As I understand it, this is a publication that insurance companies rely on to set their rates and is normally quite accurate and reliable, however they missed the mark this time and need to have the record set straight. Obviously resorting to name calling isn't going to get the job done.
It will take a bit of research, but I know insurance companies are most concerned about what they will be paying out. And personal injury in car accidents is probably a bigger amount than paying for car damage, at least in the US it is, but the US has a very weird health care system compared to the rest of the world. How about lay out a counter case pointing out the statistics? The percentage of Teslas on the road is much smaller than the number of ICE cars, so everything needs to be laid out in proportion, but I think a case can be made.
First off car fires. The Model S was introduced in 2012 and went into mass production in 2013. They have produced about 120,000 cars in the last 3 years. I believe there have been about 300 million cars and light trucks produced during that same period. If my numbers are correct (they may not be), Teslas are about 0.04% of cars on the road worldwide. In that time, there have been 3 Tesla fires. All three were events that would have caused severe damage to ICE cars if not started a fire with them too. The driver of one car died of his injuries (from the stolen Tesla), but he didn't die from the fire which was minor. How many ICE cars have caught fire worldwide in that 3 years span? According to a quick Google search, the average number of car fires a year in the US is 152,300 with 209 deaths and 764 injuries. Percentage-wise, that's way more than Tesla has had. Tesla has also had zero fires since introducing the shield.
Safety tests. The Model S broke the roof crush test rig, and scored the highest ever in passenger safety in various tests. There have been some horrific accidents with Model Ss and only two people died. One was the stolen Tesla in Los Angeles where the driver initially survived the car being ripped in half at 100 mph, but later died and the other was in a canyon north of Los Angeles where someone drove off the road and the car fell something like 500 feet straight down before hitting anything. I read the CHP didn't even call a tow truck to haul away the wreck, they called a dump truck. In most other Tesla accidents, the occupants were uninjured, or suffered much more minor injuries than people in other cars suffered in similar accidents.
Another point about car fires, yes lithium ion batteries are somewhat flammable, but Tesla has built the battery pack to minimize flammability and lithium ion batteries are not as flammable as gasoline.
Model Ss keep getting safer. Since introduction the Model S has had the battery shield has been introduced, autopilot hardware is installed on all cars and most have it activated. The fully functioning autopilot was introduced a couple of months ago and despite a few idiots on YouTube making dangerous videos, it does enhance safety. Autopilot is good enough that none of these idiots caused an accident making their videos. I could be wrong, but I don't believe there has been any accident related to Autopilot thus far. At least none that were widely reported in the media.
I'm sure there are more points to make, those are just what came to me while I sat here, but I think you wanted something in that vein?
