2021 Model S Plaid/LR Fire

[Barklikeadog]

Clearly the car wouldn’t roll uphill, but I am curious if it would roll downhill on a 3% grade. I assume the high voltage pack will disconnect from the car as soon as the car senses the fire. Will the 12v stay connected, at least until individual wires burn and short the individual breakers? What breaker(s) is needed to engage the brake when the doors open? When the seatbelt is detached? If different than the brake, what breaker is needed to engage the parking brake? And will the parking brake stay engaged with the breaker tripped? With the wires burned through?


Agreed.

What are the options?
Manufacture error
Part defect, battery or other
Software error
Damage at manufacture or transit
Damage from road
Other?? Combination?

 

[Darmie]

Maybe automatic going to park requires that the battery is not on fire?

Good one...

Blah, there's not going to be much to see, drove by at night and it seems they paved over the area.

and by the way... uphill.

Was the road that bad? Did it need paving? What are they covering up? Humm.

 

[Barklikeadog]

I dunno, they obviously felt a need to pave over the area quickly. ICE fires probably scorch the road too. The heat was incredibly intense, there are bushes on the other side of the road, 15ft away, that were burnt. Maybe metal and plastic parts were melting into the surface. Lot of people walk that road, can't leave it f'd up

Good one...

Was the road that bad? Did it need paving? What are they covering up? Humm.

 

[Krash]

What are the options?
Manufacture error
Part defect, battery or other
Software error
Damage at manufacture or transit
Damage from road
Other?? Combination?

Options for causing a fire? I think physical damage is high on the list. As someone mentioned we don't know if the car has something like the retrofit titanium shield that was added in March of 2014, but now built in, or steel like the 3/Y. I assume the old X has that titanium shield. So road damage or somewhere else including during manufacture.

I think thermal runaway (uncontrollable exothermic reaction) would be second place. Maybe caused by a manufacturing defect.

Do we know of any other historical fire causes?

 

[MikeyC]

Could be anything mentioned but I'd probably put my chips on damage to the battery pack. Even something like a tumbling screwdriver could, in a fluke, puncture the pack without much more than a little thump that most people would dismiss. If the battery wasn't somehow damaged, it'd almost have to be a manufacturing or part defect because after damage or defect, what are we left with? Sabotage? Even then, technically that'd be considered "damage".

Mike

 

[henderrj]

Yikes. OK, I didn't see that statement. So we have to assume there was power to at least one of the three motors. Guess we have to consider under what circumstances the motor(s) can be commanded to supply forward power. Seems unlikely some sort of short or burned wire could cause that because I believe all the throttle commands are sent (encrypted) to the motor controllers which are inside the motor casing. So I guess we have to assume the car's brain commanded it to move forward for some reason. When the driver got out, it should have put it in park. Even if it didn't and was somehow still in D, it would still require non-zero throttle to move forward and the throttle has two position sensors for confirmation. Other than "butt dialing" summon, I don't see how it could happen unless it's some sort of glitch. Not sure if heat thrown right on a motor casing could cause the controller board to supply slight power to a motor downstream of the encryption. Seems unlikely.

Mike

I think you may perhaps have not considered the source. Let's see, when is it you can tell lawyers are lying? I don't think we can be sure of that statement at all. I'll wait to get more detailed, and probably accurate, data later.

 

[Barklikeadog]

I think you may perhaps have not considered the source. Let's see, when is it you can tell lawyers are lying? I don't think we can be sure of that statement at all. I'll wait to get more detailed, and probably accurate, data later.

what are your impressions of the visual data? Something serious happened on that road, and the car moved forward, uphill, and then melted down.

 

[JimmyMS]

So you don't get a "Hold, Creep, Roll" selection at all and it only uses Hold?
I wonder it that's going to be restored in a future version of the software, or if it's incompatible with the auto-select of Drive/Reverse?
Even my old P85DL has Creep on and off (ie, Roll) modes. I don't use Creep as I prefer a free-rolling car (similar to a manual with the clutch pedal pressed) and not using Creep saves slightly more energy.

Nope, regen mode is not selectable at all on the Plaid. And it just operates in high regen mode with hold. From what I understand Tesla started rolling out vehicles with high regen only around October 2020. But thats definitely the way it is on my Plaid.. FYIW I love the way it drives with high regen and wouldn’t change it even if I could.

 

[henderrj]

what are your impressions of the visual data? Something serious happened on that road, and the car moved forward, uphill, and then melted down.

For certain something serious happened. I just don't think I'm going to trust a celebrity lawyer!

 

[Barklikeadog]

For certain something serious happened. I just don't think I'm going to trust a celebrity lawyer!

Do you trust photos?

 

[BrandonLive]

Do you trust photos?

Photos of the scene after the fact, while appreciated, don’t really do a lot to answer these questions.

 

[Barklikeadog]

Photos of the scene after the fact, while appreciated, don’t really do a lot to answer these questions.

Kevin Bacon was not in Footloose

 

[croman]

Unlikely verging on impossible. An ICE in neutral, sure. A Tesla? Not impossible but getting there.

I've seen no actual evidence that the car did indeed roll after the occupant exited. I don't buy it otherwise.

I do think the pack obviously conflagrated and I'd like to know why since I'm looking at getting a X LR but this smells fishy and will be until the fantastic can become plausible.

 

[BrandonLive]

Kevin Bacon was not in Footloose

Some weird attempt at gaslighting you have going on.

 

[Barklikeadog]

Some weird attempt at gaslighting you have going on.

Hardly. I feel that someone could post a video of the entire incident and you would say: probably fake!

