Model X burns on the ice in Vermont on February 24, 2019

[CyberShy]

Well, stupid is as stupid does. The model X is an SUV, not not an off-road vehicle. This is the price they pay.

 

[dark cloud]

After reading that awesome link posted by @mongo I highly doubt it was a puncture to the battery by a rock, or anything else. Be sure to watch those videos above, but here is some preamble:

The first of the three shields is a rounded, hollow aluminum bar that is designed to either deflect objects entirely or, in the case of a self-stabilizing, ultra high strength object, like a three ball steel tow hitch, absorb the impact and force it to pike upwards well forward of the battery pack. This pierces the plastic aeroshield and front trunk liner, but causes no damage affecting safety and the car remains in control and driveable before, during and after the impact.

This is followed by a titanium plate, which has exceptional strength-to-weight properties and is more commonly seen in aerospace or military applications. The titanium plate prevents sensitive front underbody components from being damaged and aids in neutralizing the road debris.

By this point, the vast majority of objects will have been deflected or crushed. For the rare piece of debris that remains intact, we added a third shield, which is a shallow angle, solid aluminum extrusion that further absorbs impact energy, provides another layer of deflection and finally causes the Model S to ramp up and over the object if it is essentially incompressible and immovable.

It was probably caused by another guy cleaning his gun in the backseat.

 

[GreenMtnM3]

Dark Cloud, I agree that Tesla takes many, many precautions to protect the batteries. Reading your preamble, it seems like the engineers assume that any object you will hit will approach the battery from the front. This is logical, as most of the time when travelling at high speed, you are going forward. However, if you are zipping along sideways, as you may end up doing if having fun on the ice, you may strike an object from the side, or even backwards at high speed. So the first two safeguards you list would not come into play. I took the Tesla tour last month in Fremont, and they showed us Model X battery packs being built. They are RUGGED! So it does seem like it would take a pretty extreme impact to mechanically cause a short.

My wife speculated that they could have hit a boat mooring on the lake. Some of the mooring fields use Hazelett Spar buoys, Spar Buoys which are very heavy aluminum cylinders that float vertically. Owners are supposed to put a heavy steel ring on the top when decommissioning them for the season, this causes them to float low enough that they sit under the ice, just at the waters surface. If this is not done, they protrude from the ice a few inches, and are a well know hazard for iceboats and snowmobiles. I've never seen one sticking up more than 2-3", which wouldn't hit the bottom of an X, but the ice could conceivably work one up higher. If you hit one of these sideways at speed and it was sticking up high enough, I suspect it could do some really serious damage.

I like the accidental gun discharge in the back seat. While far fetched, is is technically the most reasonable theory I've heard yet!

 

[mongo]

Dark Cloud, I agree that Tesla takes many, many precautions to protect the batteries. Reading your preamble, it seems like the engineers assume that any object you will hit will approach the battery from the front. This is logical, as most of the time when travelling at high speed, you are going forward. However, if you are zipping along sideways, as you may end up doing if having fun on the ice, you may strike an object from the side, or even backwards at high speed. So the first two safeguards you list would not come into play. I took the Tesla tour last month in Fremont, and they showed us Model X battery packs being built. They are RUGGED! So it does seem like it would take a pretty extreme impact to mechanically cause a short.

My wife speculated that they could have hit a boat mooring on the lake. Some of the mooring fields use Hazelett Spar buoys, Spar Buoys which are very heavy aluminum cylinders that float vertically. Owners are supposed to put a heavy steel ring on the top when decommissioning them for the season, this causes them to float low enough that they sit under the ice, just at the waters surface. If this is not done, they protrude from the ice a few inches, and are a well know hazard for iceboats and snowmobiles. I've never seen one sticking up more than 2-3", which wouldn't hit the bottom of an X, but the ice could conceivably work one up higher. If you hit one of these sideways at speed and it was sticking up high enough, I suspect it could do some really serious damage.

I like the accidental gun discharge in the back seat. While far fetched, is is technically the most reasonable theory I've heard yet!

From the article linked in post #59:

The operator told police and firefighters that he'd been driving in South Burlington when he thought he hit a rock or big piece of ice on the road. The man stopped to check for damage and couldn't see anything, though he thought he smelled something "strange," according to Ouimet.

 

[Saghost]

After reading that awesome link posted by @mongo I highly doubt it was a puncture to the battery by a rock, or anything else. Be sure to watch those videos above, but here is some preamble:

The first of the three shields is a rounded, hollow aluminum bar that is designed to either deflect objects entirely or, in the case of a self-stabilizing, ultra high strength object, like a three ball steel tow hitch, absorb the impact and force it to pike upwards well forward of the battery pack. This pierces the plastic aeroshield and front trunk liner, but causes no damage affecting safety and the car remains in control and driveable before, during and after the impact.

This is followed by a titanium plate, which has exceptional strength-to-weight properties and is more commonly seen in aerospace or military applications. The titanium plate prevents sensitive front underbody components from being damaged and aids in neutralizing the road debris.

