When you call 911, they will often ask for the VIN, so the fire department can recognize the burning car by its color.
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Model X burns on the ice in Vermont on February 24, 2019
- Thread starter GreenMtnM3
- Start date
Sorry folks, I didn't get the VIN. I couldn't even see a license plate in the wreckage. The ice was pretty discolored under the vehicle, and to be honest, I was questioning the strength of it, so I stayed about 20' away. It was holding up a few thousand pounds of metal, but I didn't want to be the 180 pound straw that broke the camels back, so to speak.
I'm sure a VIN will be recoverable by a professional, but may not be available for a casual photo. I plan to head back out Friday after work if the X is still there. We have had a few days of single digit temps, so the ice will be plenty strong. I won't touch the vehicle myself, as the insurance company may want to look for clues as to what happened if there is a dispute or uncertainty, and I wouldn't want to get in the way. I assume if the police were interested they would have flagged the area off, so it doesn't seem to be a crime scene. But if the dash VIN plate happens to be exposed, I'll grab a photo.
I'm sure a VIN will be recoverable by a professional, but may not be available for a casual photo. I plan to head back out Friday after work if the X is still there. We have had a few days of single digit temps, so the ice will be plenty strong. I won't touch the vehicle myself, as the insurance company may want to look for clues as to what happened if there is a dispute or uncertainty, and I wouldn't want to get in the way. I assume if the police were interested they would have flagged the area off, so it doesn't seem to be a crime scene. But if the dash VIN plate happens to be exposed, I'll grab a photo.
In a more recent report from the NFPA the average number between 2014-2016 was down to 171,500 per year (19 per hour) and the resulting deaths were 300-something, or roughly one vehicle-fire death a day. Teslas did exist in this time frame, but I'm pretty sure they didn't each catch fire several times a year, so most of these numbers are still from ICEVs.
Barklikeadog
Active Member
from Popular Mechanics: "The Shelburne Police Department tells Popular Mechanics that the owner of the vehicle took their Tesla onto the ice to go fishing, and that at some point during the expedition the car hit a rock. The car started making unusual noises, and shortly after that caught fire. No one was hurt."
Tesla Model X Burned Up on Vermont's Lake Champlain
Tesla Model X Burned Up on Vermont's Lake Champlain
Ulmo
Active Member
Even so, it must have been some type of super extreme condition in addition to everything else known. I can only think of one way they could achieve that there given the description, and let's just say it reminds me of when I broke my toe one day when I was mad and kicked some snow REALLY HARD (it was not just snow).
Was the rock the big mountain in the background on the first picture in this thread?
It would had to be something really hard and/or sharp to break the battery open, or hit at a very high rates of speed. Might just be me, but I feel there is more to this story. Perhaps excess speed and/or alcohol were involved. I hope the data is recovered to tell the story.
The Popular Mechanics article gives us just a little more information. Namely, the owner was in the vehicle, so theft/insurance fraud/vadalism is not the cause. They state that the owner 'hit a rock'. So this wasn't a spontaneous battery malfunction.
But questions remain. As several have pointed out, the X is designed to protect the batteries against most physical damage. So it must have been a pretty hard or really unusual impact. I'm told that further north on the bay, there are some pretty big frozen ice 'sharks' sticking up that resulted from previous ice plate movement. Its possible that the X hit one of these; they would be hard as a rock and more difficult to see. Its also possible that getting on or off the ice, the owner broke through at the shore and high centered the X on a rock. And it is possible that he or she was zipping around having fun, and spun out of control and and simply slid into or over a rock on the shore.
It would be interesting to understand if the owner feels that the damage should not have been severe enough to warrant a fire, or if the impact was hard enough that the owner is just happy that they were not injured. I'm sure the insurance claim will be a fairly interesting one!
But questions remain. As several have pointed out, the X is designed to protect the batteries against most physical damage. So it must have been a pretty hard or really unusual impact. I'm told that further north on the bay, there are some pretty big frozen ice 'sharks' sticking up that resulted from previous ice plate movement. Its possible that the X hit one of these; they would be hard as a rock and more difficult to see. Its also possible that getting on or off the ice, the owner broke through at the shore and high centered the X on a rock. And it is possible that he or she was zipping around having fun, and spun out of control and and simply slid into or over a rock on the shore.
It would be interesting to understand if the owner feels that the damage should not have been severe enough to warrant a fire, or if the impact was hard enough that the owner is just happy that they were not injured. I'm sure the insurance claim will be a fairly interesting one!
Just because the owner was in the vehicle doesn't mean it wasn't insurance fraud. I'm not saying that is what happened in this case but I would think most insurance fraud would be committed by the owner.
The extra protection Tesla added is for protection from loose objects on roadways. It deflects the objects, or embeds them in a sacrificial layer. It is not made to handle objects that are attached to the landscape. So a rock, either partly in the ground, or frozen to it, is not what the system is designed for. To off-road would require a full steel skid plate or such.
See videos of the testing here:
Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S
ToddRLockwood
Active Member
Finally, a legitimate news article about this Model X fire. The owner was ice fishing and struck a rock protruding from the ice while heading home. The rock caused physical damage to the battery case which likely caused both a short and disabled the active cooling system. This is consistent with other Tesla battery fires, nearly all of which were the result of serious physical damage to the battery.
Tesla Model X Burned Up on Vermont's Lake Champlain
There have been a lot of nefarious explanations batted around, including that the driver deliberately scuttled the vehicle. This would be highly unlikely in Vermont, unless the vehicle was stolen, which it wasn't. End of story.
Tesla Model X Burned Up on Vermont's Lake Champlain
There have been a lot of nefarious explanations batted around, including that the driver deliberately scuttled the vehicle. This would be highly unlikely in Vermont, unless the vehicle was stolen, which it wasn't. End of story.
Even this article is frustrating, though. The text makes sense for a Tesla fire: the car hit the rock, then started making noises and the fire started (or at least vented) some time later.
The headline says hit the rock and burst into flames, as if the flames appeared instantly like they do with a typical gas car fire.
.. and that coming from a science magazine. The quality of reporting has come down across the board.,.
It's been mostly commoditized for these online articles. There are a few exceptions, but the need to make each article sell itself (click) vs. selling a bundle of articles in a paper or magazine has been tough on the quality of journalism. Not to mention the public's aversion to long form pieces.
The car did not stop immediately after hitting the rock, so you can't use the location of the fire as the location of the rock.
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
Tesla Model X Burns to a Crisp on Iced-Over Shelburne Bay
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.
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.
