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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

I really don't care about "it would be worse if it were a gasoline powered vehicle". That statement is simply trying to redirect attention. Leave statements like that out of the problem diagnoses and simply concentrate on what went right.

Otherwise it looks like making excuses and that is bad.

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To some extent the comparison needed to be made based on the media reports calling into question the overall safety of EVs based on this incident. The closest equivalent for conventional vehicles is a gas fire so pointing out the (apparent) greater danger makes sense here.

I think it's pretty relevant. The car was in a bad accident that no car would survive. Had this been a gasoline vehicle, the damage probably would have been much worse and there would have been a higher chance of the passengers getting caught in the fire.

Perfect safety is not attainable, and this is especially true when it comes to automobile travel, which is probably the most dangerous activity that most first-worlders engage in on a regular basis.

Much of that danger is inherent to the way the system works and the current level of technology and the costs people are willing to pay. A single car maker will never be able to get anywhere remotely close to airliner levels of safety.

That means that Tesla's products will be used in dangerous circumstances, and Tesla customers will die while using their product.

For a normal car company, this would not be a problem, because the public accepts the current risks of automobile travel. The problem is that Tesla is Different and gets far more scrutiny.

Tesla needs to convince people to accept the risks inherent in using their products. Pointing out that people accept the even greater risks inherent in using their competitors' products is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

It wouldn't have been mentioned if it wasn't already the main discussion going on about the video. News outlets love to jump on that kind of controversy, and I saw that comparison as them trying to quell the argument.

Redirect from what? The fact that motor vehicles are incredibly unsafe compared to other means of mass transport (trains, planes)?

Fact is, there are thousands of people who die every year in motor vehicle accidents. Gas tank leaks and fires are a nonzero portion of those accidents.

A battery fire, especially one where the driver walked away unharmed, is only news because it's the first one for Tesla. How is putting things in perspective to be construed as redirection or deflection?

In the meanwhile, Car companies are notorious for denying anything's wrong: http://www.southcarolinalawyerblog.com/2013/06/chrysler_refu...

How is saying that it would be worse with a gas vehicle an excuse? The point seems very relevant, since the primary differentiator of Tesla cars is that they are electric.

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