By this point, the vast majority of objects will have been deflected or crushed. For the rare piece of debris that remains intact, we added a third shield, which is a shallow angle, solid aluminum extrusion that further absorbs impact energy, provides another layer of deflection and finally causes the Model S to ramp up and over the object if it is essentially incompressible and immovable.

It was probably caused by another guy cleaning his gun in the backseat.

Tesla designed that system for road use, in response to an incident where one of the tow hitches was lying on the road and flipped up at the front of the pack on an S and embedded itself.

It's a remarkable, redundant system for use on a road or other flat plane. Offroading is something else entirely.

Because the car is bouncing up and down with the trail, the protection is much less effective, and it'd be easy to go over a rock and then have the car bounce down and smash the bottom of the pack into the rock.

The bottom is fairly sturdy, and I'm not sure how much deflection is needed to start damaging cells, but it seems like a realistic risk.

 

[ohmman]

Because the car is bouncing up and down with the trail, the protection is much less effective, and it'd be easy to go over a rock and then have the car bounce down and smash the bottom of the pack into the rock.

My wife came home a few weeks ago with news that she'd broken the garnish around the front wheel well from falling into a very deep pothole in a gravel parking lot. The first thing I did was pull the X back out of the garage and inspect underneath to make sure the pack wasn't damaged. I agree that this kind of bounce and smash is a risk. Using SAS to put the car on Extra High is a good precaution (and one my wife didn't take), and this is made more difficult by the fact that the X automatically goes into "Low" at speed due to axle shudder at strong acceleration.

 

[jgs]

and that coming from a science magazine

A "science magazine"? No, it was Popular Mechanics, which has been fish wrap for as long as I can remember.

 

[juicyinfo]

word on the street is the owner was losing his license prior to this happening

 

[GreenMtnM3]

The Model X was removed from the ice today. It was there when I left for work, and gone when I got home, so I have no idea what equipment they used to break it free or if it came out in one piece or had to be shoveled in little bits into a dumpster. Either way, I'm sure it was quite a process.

 

[GreenMtnM3]

Someone was out on the ice today and happened to video the recovery process:

Looks like a lot of hard, dirty work.

 

[iCharge]

Dark Cloud, I agree that Tesla takes many, many precautions to protect the batteries. Reading your preamble, it seems like the engineers assume that any object you will hit will approach the battery from the front. This is logical, as most of the time when travelling at high speed, you are going forward. However, if you are zipping along sideways, as you may end up doing if having fun on the ice, you may strike an object from the side, or even backwards at high speed. So the first two safeguards you list would not come into play. I took the Tesla tour last month in Fremont, and they showed us Model X battery packs being built. They are RUGGED! So it does seem like it would take a pretty extreme impact to mechanically cause a short.

My wife speculated that they could have hit a boat mooring on the lake. Some of the mooring fields use Hazelett Spar buoys, Spar Buoys which are very heavy aluminum cylinders that float vertically. Owners are supposed to put a heavy steel ring on the top when decommissioning them for the season, this causes them to float low enough that they sit under the ice, just at the waters surface. If this is not done, they protrude from the ice a few inches, and are a well know hazard for iceboats and snowmobiles. I've never seen one sticking up more than 2-3", which wouldn't hit the bottom of an X, but the ice could conceivably work one up higher. If you hit one of these sideways at speed and it was sticking up high enough, I suspect it could do some really serious damage.

I like the accidental gun discharge in the back seat. While far fetched, is is technically the most reasonable theory I've heard yet!

very nice explanation, look at the video above, they seem to be sticking out quite a bit

 

[iCharge]

word on the street is the owner was losing his license prior to this happening

"was losing his license ??"
driving license or ice fishing license ?

PS thanks for making an account to let us know

 

[GreenMtnM3]

very nice explanation, look at the video above, they seem to be sticking out quite a bit

I noticed the Hazelett moorings in his video. At least on of them was up 8-12". I plan to head out tomorrow to scout the mooring flield. If the Tesla hit one, I'm sure it took quite a beating as well.

 

[dark cloud]

My wife speculated that they could have hit a boat mooring on the lake. Some of the mooring fields use Hazelett Spar buoys, Spar Buoys which are very heavy aluminum cylinders that float vertically. .... If you hit one of these sideways at speed and it was sticking up high enough, I suspect it could do some really serious damage.

And we all agree that is beyond the "normal" usage of a motor vehicle. I have read a few insurance policies that exclude track use and "stunts". I think it is just as possible if it were an ICE doing donuts on the ice and hitting one of those buoys with the back end it might have blown up also. But if that were the case of course no-one would be talking about it.

 

[ToddRLockwood]

Chaserr asked if we saw the fire department respond, the answer is yes we did. We saw the fire at approximately 8:00, called 911 after determining it was something much bigger than a bonfire and the fire department arrived at the boat launch (2/3 of a mile away from the fire) at 8:15. According to what the firefighters told my sons, the FD knew before they arrived that the occupants were out of the vehicle. We did not provide this information to them in our call. Based on this, I'd say that the owner contacted 911 at roughly the same time we did, meaning that he or she did not wait long to call it in.

