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
The US has nothing like MOT. Many areas require a yearly or every other year emissions test, but as long as the car isn't emitting too many pollutants, there are no other inspections. Here in Washington (and in many other states) emissions tests aren't even required if the car is over 25 years old. My old Buick only has one test left (it's passed all previous tests by a wide margin).
I was at the post office last week and there was an ancient 1970s Chevy Camaro in the parking lot. It barely had any paint left on it and looked like it was barely drivable. I parked about 1/2 a block away and as I was leaving the Camaro left and drove past me. It was so out of tune it was practically spewing raw gas. Half a whiff and I had to hold my breath until I was in my car. He stank up the neighborhood.
Fortunately there aren't too many old clunkers like that out there, but there are a number of older cars (usually better maintained) on the road around here, more than in snowier regions of the US where the fenders tend to fall off after 5 winters or so.
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There aren't any batteries either, not behind the rear wheels. That seemed to shoot out of the very rear of the vehicle, almost at a 45degree angle. I suppose a cell from the back of the pack could have shot out at that angle, but I'd think it would hit the drivetrain, or come out with more vertical trajectory. Plus I'd expect more than one cell to pop. Not sure we can conclude either way yet.
It looks to me like it originates around the rear wheels and we just see the sparks emerge from behind the post. It could be something in the drive unit or the equipment around the drive unit exploding.
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Humans are notoriously bad at risk assessment. How much more likely is the car to get totaled en route to the Supercharger than at the Supercharger? Then, how much more likely are you to be in the vehicle during the event en route to the Supercharger compared to being at the Supercharger? Next, how much more likely are you to be able to escape injury at each of those locations?
We don't know the cause of this fire, but obviously the risk is quite low, given the limited number of events. It's beyond premature to discuss what kind of changes we should make at this point.
I frequently quote this: "If it's in the news, don't worry about it." --Bruce Schneier (Virginia Tech)
The idea being that only somewhat rare events make the news. The real risks are buried in our everyday activities.
If every car accident was reported like every terrorist attack, most people would be terrified to leave their driveways.
There is a book called "Virus of the Mind" about how memes can cause us to do things we otherwise wouldn't do including of being scared of low probability events. He had an example of an archipelago of 50,000 islands with about 6000 people per island. In this archipelago, someone gets eaten by a shark off a given island about once every 100 years. It's a tragedy when it happens, but people mourn and get on with their lives because it's something that only happens once every 4 generations. Then a new 24 hour news network starts up, Island News Network and they are constantly looking for news. Statistically someone gets eaten by a shark in the entire archipelago once every couple of days (even though it's only once per 100 years for each island). INN starts reporting on each shark attack and islanders panic because they keep hearing about shark attacks. The incidence of them is completely unchanged, but people are now more aware of them and they get paranoid.
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Fun fact: (I forget my source on this) most fires of this sort are caused by women. When fueling, women are far more likely to sit back down in the car then men, who favor standing outside the car. Getting in the car isolates you from the ground, and you can build up a static charge. Not a sexist comment, just a curious behavior thing.
I almost always get back into the car (and I'm male), but when I get out, I touch the frame of the pump (away from the gas hose) to ground myself before touching the nozzle. It's just habit and I've done it for years.
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Not likely, the owner had bought the car used only two days before (30th desember). He also lent it out to someone else on this trip.
That sucks, have the car two days and it burns up. Do you know if it was a CPO or from a private party? Someone may have done some modification to it or something. I think all the CPO 60s have supercharging enabled, but if it was from a private party it may not have. I would think charging should fail gracefully if it wasn't enabled, but that may have been a factor.
