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hockeythug
Active Member
Correct me if I'm wrong. If I do the math, there are 258,200 vehicle fires every year! No wonder no one reports about that.
FredTMC
Model S VIN #4925
aesculus
Still Trying to Figure This All Out
What can really scare firefighters in these type of car fires is magnesium. Often new cars have lots of it and many wheels (oem or aftermarket) are made from magnesium. The car was history when they arrived and their main mission was to protect exposures and the safety of their crew. Nothing wrong with letting the car burn itself out.
Firefighter Training: Extinguishing Magnesium Fires | Firehouse
Firefighter Training: Extinguishing Magnesium Fires | Firehouse
I don't think this pop is in the battery pack itself. It could however be the high voltage DC lines from the supercharger being shorted. Or possibly the high voltage lines of the battery being shorted. The duration and intensity of the fire just isn't compatible with the battery burning.
The battery is separated into 16 modules, each contained in their own fire-resitant boxes. If the entire battery pack would burn, you would expect the fire to slowly move from module to module, taking hours to move through the pack. Instead, the fire was already subsiding by the time the fire department arrived, and with a little foam it died down pretty quick.
Maybe one or two modules at the back were involved, but I doubt even that.
164,000 in 2013.
Highway vehicle fires by year
Out of c. 256m cars. So 0.06% incidence rate.
Tesla has an even lower incidence rate. But take with a grain of salt. Tesla's are on average much newer, and as you can see from the stats, vehicle fires in general are on a decline.
The real reason it's reported is because having Tesla in a news article is click bait, so it's bound to get reported. But in some ways it's a case of live by the sword die by the sword, given Tesla's approach to viral and online only marketing.
FredTMC
Model S VIN #4925
I know nothing about car fire investigations. Wondering if fire experts are about to pinpoint the starting point using well established investigative techniques. Anyone with insight?
To expand on smac's response, it's also not fair to compare a Tesla fleet that's probably on average < 2 years old (since production ramped over time) with an ICE fleet that is quite a bit older (I'm afraid to hazard a guess at this). It would be nice to see how many fires occur in similar ICE vehicles.
I'm a believer that these fires are nothing to worry about, but don't want to skew statistics in our favor - I'd rather look at proper stats.
Well it's not good news of course but it remains to be seen how much of a negative impact it is going to have on the general car buying public. It's one possibly charging-related accident after over 3 years of S production and likely over hundreds of thousands of Supercharger sessions.
Perspective...
That's where the supercharger cabinets are placed. The shed is a transformer.
Well, I hope we now get new 130kW superchargers at this location now. If the site owner still wants EV charging stations there now. Maybe move the charging stalls well away from the entrance and the traffic, with 50% wider slots. And a roof, maybe?
FredTMC
Model S VIN #4925
Average age of a car in the US is 11.5 years. (Average Age of Light Vehicles in the U.S. Rises Slightly in 2015 to 11.5 years, IHS Reports | IHS Online Newsroom)
Of course to really compare like for like we would need the number of vehicle fires by year of manufacture. I doubt that info is even public.
Logically you would assume incidence rates increase with age, as rubber hoses perish, seals fail, maintenance and inspection becomes spotty, leaks develop, etc. etc.
But without stats to back it up, this is little more than semi-educated speculation, based on anecdotal evidence of old cars I've had in the past
Don't think so.
Is it bad taste to remind everyone that Tesla used to call this supercharger Cinderella, after the previous name of the restaurant...
disillusioned
Member
I don't know anything about the "temporary" SpCs but something tells me that may factor in...
Tesla needs to get in front of this with lots of information as soon as they have it, just like they did with the underbody pack fire. They don't want people even beginning to fear supercharging, or worse, charging at all.
Wow, that goose is cooked.
Tesla needs to get in front of this with lots of information as soon as they have it, just like they did with the underbody pack fire. They don't want people even beginning to fear supercharging, or worse, charging at all.
Wow, that goose is cooked.
