Tesla Says Garage Fire Not Charger's Fault; Firemen Less Sure 253
cartechboy writes "It looks like Elon Musk and Tesla Motors find themselves in another PR war over the cause of a fire involving a Tesla Model S. Authorities in Irvine, CA are currently investigating the reason for a fire in a garage that, yes, contained a Tesla Model S. While the actual cause of the fire remains unknown, Tesla Motors and the Orange County Fire Authority are already publicly disputing possible causes, thought to center around the Tesla charging system. Tesla says the fire was not caused by any part of the car nor its charging system, reports Reuters. For what its worth — we've seen a version of this movie before. In 2011, investigators determined that a garage fire that destroyed a Chevrolet Volt had started away from the car, later spreading to engulf and destroy the car."
Musk's Hubris... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is where Musk's Hubris is going to be a problem.
There's no way that he can know for sure what happened in the fire, and he's going to risk having to eat crow -- lots and lots of crow -- if he's proven wrong.
I love the guy, but hubris is clearly among his worst qualities.
Re:Musk's Hubris... (Score:5, Insightful)
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When it's a fledgling industry who successes or failures could have ramifications for years to come, and who has people actively trying to discredit, because it's success will damage their outdated business model, than yes, it's news.
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No wonder the econauts are all over this: "shareholders" - A more free-loving hippie term I've never seen.
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Whatever.
If, in 2007, Ford suddenly started having Mustangs catching fire, it would have been front page news to.
Tends to happen with new stuff - anything that happens is considered "news-worthy."
Considering some of the other offal they put on the front page these days, I wouldn't be too butthurt about it.
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I guarantee you that at least one modern generation Mustang has been destroyed in a garage fire.
Wow, that's not science.
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It's statistics. Garage fires are not uncommon, and Ford has manufactured a lot of Mustangs since 2007.
Whereas Tesla has only sold about 20,000 Model S'. Since 2012.
Which is why the Model S fires are considered newsworthy, and Mustang fires are not.
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I guarantee you that at least one modern generation Mustang has been destroyed in a garage fire.
Sure, but was it one of the first 20,000 units out the door, and less than 2 years old when that happened? Because those are important factors to consider.
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Ford Motor Co. is recalling as many as 3.6 million cars, truck, and vans because a switch that deactivates the speed control can overheat and catch fire according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agency warns in its recall notice that the switch problem can cause a fire under the hood. The latest recall covers 16 brands of cars, sport utility vehicles and trucks from model years 1992 to 2004. The models include the Ford Ranger, Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis, Lincoln Town Car, Lincoln Mark VIII, Ford Taurus SHO, Mercury Capri, Ford Explorer, Mercury Mountaineer, Ford Explorer Sport and Explorer Sport Trac, Ford E-150-350, Ford E-450, Ford Bronco, Ford F-150 Lightning, some models of F-Series trucks and Ford F53 Motor Home chassis.
Well sir I expect you to eat some crow. You may proceed immediately.
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Date of article: 08/04/2007
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/08/ford_massive_recall.html [consumeraffairs.com]
Ford Motor Co. is recalling as many as 3.6 million cars, truck, and vans because a switch that deactivates the speed control can overheat and catch fire according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The agency warns in its recall notice that the switch problem can cause a fire under the hood.
The latest recall covers 16 brands of cars, sport utility vehicles and trucks from model years 1992 to 2004.
The models include the Ford Ranger, Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis, Lincoln Town Car, Lincoln Mark VIII, Ford Taurus SHO, Mercury Capri, Ford Explorer, Mercury Mountaineer, Ford Explorer Sport and Explorer Sport Trac, Ford E-150-350, Ford E-450, Ford Bronco, Ford F-150 Lightning, some models of F-Series trucks and Ford F53 Motor Home chassis.
Well sir I expect you to eat some crow. You may proceed immediately.
Why? That doesn't disprove my contention, you know.
"Might catch fire" != "caught fire"
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Tesla ACTUALLY CATCHES FIRE, with no recall notice.
