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."
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, those were Fiskers which had acquired a reputation for catching fire if you look ta them wrong.
And no matter what they claim - it was a short in the 12 volt system that caused the fire. Something every car has, even the Tesla (it's used to run all the traditional 12V accessories in a car - ventilation, windows, lights, etc).
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no special love for Tesla or Musk but I think I have to agree with him there. Looking at the facts, these fires are not a very big deal, especially given the age of the (mainstream) electric car market. Sure, efforts should be made to aleviate the issue but obviously, if an accident punctures a battery there's a chance of fire just as there is one if you puncture a gas tank.
Re: People are bad (Score:4, Interesting)
For investors trying to bank on the Tesla stock bubble, this is a very real concern given what happened to Fisker over battery fires.
It's all about the stock price (Score:5, Interesting)
The negative stories in financial press are designed to drive down the stock price. Then the buddies of the press - or the people the analysts really work for - can pick up shares on the dip. Or they can warn their buddies that a negative story is coming out and work the options angle.
- Jasen.
Over the air update (Score:1, Interesting)
"Tesla is about to push an 'over-the-air update' to its vehicles' air suspension that will create more ground clearance at highway speeds."
Great. In the future I can look forward to my car's performance changing at a corporate whim just like all of my cloud-based services do.
I assume when you buy a Tesla you own the car. Does anyone know, is the Tesla's software licensed to the owner in the same way that purchased software is licensed to the buyer? Can I legally control the software on a car that I own, or does DMCA say that I am a criminal if I do any customization?
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is just statistics. More Tesla cars on the roads, the higher the chance of one of them getting hit. This is just me, but I'm still pretty impressed by their crash record.
The one thing I'm really curious about is how many Priuses catch fire in wrecks. Priuses tend to be the mainstream vehicle, in terms of popularity, with an EV subsystem, so they should be the standard of how much damage causes a fire or not.
Re:How about NEW cars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People are bad (Score:4, Interesting)
If the investigation is brought on by 3 fires in 5 weeks. Then this testimonial from one of the people who's Model S caught fire, represents the fact that 33% of the people who's cars caught fire do not think the fire was dangerous or a big deal and would purchase another Model S again.
That is, in fact, for this small sample size, statistically valuable.
Tesla changes warranty to cover fire damage (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it is clear that the Tesla is more likely to have a fire if you hit something hard enough to puncture the vehicle's armor plating and pierce the battery pack. It's a specific mode of failure and I don't know how common of an event this will be in the long run. I also don't think it's as big of a deal as the media is making. It doesn't "explode" or unexpectedly burst into flames that engulf the passenger compartment. A cluster of events does not define a trend in my mind.
I really like the low center of gravity, the balanced fore-aft weight distribution and the ridiculous amounts of trunk space the "skateboard" design allows. It makes for a great handling car, which improves safety. It also means huge crumble zones to absorb kinetic energy in a crash, which also improves safety. To me, it's a design trade-off. The real measure of the trade off will be whether people are safer, on average, or not. So far there have been no deaths or serious injuries, but the sample size and time frame is small for that to be really meaningful. But I'm hopeful, and if I could afford one, I'd buy one.
Push an 'over-the-air update'... (Score:3, Interesting)
That just sounds awesome. To be able to tune something on a car without taking it into a dealership or have a mechanic (including yourself) touch the thing is just cool.
Re:People are bad (Score:2, Interesting)
Most people remember the Chevy Corvair for it's habit of rolling over during hard cornering. It doesn't matter that GM had no reported incidents of roll overs until they fitted the cars with bucket seats and people began driving them at higher speeds like Porches. It doesn't matter that they updated the rear suspension in 1964 and completely redesigned it for the 1965-69 models. It doesn't matter that people failing to read the manual and improper tire inflation was actually the main cause of the jacking effect noted in the 1960-63 models. It doesn't matter that Ralph Nader actually mentions all of this in his book and calls the '65's a much better design. It doesn't matter that the 1971 NHTSA report found both early and late models to be no less dangerous than other contemporary cars and that the VW microbus and Beetle and Renault Dauphine actually did roll over during the tests where as the Corvair didn't.
But no. Here we are almost 50 years later and people STILL believe that ALL Corvairs are unsafe and will flip shiny-side-down at the slightest mention of a corner. Certain vehicles get a reputation for something and that's it. The name might as well be dead. I doubt Ford would dare use the "Pinto" name on another small car just like GM wouldn't bring back the Vega name even if the car was powered by a proven Ecotec engine.
Too much remote control (Score:5, Interesting)
Tesla is about to push an 'over-the-air update' to its vehicles' air suspension that will create more ground clearance at highway speeds.
Now that scares me. The suspension can be updated remotely? What could possibly go wrong? Just how good is the security on that? Who has access to the keys? Are you sure? How are the download servers secured? Is the update system protected against cut-and-paste attacks?
That kind of update could be used as an assassination weapon.
When Tesla was talking about automatic driving, I suggested that there must be a second processor, with completely different software, checking the main system for sanity (like "not approaching obstacle at high speed") and able to force a stop. The backup system should have its program in ROM, and changing that program should require breaking seals and physically plugging in a new program module.
Flight control software for airliners works like that. For the Airbus line, the backup software was written by a different team for a different kind of CPU in a different programming language, to avoid any possibility of a common mode failure.