Model S Accident/Fire

[BriansTesla]

@palmer_md

Safety comes first of all. IMO the solution should be retrofitted to all existing Model S for free. I am not a lawyer and I am not speaking from a legal point of view, but according to the common sense the same standards of safety should be guaranteed on all existing Model S.

This makes no sense. If the car in question had a fuel tank and the tank was ruptured by piece of road debris, should a manufacturer be required to build a shield under the fuel tank? They don't have them and think that answers the question.

 

[efusco]

Exactly--so quit speculating.

dude, if the speculation is getting your panties in a wad, stay out of the thread...what did you think it would be? This is entirely normal human behavior. Most of us enjoy it, gives us something to think and talk about. If it's not your thing just don't pay attention to the thread.

 

[brianman]

Excuse me Jerry. What's an Omega 13 device?

Galaxy Quest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Omega 13 ... while some people believe it was a bomb capable of destroying all matter in the universe in 13 seconds, ... others believe it is a time machine that sends its user 13 seconds into the past ("enough time to redeem a single mistake" ...).

 

[Spaniard]

So the video is very helpful in that it appears that:

1. The police have yet to arrive on the scene. I find that strange as the closest fire station is 3.1 miles away and would expect that the driver called 911. In the video you get a glimpse of the drivers side mirror and there are no flashing lights from a police car.
2. There is no ambulance on site. Also strange for an auto accident.
3. Where is the driver? You'd think the driver would be by a vehicle
4. Also, notice how far away the cars are up on the off-ramp. Who/what is stopping them from driving down? You'd think there would be a policeman there, but maybe the firemen stopped the cars.
5. The windows of the S are fogged up which indicates there is still moisture in the air inside the cabin indicating that the cabin is still in tact (all windows are sealed and no other intrusions)
6. The car looks like it came to a rest as opposed to stopping at the intersection. The final spot of the car does NOT look intentional or ideal.
7. The handles are not extended which leads me to believe that the car might not have been put in Park or the 12V was still in tact for a few minutes after the driver got out and closed the door
8. The intensity of the fire would indicate combustible liquid being the accelerate which could be the 12V, however, the fire is evenly spread and is also going underneath the car (under the front doors)
9. The suspension looks way low and might be the result of the air suspension loosing power and could indicate 12V loss but not as a cause, more of an effect

Ok, that's all I got...

I also find interesting that the person recording this said at the beginning of the video that it was a "new car", but there was no way to see any of the car from his angle and the flames covered the front, until later when he moved forward and said it was a Tesla.

 

[dirkhh]

Today, people I ran into--oh I hear those cars catch fire, text messages from friends asking of my car is on fire, etc. What a joke.

Same here. Got at least a dozen question if I was sure that my car wasn't on fire... Lovely.

 

[jomo25]

If it's needed (I said if) then a reinforcement could be added to the area that got breached. If it was a forward facing exposed section of the pack, then reinforce it with another plate. Like 'paint armor' for the pack. Like GM did fortune Volt in the supposed 'weak' spot breached when they did the crash test. Probably a low cost mod so even if not really needed, can still be done to instill trust and be able to say they are doing it in an abundance of caution. Again, like GM did for the Volt.

 

[jerry33]

Excuse me Jerry. What's an Omega 13 device?

It's a movie reference to Galaxy Quest.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

@brianman

Nice. Unluckily the speed of light cannot be overtaken and we cannot travel back in time.

 

[doug]

It is unclear to me what you are really arguing here regarding the definition.

Yes, can we please stop the semantic arguments. They're not really adding anything to the conversation.

Conversation with a friend at work:
...

The car told him to pull over and get out? That's.... awesome.

When telling a friend about this event, that was the part that he focused on as cool as well. He also figured there might be fire danger with most any car if you drive over something that causes damage. Not sure the general public is as open minded.

Further, since the pack takes up such a large amount of under car area it may indeed need better protection from a similar event, maybe more so near the front of the pack. The pack is a large target for road debris.

It is something to think about. Would be helpful if we had some actual statistics on how common is it to drive over potentially damaging road debris. It could even be part of standard safety tests. Driving over road debris seems more likely than say a rollover event. Yet we test for the latter (roof crush test) and not the former.

From the data we do have, though, the Model S is an extremely safe car.

 

[brianman]

I also find interesting that the person recording this said at the beginning of the video that it was a "new car", but there was no way to see any of the car from his angle and the flames covered the front, until later when he moved forward and said it was a Tesla.