Elsewhere, a Fisher Karma ACTUALLY CATCHES FIRE, with no recall notice.
Sounds like the crow's on the other plate.
Re: Musk's Hubris... (Score:3)
Re:Musk's Hubris... (Score:5, Funny)
Musk's Hubris? Is that some new cologne?
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Musk's Hubris? Is that some new cologne?
Smells like the stench of desperation.
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This is where Musk's Hubris is going to be a problem.
There's no way that he can know for sure what happened in the fire, and he's going to risk having to eat crow -- lots and lots of crow -- if he's proven wrong.
Ah, the car wasn't damaged: From the Link:
The incident caused up to $25,000 of damage, though the Model S itself sustained only light smoke damage. Nobody in the house was injured.
So if the car started the fire it must have been playing with matches and went running to its owner when its pile of legos actually caught fire.
Faulty house wiring is the source.
Re:Musk's Hubris... (Score:5, Informative)
The fire authority didn't blame the car. Here's the quote from the article:
The Fire Authority, however, released a report stating that the fire occurred "as a result of an electrical failure in the charging system for an electric vehicle".
Fire broke out in the garage on the campus of the University of California-Irvine on November 15. The blaze was noted by the car's owner just before 3 am, and it was promptly extinguished by fire crews.
The incident caused up to $25,000 of damage, though the Model S itself sustained only light smoke damage. Nobody in the house was injured.
While the Fire Authority's report stated the most likely cause was a "high resistance connection at the wall socket or the Universal Mobile Connector from the Tesla charging system", Tesla says its own data shows the car was charging normally, with no fluctuations in the temperature and no malfunctions capable of causing a fire.
Tesla also notes that the car's charging cable was fine where it was connected to the car, and was damaged only on the wall side. This could suggest issues with the building's electrical supply, rather than with the vehicle.
This doesn't completely rule out the charging system. The fire was started between the wall socket and the charger.
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The fire was started between the wall socket and the charger.
It says no such thing. You seem to practice selective reading.
This could suggest issues with the building's electrical supply, rather than with the vehicle.
The high resistance connection was most likely inside the wall socket, usually bad connections of the house wiring, or undersized wiring.
This is very typical of aluminum wiring. Although the mainstream press won't report that even if it is discovered to be such.
Re:Musk's Hubris... (Score:4, Insightful)
The conspiracy of the mainstream media to hide the dangers of aluminum wiring from us?
Sounds like the sort of thing I might have in my house that could kill my children... ...tonight at 11.
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Its killed a lot of children already.
But that isn't why they would hide it, they would hide it because its not sensational and leaves no avenue to envy attacks on people who own tesla cars.
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Aluminum wire, before it was phased out, was front page news on every newspaper on the country and the first story the nightly news. It was, and is, a well known problem.
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It should be noted that aluminum wire is used constantly in homes in the USA right now. It is just limited to systems above 50A draw.
So your electric or induction stove. yea that is probably wired with aluminum. Your clothes dryer most likely not. The main supply lines for your home yep aluminum too. You have a sub panel, that is most likely being feed with aluminum. it wouldn't be hard to guess that the installer used aluminum even if the instructions say not to feed it with aluminum as I have seen t
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"It is just limited to systems above 50A draw."
If it's not safe for 20A house circuits (I know of many Aluminum Romex cables that have fried in-wall,) why in the world would it be considered safe for 50A or higher, unless the wire was incredibly thick?
"So your electric or induction stove. yea that is probably wired with aluminum."
Brand-new model. 100% copper wiring excepting the heating elements and brass connections for the wiring/plug, internal and external.
"The main supply lines for your home yep aluminu
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Looking at the scene after the fact really only tells you that there was a fire at the interface between the building and the car.
The wall outlet doesn't have sensor logs to show it was or was not hot, the Tesla charger apparently does.
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True, but if the charger was overheating, you would expect the performance characteristics to change.
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Logs tell a lot more than some volunteer fireman. Especially a fireman who can't determine
which melted first, the connector or the wall outlet.
(Not surprising since the field of fire investigation is full of voodo and disprove pseudo science.)
