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Comment by zaroth | Hacker News Reader

> ...the guy died from the burns from the inferno, not from the actual impact of the crash.

Incorrect.

“Witnesses were able to extract the driver before the flames posed any threat to him.“

Here is VIDEO of the Tesla immediately after the crash, taken by one of the guys who helped pull the driver out of the car:

https://youtu.be/RlQTeF45aIE

The battery is only just starting to ignite at this point after suffering catastrophic damage. (You can see individual cells torn apart). I would say this is significantly safer than a dozen gallons of gas which surely would have exploded in the same scenario.

What IS true is that the aftermath is harder to cleanup because the damaged cells can pose a threat for reigniting.

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The fuel tank is usually located at the back not the front & generally survives intact in a frontal collision & there are shut-off valves in the fuel lines to the engine so that fuel doesn't leak everywhere in an accident. The system isn't perfect, but I suspect that in this particular incident had the vehicle been a modern petrol fuelled one there would have been no fuel leak.

Look at the Tesla in that video - the rear of the car is pretty much intact.

isn't it easier in this case to pour gasoline over the whole car, ignite it, wait for it to burn out, and then move it?

At least then you know everything burnable is already burnt, so it's not going to reignite.

Gasoline under normal conditions doesn’t explode, it burns. I’m not denying that a fire was the likely outcome in either case, but neither gasoline nor batteries detonate, they deflagrate. Gasoline in particular, despite what Hollywood would have you believe, isn’t like nitroglycerin.

Thanks for the correction!

Actually I'd sooner blame video games, which often assert that a single bullet to the gas tank door will cause an instant car-flipping fireball.

That’s not video games; that’s Hollywood

I sincerely can't remember the last time I saw a hollywood movie where a single bullet could cause a car to fireball.

It depends hugely on the conditions. Fuel tanks (car or otherwise) containing petrol are most dangerous when nearly empty, and even then the air/fuel ratio needs to be exactly right. If it is, though, it's possible to get your movie-style explosion... just not very likely.

The Las Vegas shooter hit the airport's avgas containers and nothing happened.

Also IIRC Mythbusters did an episode on this.

Well unless the front of the vehicle simply evaporated I don't see how what I said is incorrect.

You can clearly see at 30s the outline of the inferno on the tire. It completely incinerated all the shreds of car were destroyed from the crash.

Even at the beginning of the video, where it shows where the front of the vehicle should've been, it too is barely there because it was incinerated but the batteries.

It takes first responders hours to deal with, sounds like Tesla has traded gasoline for a much more lethal battery. Once again, cost externalization.

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