TV news, and you are citing WIKIPEDIA to "prove" otherwise? You sound like a fucking retarded gun control advocate trying to convince me to give up my primary source of personal protection.
And you've just proved you fall for the sensationalist media like Musk is talking about.
You probably didn't even look at the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page where it clearly states the numbers are pulled from FBI and BJS reports, both government sources that you can go for primary data if you think Wikipedia is fudging the numbers. You also didn't look at the graphs in the articles, nor the data sources behind the graphs, as there is a clear downward trend in most violent crimes. Wikipedia may be untrustworthy, but there are citations and those can be verified.
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
More than enough of those cars just...catch fire. Leaking gas lines, oil/fluid leaks dripping on to cataclysmic converters... no collisions involved.
Far in the Tesla's favor are monitoring systems that tell the driver something serious is amiss, and where/what, rather than just relying on smells, cabin filled with smoke, flames coming out from under the hood...or the check engine light.
New cars, with their fine multi-function LCD panels, should all be able to list out engine codes w/o dealer intervention or other hardware, even while running. But only Tesla does...
Re:Tesla's curse (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, any electric car that isn't powered by drawing its needed energy from an upper-stratosphere high voltage standing wave isn't worthy of the name Tesla. (well, I suppose honorable mention would go to a car with a directed lightning gun)
Re:People are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
If Musk wasn't so keen on trying to use intellectual dishonesty and general ignorance to his advantage, he wouldn't have said anything, since there's a very strong chance that no other single 2014 model of automobile is seeing 15% of their production line burning up once they hit the roads.
And speaking of intellectual dishonesty when complaining about other's abuse of statistics, it's best not to commit abuse on your own part.
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the CONTEXT of automobile collisions and accidents it certainly is high speed.
Re:Age of cars and maintenance matter as well (Score:5, Insightful)
The age of the cars matters as well, as does the relative state of maintenance.
It's a reasonable assumption/statement that all Tesla Model S cars are essentially new and likely to be in near perfect maintenance condition.
If the gasoline car fire numbers were adjusted to only include cars within the age range of Tesla Model S cars and (if possible) the number of cars still within factory warranties, I would imagine the number of gasoline car fires would be significantly lower.
If you're going to take that route, then you need to exclude from both lists the cars that have had fires as a result of impacts. Now you're at some number of gas cars and zero Tesla vehicles. Because once you get into an impact, the age of the car is largely irrelevant.
The cold hard fact is, though, that Musk is right -- there's vastly more energy that wants to burn in a gas tank and associated fuel lines. An accident can easily rupture them, as can age corrode through them. (Even ignoring the added corrosion of ethanol these days.)
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:4, Insightful)
His general point still stands.
What would have to happened to a gasoline powered car if a "rusty three-pronged trailer hitch that was sticking up with the ball up in the air" had punctured the gas tank? Or possibly worse, a diesel tank. Nothing like going around a bend on a motorcycle and hitting a patch of diesel to make your day interesting.