All that is know is where the fire started at the outlet.
We know it wasn't a short circuit. Breakers would have tripped.
We know it wasn't an arc, AFCI (required in garages) would have tripped.
Most likely cause is shade tree electrician swapping in a bigger breaker to
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Try looking up the word OR.
Re:Musk's Hubris... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I've heard that Musk's hubris is very large (heh, heh, heh), but perhaps he does have a point. According to the article, all the damage was done at the wall connection (not the car connection), and a review of the car logs indicated that charging was proceeding normally at the time the fire started.
I'm going to make an assumption here that the tesla charger was probably safety tested[1] and approved for sale by UL, but what about the installation itself? Maybe California is different than the rest of North America, but most garages aren't natively wired with 240V sockets (quit laughing, you Europeans). So who did the 240V installation? The home owner or a certified electrician? Was it inspected? The article certainly doesn't say. Knowing how previous Tesla fire stories have been pounced on by the media, I'd probably do the same if I were in Elon's shoes and say the problem had nothing to do with the charger, and would change my tune later on if it turned out to be true. It wouldn't be the first time that crappy wiring has caused a house fire, and I don't think it's necessarily wrong for him to point this out.
[1] Not that safety testing means that a unit failure can't happen, but they do check (or should check, if they are doing their jobs right) that the design is robust to various abnormal conditions, and that fail-safes are built into the product to prevent fires or other dangerous conditions in the event of a malfunction. However, all the safety testing on earth won't save you from a shitty installation...
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UL certs basically mean you paid UL.
There are requirements, but nothing beyond good engineering. Strain relief your wires etc.
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...UL is just a baseline safety test done against test units. It doesn't mean it's a robust design...
I work for a company that got UL approval for a device.
For our product, UL did look over our designs. They have some rules, for example, about how safety interlocks should be designed. You have to either use previously UL approved switches and sensors, or submit your sensors for approval. You cannot have software in the safety loop. Ex: You can't have software that monitors the voltage then sends a shut-off command to a relay. The sensor must be electronically connected to the shut-off. FPGAs are oka
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This is where Musk's Hubris is going to be a problem.
There's no way that he can know for sure what happened in the fire, and he's going to risk having to eat crow -- lots and lots of crow -- if he's proven wrong.
I love the guy, but hubris is clearly among his worst qualities.
He has the power of the Force.
He just knows things.
Don't let him find your lack of faith disturbing...
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I'm normally one of the first people to bust his balls, but this time around I'll give Elon a little credit: Denying any wrongdoing right out of the gate is SOP with American corporations.
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Agree that there are lots of unknown. However, Musk has not given me a reason in past to believe that he talks out of his rear end.
Between the fire department and Musk proposing conflict theories, I'll take Musk's side.
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When a smart person believes something because it's supported by the data, a less-informed bystander might mistake their competence for arrogance or hubris.
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He cited figures from the National Fire Protection Association that 150,000 gasoline car fires occur per year. With 3 trillion miles driven per year, that works out to 1 vehicle fire for every 20 million miles driven. The record for the Tesla Model S so far is 1 vehicle fire per 100 million miles driven. This means gasoline car drivers are at five times greater risk to car fires than are Model S drivers.
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Once again we have RANDOM_DUMBASS attempting to claim Teslas are akin to flashpaper and explode if you look at the wrong, in spite of strong empirical evidence of just the opposite.
yes but it's good strategy (Score:2)
It's a win-win strategy.
1. Deny it all before the crazies run amok with unchallenged media coverage of the fire.
2. If wrong, eh, it happens. Apologize, deliver an update, and good will. No one will hate him for it. Just business as usual.
3. If he's right, or it's ambiguous as to what happened, he wins.
Re:Musk's Hubris... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is where Musk's Hubris is going to be a problem.
There's no way that he can know for sure what happened in the fire, and he's going to risk having to eat crow -- lots and lots of crow -- if he's proven wrong.
I love the guy, but hubris is clearly among his worst qualities.
You're charging it wrong.