The circumstances that lead to an object piercing the battery pack are still unclear. On the road, or on the ice? I'm assuming that the owner is either upset that a seemingly routine impact destroyed their car, or he or she recognizes they did something stupid, and is understandably not eager to talk about it. If it is the former, they may be keeping a low profile so as not to jeopardize any agreement they come to with their insurance company and/or Tesla. Based on what's at stake, I'm not surprised that the details of the incident are not widely known. The fact that we are curious doesn't mean the owner needs to tell the story to everyone, unless they discover something that is a risk to all Model X owners. I hope we learn more, but am not sure that we will.

Thanks for that added explanation. Local conspiracy theorists are going nuts with this story, convinced that there's something nefarious going on. This, combined with the fact that most people (including the various journalists) have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to Tesla battery fires.

 

[ToddRLockwood]

In a local article, it says the rock(?) hit was on a road in South Burlington on his way to the ice. So he drove at least a few miles before getting to the lake access ramp in Shelburne.

Tesla Model X Burns to a Crisp on Iced-Over Shelburne Bay

A battery fire in a Tesla can start very slowly. In this instance, if the battery damage was limited to a small area, and given the outside temperature, it could have taken an hour or more before smoke and flames were visible. The battery case is made of heavy gauge aluminum and is quite well sealed.

 

[ToddRLockwood]

After reading that awesome link posted by @mongo I highly doubt it was a puncture to the battery by a rock, or anything else. Be sure to watch those videos above, but here is some preamble:

The first of the three shields is a rounded, hollow aluminum bar that is designed to either deflect objects entirely or, in the case of a self-stabilizing, ultra high strength object, like a three ball steel tow hitch, absorb the impact and force it to pike upwards well forward of the battery pack. This pierces the plastic aeroshield and front trunk liner, but causes no damage affecting safety and the car remains in control and driveable before, during and after the impact.

This is followed by a titanium plate, which has exceptional strength-to-weight properties and is more commonly seen in aerospace or military applications. The titanium plate prevents sensitive front underbody components from being damaged and aids in neutralizing the road debris.

By this point, the vast majority of objects will have been deflected or crushed. For the rare piece of debris that remains intact, we added a third shield, which is a shallow angle, solid aluminum extrusion that further absorbs impact energy, provides another layer of deflection and finally causes the Model S to ramp up and over the object if it is essentially incompressible and immovable.

It was probably caused by another guy cleaning his gun in the backseat.

These protections are effective for loose objects lying in the road, but if the car struck a protruding rock along the shoreline, there's nothing that's going to push it out of the way.

 

[GreenMtnM3]

I spend some time back on the bay this morning. The X is gone, well most of it is. What's left behind is a charred mess. I hope someone is returning to sweep/shovel the rest of the debris into a barrel and cart it off. I found a couple of small motors and blobs of Aluminum. About what you'd expect. I was suprised to see many of the Hazelett Spar bouys in the Shelburne Town mooring field sticking well above the ice. I took a photo of one next to my bike... it is clearly over a foot out of the ice. At least a dozen were more than 10" up. Inspection showed that they were not weighted down for the winter. I was thinking I might find one with extensive damage, indicating it was hit by the X, but I could not. It is possible that a buoy was hit, split open, and sank under the ice. I guess someone will figure that out this spring. These buoys are very close to the main track headed on and off the ice by the state boat launch. At night, it would be VERY easy to hit one. I don't know if this is what cause this particular fire, but it is certainly a possibility. The limited media reports have been vague and conflicting... some say it was a rock, others a piece of ice, some state it was on the ice, others on the road before hand. Who knows?

 

[GreenMtnM3]

For those of you who state that 'no one would take an expensive car like a Tesla Model X on the ice', I note that a few miles North of here, on Malletts Bay, two groups had set up tracks on the ice and were doing laps in all manor of vehicles. I saw everything from pickup trucks and Subaru Outbacks to Porsche 911s and track prepared Audi's. Lots of VW Golfs and Subaru WRX's. It looked like a ton of fun. I was very tempted to take the Model 3 out and join them, however based on the events of last Sunday, decided that it caution was in order and kept the Tesla ashore. Realistically, I was really only worried that a miscommunication with another driver would result in a fender bender. The ice was very thick, the speeds not great, and folks seemed to have their fun under reasonable control.

 

[dark cloud]

For those of you who state that 'no one would take an expensive car like a Tesla Model X on the ice', I note that a few miles North of here, on Malletts Bay, two groups had set up tracks on the ice and were doing laps in all manor of vehicles. I saw everything from pickup trucks and Subaru Outbacks to Porsche 911s and track prepared Audi's. Lots of VW Golfs and Subaru WRX's. It looked like a ton of fun. I was very tempted to take the Model 3 out and join them, however based on the events of last Sunday, decided that it caution was in order and kept the Tesla ashore. Realistically, I was really only worried that a miscommunication with another driver would result in a fender bender. The ice was very thick, the speeds not great, and folks seemed to have their fun under reasonable control.

In my opinion this driving should be taught and a requirement for anyone getting a drivers license.