I had a response to this earlier in (originally) another thread but I can't seem to find it with search engines.

 

[texex91]

dude, if the speculation is getting your panties in a wad, stay out of the thread...what did you think it would be? This is entirely normal human behavior. Most of us enjoy it, gives us something to think and talk about. If it's not your thing just don't pay attention to the thread.

Okay 'dude'.

Speculation is just feeding the media bias--but continue on no skin off my back 'dude'.

 

[Krugerrand]

And where did I say the skidplate to protect the battery had to be on the bottom?

I guess this is when I post the definition of skid plate: A skid plate is an abrasion-resistant material affixed to the underside of a vehicle or boat to prevent damage to the underside when contact is made with the ground (or a mysterious metal object in the middle of an HOV lane that some poor, unsuspecting Model S owner runs over).

 

[dirkhh]

It is something to think about. Would be helpful if we had some actual statistics on how common is it to drive over potentially damaging road debris. It could even be part of standard safety tests. Driving over road debris seems more likely than say a rollover event. Yet we test for the latter (roof crush test) and not the former.

From the data we do have, though, the Model S is an extremely safe car.

Totally agree.
The issue is, I think, that the type of debris that you'd have to drive over is not really understood. Given that we have a few million miles on our combined Tesla Model S at this point and this is the first such incident makes me think that it takes some pretty rare circumstances to make this happen - so it's really hard to test for...

 

[dsm363]

mod note: Let's have a little time out here. People speculate on the internet with some doing a better and more informed job than others but there is no reason to resort to snippiness. We've learned a lot here and demonstrated how safe the Model S appears to be even in a close to worst case event to the battery pack so some perspective is good. It is a very safe car.

 

[dirkhh]

mod note: Let's have a little time out here. People speculate on the internet with some doing a better and more informed job than others but there is no reason to resort to snippiness. We've learned a lot here and demonstrated how safe the Model S appears to be even in a close to worst case event to the battery pack so some perspective is good. It is a very safe car.

Hehe... good luck to the moderators trying to sort this thread and its 556 posts into "useful" and "pointless speculation" (and I guess into "off topic" and "meta comments" like this one)

 

[blakegallagher]

I think the last two days of free fall in the stock has a lot of TSLA longs on edge. ....Here's to hoping this will fade away like the GS upgrade did.

 

[doug]

 

[scaesare]

Why do people keep talking about the bottom part of the battery casing?! It was NOT penetrated, breached, ripped open, fill in your word of choice. The fire department's report, which has been linked in this thread, clearly stated that they could NOT get to the battery to extinguish the fire via the bottom of the car. They jacked it, they looked and found it (the bottom battery plate) INTACT.

The damage by the mysterious metal object was to the FRONT of the battery casing, NOT the bottom. Can we at least get that part of the story right?

Specifically the report says:

Thus, while the emergency responders opted to cut a hole in the frontal section of the car in order to apply water to the section of the pack that continued to burn, the report does not say where the penetration occurred.

A piece of metal need only make a small (think dime-sized) penetration in to the pack in order to do enough serious damage to start the fire.... yet that would allow for very little ability to inject water in to the pack. Furthermore, by the time the responders arrived, the fire could have spread to an area of the pack not near the initial casing breach. This may be the front "tall nose" portion of the pack... although the initial penetration could have been in the bottom, by the time the fire was burning, cells in the top of that section could very well have been ignited, necessitating cutting hole in the front/top section in order to apply water.

Or, the initial breach could indeed have been in the "un-armored" front section of that portion of the pack as you suggest. But the point is that the report doesn't say specifically, and the choice of applying water there doesn't provide absolute evidence for your assertion that:

It was NOT penetrated, breached, ripped open, fill in your word of choice.

We just don't know yet.

 

[DonPedro]

I don't agree. IMO the Model S shouldn't have gone to fire for having hit a piece of metal.

It was a large metal object that hit a very vulnerable spot. What do you think would have happened if it hit the gas tank of an ICE car. My prediction: Dead driver. I am happy to be getting a Tesla, which will keep me alive in such a case.

 

[Discoducky]

I also find interesting that the person recording this said at the beginning of the video that it was a "new car", but there was no way to see any of the car from his angle and the flames covered the front, until later when he moved forward and said it was a Tesla.

Good find! I missed that. He says that when all you can see are flames and his car hasn't started moving yet to expose the profile of the car. He has no way of knowing that it is quote a "brand new car".

This bit of data suggests that this is a hoax. How else would the cameraman know it is a "brand new car"?