-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Fisker Fires
- Thread starter Robert.Boston
- Start date
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
As discussed in another thread, this has happen with ICE cars submerged in salt water also (an example is the Japanese tsunami). Salt water can easily short out components and cause a fire.
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...r-Fires/page14?p=206981&viewfull=1#post206981
From the LA Times today: Fisker and Toyota feel the wrath of super storm Sandy - latimes.com
"Grab any electrical engineer off the street and they'll tell you salt water conducts electricity. So when super storm Sandy pushed seawater into parking lots at New Jersey's Port of Newark, significant damage to recently imported vehicles was inevitable.
Fisker and Toyota learned this first-hand...
The damage from super storm Sandy wasn't limited to Fisker. Toyota says some 4,000 vehicles the company had on lots at the Port of Newark were damaged by the storm. 2,128 of these were hybrids.
Cindy Knight, a spokeswoman for Toyota, said some of the vehicles damaged by the seawater did start smoldering, and three hybrids, two plug-in Prius models and one conventional Prius did catch on fire. No one was injured in these incidents."
So there you have it. This wasn't a Fisker Karma-specific issue.
"Grab any electrical engineer off the street and they'll tell you salt water conducts electricity. So when super storm Sandy pushed seawater into parking lots at New Jersey's Port of Newark, significant damage to recently imported vehicles was inevitable.
Fisker and Toyota learned this first-hand...
The damage from super storm Sandy wasn't limited to Fisker. Toyota says some 4,000 vehicles the company had on lots at the Port of Newark were damaged by the storm. 2,128 of these were hybrids.
Cindy Knight, a spokeswoman for Toyota, said some of the vehicles damaged by the seawater did start smoldering, and three hybrids, two plug-in Prius models and one conventional Prius did catch on fire. No one was injured in these incidents."
So there you have it. This wasn't a Fisker Karma-specific issue.
Even without the fire damage, those cars are probably toast. Dunking a car in salt water would do horrendous things to it.
Fun story from 2008 about 4000+ cars that were water damaged.
High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace
Spoiler alert: They were recovered but they were all scrapped.
High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace
Spoiler alert: They were recovered but they were all scrapped.
Matthew049
Member
^ 4,000 toyotas damaged doesnt mean ANY of them caught on fire.
so 3 toyotas out of thousands caught on fire and a few "started smoldering".
but 16 karmas burned completely out of 20 or so???
sounds like it was mostly specific to the karma
so 3 toyotas out of thousands caught on fire and a few "started smoldering".
but 16 karmas burned completely out of 20 or so???
sounds like it was mostly specific to the karma
Zzzz...
Member
??? 16 karmas burned dose not mean all caught fire by themselves - it do look like one karma caught fire, and rest were just parked too close.
And yes, multiple toyotas started smoldering and 3 caught on fire.
WHERE YOU GOT 20 OF KARMAS? Could you confirm that there was only that many and provide source of your info? From jalopnik pictures it looked like there were a lot of Karmas there. But were you got 20 from???
Not sure where you got "20" from (given your tone, sounds like maybe you are one of the Jalopnik sensationalists), because in some of the photos it looks like there were dozens of other Karmas in the background and to the side. Also, the point remains - if this 'fire issue' was unique to the Karma, then none of the Toyotas would have caught on fire, right? Furthermore, interesting that the Toyotas that caught on fire and smoldered were hybrids.
Not sure what you mean by that. Fact is Fisker did not have 4,000 Karmas at Newark - in fact, the sum total of all Karmas in existence is well below 4,000, so Fisker won't benefit from a huge denominator when calculating the storm fire rate. What is most likely in this event is that one Karma caught fire and it spread to nearby cars.
Matthew049
Member
i said 20 or so. it was a guesstimate from looking at the pic. i should've clarified that. ok, 30 karmas?
"it looks like one caught on fire and the rest were parked too close"?????????????????????
uh yeah, can you confirm your source on that one that that's exactly what happened????
or maybe 16 caught on fire by themselves.
- - - Updated - - -
im not a jalopnik sensationalist, or maybe i am. i actually have no idea what you even mean by that. i didnt see dozens of other karmas in the pics that i saw. just a few nearby.
i said mostly specific to the karma since a large % of their cars (possibly most of them) caught fire. dont you think the dealership parks all their cars about the same distance from each other??? they're going to park $100,000 cars closer to each other than they park their toyotas?? saying that one karma caught on fire and that caused the rest to burn sounds like a HUGE stretch to me.
If you look at the pictures closely. I'd say it's very likely that there was one or two that caught fire and the rest were collateral damage. That could simply mean that the materials that the Karma is made of is more flammable. Composite is probably a lot more flammable than steel or aluminum.
I'm not a fire investigator though.
Matthew049
Member
the point i was making was that if one caught fire and then started the rest on fire, then why didnt that happen to the toyotas? they had thousands of cars parked an inch away from each other. the karmas were parked closer together than the toyotas? and it's still just as likely that all karmas caught fire on their own. there's nothing to suggest it didnt happen that way.
Karmas are definitely more flammable. All expensive cars using carbon fiber and the like are more flammable than cheaper cars. (Just look at Wrecked Exotics - there's almost nothing left of exotic cars that catch fire.)
I would say that looking at the pictures, if each fire started individually - why are all the burnt-out Karmas bunched together? Why wouldn't it be a random pattern of burnt-out Karmas?
I would have no problem putting ten thousand dollars on there being less than 16 sources of ignition. But the question is really, just how many sources of ignition were there? One, two, three? More? That requires a detailed investigation.
Since you lean toward the side of making hyperbolic conclusions without bothering to look for data or evidence, let me help you out.
In the first photo, it is clear that there is at least three distinct rows of Karmas behind the burnt out sections, if not four and possibly five (judging from alternating rooflines). It looks as though the 16 Karmas that were fire damaged were in the front two rows, meaning 7-8 cars per row, plus the 1 -2 unscathed ones in the first and second row (see second photo). Based on this, I would venture a guess that there were five to seven rows of Karmas, about 10 cars deep, for a total of 50-70 cars.
Similar threads
- Article