What I find completely unbelievable in this story is that someone in California actually has their car in a garage.
Your garage is where you keep all the stuff you can't fit into the house.
The street is where you keep your car.
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Guess which of those locations is more likely to house fires?
That should sum up the potential of whether it's likely the Tesla was faulted or not. Whether that's idle speculation or not at this point, the fact that the county appears ready to speculate with no confirmed facts is actually very concerning.
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Nah, we just lock our chargers up.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:Lock_j1772_w_padlock_img1090ex.jpg [mynissanleaf.com]
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I personally believe that new electric cars are safer than petrol cars generally... they've got less to go wrong badly, and they've been proven.
However, a Nissan leaf gets 40mpg equivalent or so in the US (in terms of carbon emissions), according to here [shrinkthatfootprint.com] (see Emissions equivalent petrol car). A Tesla will get a lot worse.
That's shit. My parent's car will get almost 50mpg. It's a diesel. My car will get more than 30mpg, and it'll do 0-60 in 6.
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I personally believe that new electric cars are safer than petrol cars generally... they've got less to go wrong badly, and they've been proven.
Well, they may have the potential to be. I would have to see some statistics. I found an equal number of stories of electrical car fires in houses as ICE car fires in houses, and we certainly have more ICE cars than electric cars.
Oily rags (Score:2)
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Well, assuming they don't have other gas powered equipment (lawn mower, snow blower, etc).
Actually I imagine those probably result in more minor gas/oil spills and oil/gas soaked rags than a car.
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Teslas don't use oil? I didn't know that, I assume there had to be at least a little metal on metal somewhere on the drive train.
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When was the last time you changed the oil in your ceiling fan? Your blender? CD player?
Hell, when was the last time you "changed the oil" in the wheel bearings of your car?
Yes, all these things require lubricant, but they are not things we associate with having substantial oil reservoirs.
As for the the Tesla, yes it'll have wheel bearings and axels, so it'll probably have a bit of grease somewhere... but I don't believe it has a transmission. So there probably isn't anything that's we'd recognize as "oil"
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Is the oil used in cars usually involved in those kinds of fires? I thought those were usually more caused by things like linseed oil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linseed_oil#Spontaneous_combustion [wikipedia.org]
Never heard of anyone using linseed oil in their crank case.
Normally improper disposal of motor oil may make a fire situation worst, but doesn't, as far as I know, tend to cause them. Whereas, improper disposal of rags soaked in linseed oil (normally used in paints) has been the primary cause of a few fires.
Re:Oily rags (Score:5, Funny)
I always keep my linseed oil soaked rags piled up together in a nice dry place covered in sawdust.
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A point the OP failed to grasp. The only oils that spontaneously burst into flame are natural oils that decompose. Motor oils certainly wont. The majority of first are caused by either space heaters or older electrical wiring with too high of a fuse/breaker on it. Who installed this guys charger? Himself? I can't imagine finding a breaker big enough for that charger is easy.
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Remember to keep that 50' 18 gauge extension cord running, that you're using to charge your new Tesla, under it. It helps keep the garage smelling nice. :)
Re:Oily rags (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Oily rags (Score:5, Informative)
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Whoops, butchered that comment. Meant to say an oily rag will spontaneously ignite [youtube.com] if left for a few hours. You can try it yourself.
Not likely if its just motor oil.
You have to watch the video you posted almost half way through before he reveals its Rosewood Oil, a natural oil used for furniture finishing.
Further, the pile has been manipulated during the video, the most obvious time is just before he says "About a half hour later".
Be that as it may, there was no oily rags involved in this garage fire. A faulty outlet, with cardboard boxes stacked nearby.
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I really hate how my sister insists on keeping the wrapping paper, cardboard puzzles, and stock of TP directly over her clothes dryer.
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Not just this.
1) The rag was left out in the sun.
2) There's no temperature gauge, so you can't tell if it's 0F or 110F.
3) There's some kind of unnatural glare going on. It could just be the rag is soaked with so much oil that it's outright reflecting the sunlight, but not knowing how the rag was prepared, I wonder if there's something say, concentrating the sunlight.
