Tesla Model S Caught Fire While Parked and Unplugged 329
cartechboy writes "The safety headlines involving the Tesla Model S were a mixed bag last year. The good news was the Model S received a top safety rating, but the bad news came with three of those electric cars catching fire after receiving damage to the battery packs. (Though coverage of the latter was disproportionate to the coverage of fires in other types of vehicle.) Now another Tesla Model S has caught fire, but this time the car was parked and unplugged. The fire happened earlier this morning in the owner's garage in Toronto, Ontario. At this time no one knows what sparked the fire, but we do know the vehicle was only about four months old. Again, it wasn't plugged into a charging station, and it wasn't turned on. With no one near it. Interestingly, the battery on this particular Model S was unscathed by the fire. In fact, the Toronto fire department says the fire didn't originate in the battery, the charging system, the adapter or electrical receptacle since all of those components weren't touched by the fire. So, how did this Tesla fire happen, and will this blow up into a larger issue for the new automaker?"
Re:-_- (Score:4, Informative)
A entire car line was recalled for catching fire for no reason earlier last year. People got in hi-speed wrecks and caused fires, happening to be in a Tesla. The latter gets coverage, the former gets hardly any. No spin from what I can see here, just a disproportionate coverage on a car that's already in the spotlight.
Re:-_- (Score:2, Informative)
A entire car line was recalled for catching fire for no reason earlier last year.
Not quite - Ford recalled a large number of Focus models because of the potential for fires, not because an inordinate amount of them actually caught fire.
VW did the same thing with their diesel models a few years ago, again not because of actual events but because of the potential for them.
And, for the record, there are hundreds of thousands of Ford Focus' on the roads today, compared to... how many Tesla Model S?
Re:Not from the car? (Score:5, Informative)
They yanked down a ton of sheet rock looking for fire. The firemen are looking at the wall and floor.
That's because when a structure becomes involved in a fire, even if it didn't start there, they need to make sure the fire isn't still active in the walls of the structure. It's really embarrassing for firemen to pack up after thinking they've put a fire out, only to get called back a couple of hours later because some two-by-four in the wall wasn't fully extinguished. Also dangerous for the structure owner.
Re:Not from the car? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually I did, And I traced it to the source.
The first link http://www.thecarconnection.co... [thecarconnection.com] got all its information from the second link.
The first link states "another Tesla Model S has burst into flames -- this time, while parked".
However his cited source makes no such statement. He added that part all by himself.
Just looking at the pictures you can tell it wasn't the car that was burning. It was something else in the garage.
Re:-_- (Score:5, Informative)
My Ford truck burst into flames after sitting for 3 days in my driveway a couple years ago. Fortunately my wife was working from home and called the fire dept. Saved my house.
I talked to several lawyers after this and what they told me was scary:
1) ALL car models can burst into flames while not running.
2) Many lawyers have their entire practice base on car fires like this.
3) If no one died or was seriously injured, they won't even take the case. There are too many lucrative death cases from this sort of thing for them to bother.
4) EVERY one of these lawyers said they would NEVER park any car inside a garage attached to their house. One even said he fought his fancy HOA for the right to park in his driveway instead of his garage. He won, because he had the evidence.
I am taking that advice.
Re:Tesla not involved [Re:Not from the car?] (Score:5, Informative)
First AC got it almost perfect - as long as you have a powered axle the wheels on both sides spin at the same speed and there is no tendency to "pull" unless they're improperly aligned or your wheels are different diameters. As multiple powered axles still all push straight forward. The only part AC got wrong was that barring slippage and assuming your wheels are all the same size, every single axle must will turn the same speed.
It's like a team of horses pulling a load - so long as all the horses are in one line you can mix hard workers and slackers however you like. Some will pull harder than others, but they all move together at the same speed. If you have two rows though, then you need to be careful to balance your horses - put all your slackers on one side and you'll start going in circles.