 

[T-Racer]

The various possible causes have been articulated on this thread very well. I wanted to dig deeper into the possibility of a design flaw or manufacturing issue. That would be of most concern from an investor or consumer perspective because it would repeat with regularity. Given we're at the very early stages of launch, this is a real concern to start with.

At the time the fire occurred, there was a universe of about 1,700 total refreshed Model S cars delivered, with most of them in delivered in the immediately preceding week. I've modeled an estimate of the delivery ramp and it shows that in the next couple of days we will be at the point of 3x the total number of miles driven in the new refreshed MS than there were at the time of the fire. That is to say if there was one fire then, there should be two more by the end of the next couple of days, if the statistics hold. By the end of July, there will be around 10x the number of miles driven as of the time of the fire. If we don't see a repeat of this fire by then, it would be statistically almost impossible to be a design flaw and not have had it repeated.

Any thoughts on this? Personally, seeing this makes me feel better as an investor and as someone awaiting delivery of my MS LR. I've been quite concerned about this and will feel much better if there is no news by the end of the weekend!

 

[Barklikeadog]

The various possible causes have been articulated on this thread very well. I wanted to dig deeper into the possibility of a design flaw or manufacturing issue. That would be of most concern from an investor or consumer perspective because it would repeat with regularity. Given we're at the very early stages of launch, this is a real concern to start with.

At the time the fire occurred, there was a universe of about 1,700 total refreshed Model S cars delivered, with most of them in delivered in the immediately preceding week. I've modeled an estimate of the delivery ramp and it shows that in the next couple of days we will be at the point of 3x the total number of miles driven in the new refreshed MS than there were at the time of the fire. That is to say if there was one fire then, there should be two more by the end of the next couple of days, if the statistics hold. By the end of July, there will be around 10x the number of miles driven as of the time of the fire. If we don't see a repeat of this fire by then, it would be statistically almost impossible to be a design flaw and not have had it repeated.

Any thoughts on this? Personally, seeing this makes me feel better as an investor and as someone awaiting delivery of my MS LR. I've been quite concerned about this and will feel much better if there is no news by the end of the weekend!

Weren't there a couple spontaneous fires in the past that had no explanation and Tesla went as far as saying they were unfortunate rare events?
basically admitting the fact that 1 in x number of million cars will have an undetected defect and catch fire....
Which is reality, but automakers don't brag: Hey, only 1 in 20 million of our cars catches fire spontaneously!

Either the guy damaged his car, or there was an undetected defect. The rolling forward part is... whatever. How could they possibly test/predict that 1 in a billion scenario?

 

[T-Racer]

Weren't there a couple spontaneous fires in the past that had no explanation and Tesla went as far as saying they were unfortunate rare events?
basically admitting the fact that 1 in x number of million cars will have an undetected defect and catch fire....
Which is reality, but automakers don't brag: Hey, only 1 in 20 million of our cars catches fire spontaneously!

Either the guy damaged his car, or there was an undetected defect. The rolling forward part is... whatever. How could they possibly test/predict that 1 in a billion scenario?

I don't think any of us are too concerned about the 1 in 20 million. But if this was a design flaw or systemic manufacturing defect and it showed in the first few days with less than 2,000 cars on the road, that would imply a car would burn every 700K miles... most of us would burn our car in our lifetimes. So being able to rule this out as the likely case is important. I feel like if nothing happens in the next few days we're getting to that point. We should have seen another 2 fires by now statistically.

That takes me to your point of the forensic investigation of what really went on. Was it some type of accident or sabotage? Software defect that may have already been resolved? If my MS LR shows up tomorrow I'm going to make sure everyone knows where the emergency door releases are, but beyond that, I'll be delighted to drive it! In 2 weeks this should be a complete non-issue.

 

[BrandonLive]

Hardly. I feel that someone could post a video of the entire incident and you would say: probably fake!

Again with the bizarre gaslighting. You’ve got some weird issues. No idea what you’re trying to do here but it makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[BrandonLive]

The various possible causes have been articulated on this thread very well. I wanted to dig deeper into the possibility of a design flaw or manufacturing issue. That would be of most concern from an investor or consumer perspective because it would repeat with regularity. Given we're at the very early stages of launch, this is a real concern to start with.

At the time the fire occurred, there was a universe of about 1,700 total refreshed Model S cars delivered, with most of them in delivered in the immediately preceding week. I've modeled an estimate of the delivery ramp and it shows that in the next couple of days we will be at the point of 3x the total number of miles driven in the new refreshed MS than there were at the time of the fire. That is to say if there was one fire then, there should be two more by the end of the next couple of days, if the statistics hold. By the end of July, there will be around 10x the number of miles driven as of the time of the fire. If we don't see a repeat of this fire by then, it would be statistically almost impossible to be a design flaw and not have had it repeated.

Any thoughts on this? Personally, seeing this makes me feel better as an investor and as someone awaiting delivery of my MS LR. I've been quite concerned about this and will feel much better if there is no news by the end of the weekend!

Well, your estimate might have some merit in the case that it is a design flaw (which could potentially be Plaid-specific, or common to all refreshed S models). Another possibility is that the specific car / pack was defective, e.g. due to a manufacturing issue that only affects a small % of vehicles. Potentially it could have been a one-off, or an extremely rare occurrence. Or it could have been a 1 in 100 thing but they tracked down the issue and have addressed it. Or they have no idea.

Or as others have said it could have been caused by damage. Hypothetically that could even be damage that occurred in transit before delivery, or of course due to an accident, running something over, etc.

At this point there are many possible explanations, we just don’t know.