While spontaneous combustion is pretty cool to see, the reliabilty of this video is questionable.
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An oily rag, left outside, in the sun, on hot asphalt.
Garage conditions are usually the exact opposite.
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That video isn't a very good example. He keeps moving the camera around, and it seems whenever it moves back out so you can see the whole rag pile, it appears to have been disturbed while it was not visible.
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I always burn any rags that I get soaked with oil or gasoline immediately. I keep a large metal can for this purpose. Take it out in the driveway well away from any structure and let them burn.
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In the electrical outlet's enclosure? That's an odd place to put them...
On the other hand (Score:4, Insightful)
Garage fires aren't a very common topic on Slashdot.
New tech -- of course that's the cause! (Score:2)
Ah, the old "Hey, I don't know what this is, so it must be the cause of the fire" argument.
Of course fire investigators will point to a piece of new technology as the cause of the fire. It's easy and they are lazy. Just like videogames are the cause of all school shootings.
And before that, it was cell phones causing brain cancer,
And before that it was rock and roll music causing children to misbehave.
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Of course fire investigators will point to a piece of new technology as the cause of the fire. It's easy and they are lazy. Just like videogames are the cause of all school shootings.
And before that, it was cell phones causing brain cancer,
And before that it was rock and roll music causing children to misbehave.
How, considering the complete lack of evidence at this point, is that any different than Musk claiming that it had to have been anything but his products?
The correct answer, BTW, is that it's not different at all.
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Actually, Musk has the charging logs from the car, showing that it was charging normally when the fire started.
(That would be evidence.)
That would be a piece of evidence, not the whole body of it.
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The tesla wasn't damaged.
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If I plug my iron into the wall, and then the wall socket shorts out and causes a fire in the wall, the iron might still be to blame.
Sure, it's more likely the wiring, but you can't rule out the iron.
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If your circuit breaker didn't blow first, then it is definitely a problem with the building wiring, and not the fault of the iron.
It will probably be found that the guy put in a bigger breaker because the small one kept tripping off, but the wiring
couldn't handle that much draw.
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If there had been no tesla, would there have been a fire ? The Tesla might have caused the failed electrical installation to burn by taking more current than it was able to provide for a longer time than anything else in that garage, if it wasn't wired correctly.. So yeah, the Tesla showed the failure point, but I wouldn't beat tesla for it :)
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Any load could have caused that. But I'm betting a faulty or oversized breaker was to blame.
Probably switched out the breaker for a larger one, because the original smaller one kept tripping.
I'm guessing it was an older structure, because a newer one would have GFIC and/or AFIC on that circuit.
Sometimes its the wiring not the device ... (Score:5, Funny)
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It may be terminology missing; In actual fact all the charging equipment is onboard the car, but the fire officials may be referring the the exterior power cable as "the charger" especially if it's Tesla's High Power Wall Connector. The abbreviation for that, HPWC, could reasonably be assumed to mean High Power Wall Charger.
clickbait headline (Score:5, Informative)
"garage fire started by improperly installed electrical outlet" just doesn't get you as many clicks.
The garage fire was Nov 15, the Tesla S did not sustain any damage. The damage was all on the wall socket side.
Re:Gas vs Electric (Score:5, Funny)
Personally I never let electricity be used unless it is under my direct supervision. Whenever I run the A/C, I go outside and watch the compressor unit until it has cooled the house down. Likewise, whenever I need hot water I go out in the garage, manually turn the water heater on, and wait until the water is completely heated. I throw the main breaker and remove the power meter from the side of the house every time before going to work, the store, etc.
You just can't be too safe nowadays.
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As the old expression goes... (Score:2)
The linked article is crap, anyone got the report? (Score:3)
"The fire occurred as a result of an electrical failure in the charging system for an electric vehicle," said a report by the fire authority, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.
The report also emphasizes that the cause of the fire is unclear.
Bad Wall Sockets, Wiring & Circuit Breakers (Score:2)
These cause more fires than anything elseExcept gasoline powered vehicles.
