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Comment by jonathankoren | Hacker News Reader

In Hollywood crashes maybe, but in the real world auto fires are not common at all. As of 2018, there are 56 fires per billion miles driven. Furthermore, only 3% of all fatal automobile accidents involved fire.

https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-st...

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The first sentence in your article that you linked states that in one year in the US alone, 560 civilians burned to death in fires.

Wrangling statistics to try and suit your argument is one thing, but that's more than one person a day that's burning to death in a car.

Nearly as many die annually in bathtubs. As it stands the average person could drive about 400k years before dying in a fire.

It's not playing games with statistics to point out the effects of large numbers.

3% isn't that small.

What's the percent for teslas?

I'd say the stupid doors are a much bigger problem than the ability to catch fire.

Do Teslas/electric cars burn more frequently in severe crashes than ICE vehicles? Last time I looked, a few years back, the data showed that ICE vehicles burned quite a bit more frequently.

tesla’s are death traps. you can’t put out their fires with water. and since their doors aren’t mechanical you’re stuck inside once the battery dies. this fire took over 4 hours to put out with the fire department not knowing how to put it out

> and since their doors aren’t mechanical you’re stuck inside once the battery dies

Tesla's front doors have internal mechanical levers that can be used in the case of power loss.

This sounds like you just have a bone to pick with Tesla. Their doors can be opened when the battery dies.

Doors that dont open on a power failure sound super fucking unsafe. Looks like on the Model s they do open manually in front if you pull the handle back enough and in the back via a hidden release cable under the seat which sounds less than ideal. I'm not sure if this is the case with the other models.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01lXcD_Uz74 https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1234782/Tesla-S.html?page=...

The Model 3 has a manual emergency release in the armrest: it's one of the more awkward parts of the car, actually, because it's right where most people expect the door handle to be and the actual "door handle" is a button a little bit up.

since their doors aren’t mechanical you’re stuck inside once the battery dies

This is maliciously false. There's a manual door handle just like you'd find in every other car; to the point where people new to them almost always use it by accident instead of using the button.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-y-vs-model-3-differenc...

It's in an identical place on the other models. Please don't trot out hot takes like this on something you don't understand.

That is a really good question, tbh. I've seen comparisons that show the Tesla's burning less often, but those weren't specifically post crash. A lot of ICE cars come from fuel leaks, often after major repairs and without a collision.

I'm not aware of a direct comparison of post-crash fires. Anecodally, it seems the post-crash fires are rare with the 3 and Y and much less rare with the S/X.

The average age of a car in a fire is over ten years. Electric vehicles should be less common based on their relative youth.

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