Tesla Model S Catches Fire While in Motion – Not Caused by Crash | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Model S Catches Fire While in Motion – Not Caused by Crash

insideevs.com

22 pointsbspn10 comments

Gas cars catch fire out of the blue on occasion as well, In fact there were 152,000 car fires per year in the period 2006-2010. Only 4% of those were collision-related[1].

Not saying this shouldn’t be investigated, but nobody was injured, and this now makes ONE non-crash Tesla battery fire that I’m aware of.

[1] https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/By-topic/Property-type...

This one is particularly painful for Tesla as the owner’s wife is a minor celebrity with major celebrity friends.

Reputational damage risk in this case could be significantly magnified due to Chelsea Handler’s recent tweet to 8.8 million followers:

“Everyone with an early model Tesla needs to be aware of this. I have one that I will not be driving again. @Tesla @elonmusk”

Ouch!

Wasn't a previous Tesla fire caused by a bit of metal debris on the road puncturing the batteries, a la the Concorde crash?

That wouldn't be a crash per se, but neither is it spontaneous combustion. It's just the kind of not-too-unusual damage which should probably be better planned for.

A trailer hitch, that was levered into the battery pack. Tesla mitigates that failure scenario (at least on the Model S) with a titanium shield across the entire battery pack, with a metal assembly near the front of the vehicle to break an object apart that exceeds the clearance of the undercarriage.

Normally the car notifies the driver that there's a battery problem, and that they should pull over and exit the car.

This isn't unexpected to happen occasionally, as long as it is rare. Nothing is failure proof and the failure mode for a big battery is many times fire. This is like reporting on somebodies car throwing a rod while on the road or another fire.

Elon Musk: this is definitely no the fault of autopilot.

This isn't news. Do we need to blow every little thing happening to Tesla out of proportion? Not to mention, the inside cabin doesn't even look affected.

From what I have read, it looks like speculators who have shorted Tesla stock are going to loose a couple of billion dollars in the coming months, and so they have been seeding the press with negative stories and op-ed pieces to try to get the stock price down.

I’m admittedly in the “2nd rat(meaning not Tesla) gets the cheese” camp.

So I may be quite biased.

But I think if THIS particular story that involves a celebrity with major reach(8.8 million social) is “seeded” then THAT would be a MAJOR story and SEC investigation and DOJ prosecution.

I definitely get your point that Tesla shorts are biased heavily towards bad news stories.

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