Several hundred thousand car fires occur per year, but they don't make the news.
Damage on the wall side (Score:5, Interesting)
If the cable was damaged at the wall side but not the car side, my immediate thought is a problem in the wall socket or wiring. I've run into that with regular outlets, old hardware causes high resistance and a very hot outlet and plug (thermal conduction through the metal parts). The most common cause is age causing corrosion of the connection plates inside the socket or looseness of the plates so the prongs of the plug don't make good tight contact with them. Either way it raises the resistance of the connection inside the socket and creates a lot of heat (it's doing exactly what the heating elements on an electric stove do). My fix is to open up the outlet and replace the socket with a new one, cleaning up and tightening the wires in the process.
The #2 problem is the actual in-wall wiring being old and just not up to gauge for the current draw of modern electronics. In 1970 we didn't have home computers and Xboxes and the like, 14-gauge wiring was common and hooking up a modern home-entertainment center and computer would have the wiring in the wall hot to the touch. Plug a Tesla into older wiring like that and you've got a fire waiting to happen.
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The Maximum Amps for Power Transmission uses the 700 circular mils per amp rule, which is very very conservative. The Maximum Amps for Chassis Wiring is also a conservative rating, but is meant for wiring in air, and not in a bundle.
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NEC says that for continuous loads, you can pull up to 80% of the circuit's rating. Charging an EV qualifies as a continuous load. Below is a list of common copper wire sizes found in your typical home and it's 100% / 80% ampacity (assuming 60C rated insulation which is most common):
14AWG: 15/12A
12AWG: 20/16A
10AWG: 30/24A
8AWG: 40/32A
6AWG: 55/44A
1AWG: 110/88A
Note that for the last two, you typically would be using that wire on a 50A or 100A circuit, the max continuous loads on those would be 40A or 80A respe
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Our house was built in the 1940's, and we'll have to make a decision, refit everything plumbing and electrical, tearing open every wall; of tear the whole thing down and start fresh.
It'll probably depend more on the legal bullshit (remodel permit vs. new building...)
Just like an IPhone (Score:2)
Tesla is fighting a war (Score:5, Interesting)
A war over public opinion. I don't know why the struggling U.S. automakers have not embraced electric vehicles. They will make a "zombie" truck [motorauthority.com] which everyone thinks is funny, but nobody actually wants. But tend to be disposed to doing everything in their power to resist that which is (probably) better for the environment and more efficient for a good portion of the population commuting just a few miles every day. Did they learn nothing from the Nissan Leaf sales?
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Indeed, Tesla is fighting a war. That is when an obvious FUD attack is launched causing the stock to drop, I buy a few shares of TSLA. It's not a lot, but I'm helping screw over the shorters and the ICE/oil cartels.
The real pity? (Score:2)
We don't have Jerry Reed to make a new song for all these fancy new eee-lectric autymobiles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOMcAlO7rQ [youtube.com]
Is Tesla a Continuous Load? (Score:2, Informative)
NEC requires derating circuits with continuous loads to 80% of their breaker value, so a 15A circuit can only provide 12A on a continuous basis (which by NEC definition is more than 3 hours).
If Tesla takes more than 12A for more than 3 hours, then by law it cannot be charged from a standard home wall socket, which is a 14AWG branch circuit rated for 15A at the breaker.
If Tesla overlooked this requirement and put a 15A plug on their charging cable, then they are liable for any damage caused by their improper
A Whole Nother Bunch Of Points (Score:2)
This made news more quickly than Ford truck fires. (Score:2)
If it's Tesla, it's news.
Those who followed the MANY years of Ford ignition system and later cruise control switch fires might notice a double standard.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/automobiles/27FORD.html?_r=0&gwh=376B79D2A392CB21E4879B859797FE30&gwt=pay [nytimes.com]
"Fordâ(TM)s response to the fires â" first refusing to acknowledge that the switches posed a fire hazard, then conducting four recalls over seven years â" angered fire victims and consumer advocates. It does not hurt their cases t
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