mattjs33
Member
As you can see in this post: PEM-motor-gets-too-hot-fans-failed?p=137310, Tesla used off the shelf cooling fans in Roadster.
Here's a post with the spec sheets:PEM-motor-gets-too-hot-fans-failed?p=138758
If you're thinking Tesla is building its own electric fans for Model S you're almost certainly wrong. At most, Tesla specifies a unique size, power, configuration, etc., but there's another company building it. Just like Tesla isn't doing the chrome plating for the door handles. Just like Tesla isn't sewing the seat coverings and doesn't have a pasture out back raising the cows for the leather seats. At this point in time, there isn't anything Tesla could do to make electric fans better than anyone else.
So, having specified and tested some samples of fans, Fisker and Tesla, and probably every other company in the world, is then content to simply order them, unbox, and install. Fisker/Tesla probably pull one out of each batch at random and test it to be sure it's meeting specs, and it if were considered critical they'd test random samples in various failure modes. But, they obviously can't test each fan to failure because then they'd have nothing to actually install.
So at least one other person here understands how cars are built these days.
In 27 years in the auto parts business, I can't ever remember hearing of a case where a fan motor of any type failed in a manner that led to a fire. There's a similar motor on the blower of the HVAC system of everyone's house, and I can't ever remember hearing of a house fire that originated from failure of such a motor. And I don't even think I can blame the Karma's notoriously dense engine compartment, in relation to overheating of said motor. Many other cars have nearly as dense engine compartments (I'm thinking here of GM shorehorning that 5.3 V8 into the FWD Impala/Grand Prix), and operate without similar incident.
So my guess would be an error or fault in how the motor was wired, or insufficient gauge cable for the current being drawn through it to power the motor.