Second Model S on fire (October 18th, 2013 in Merida, Mexico).

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Keep in mind the driver & occupents probably would have sustained major injuries or died had they been in any other car & likely left the scene before the fire even started, Elon mentioned the driver picked up the Teslas investigating team the next morning at the airport, I pretty sure I would have been laying in some hospital bed if that accident had happened in any car I have ever owned & not doing a pick up at some airport.

DNFTT.

 

[Grendal]

And here we go again...

It seems that Tesla detractors are starting a fear campaign using Tesla's chemistry as their weapon. I posted this last night as the tool to combat this argument:

I've recently come across a growing number of outside commenters that think Tesla's batteries are more volatile and so should be banned. My response has been to say that ethanol is less explosive than gasoline so all gas cars should immediately be switched over to ethanol since it is safer.

Tesla has used the chemistry they chose and have created a battery pack to deal with it. Much the same as gas cars have developed their system for dealing with thousands of small explosions in a gas engine.

I hope my point gets out there because this chemistry argument is gaining momentum. Rainbow, a new commenter, just happens to drop in here trying to drop this little "safety" message.

Moderators: Please change the title of this inflammatory thread since there has never been an explosion in a Tesla battery pack.

 

[brianman]

@Rainbow - You joined the forum and this is the first thing you have to say? This motivated you to join? Curious.

 

[Lump]

What bothers me about this incident is Tesla lack of producing a detailed account of what actually happened, Elon briefly described what happened but held back revealing the speed the car was traveling at first impact, releasing more facts, diagrams or even a reenactment by now would have helped with PR over the last month.

 

[NigelM]

Quite likely that the car was out of 3G range and who knows if Tesla got access to the car afterwards.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Amongst many Tesla fans, there seems to be an effort to try to suppress and ignore the explosion hazard of lithium batteries. I don't think it's wise or ethical to try to sweep safety issues under the carpet.

At about 13 seconds into the video you can see where the Tesla explodes. The fire probably heated up adjacent battery cells to the point that some "vented" explosively.
ProgresoHoy.com -- Tesla Explosión glorieta del Pocito Mérida, Yucatán, México - YouTube

I guess you didn't watch all the way to 1:55 when a single fire fighter extinguishes the blaze in 15 seconds. Good luck doing that with a gasoline fire. Most of the time fire fighters are left to contain the fire and let it burn itself out to the ground.

 

[Grendal]

What bothers me about this incident is Tesla lack of producing a detailed account of what actually happened, Elon briefly described what happened but held back revealing the speed the car was traveling at first impact, releasing more facts, diagrams or even a reenactment by now would have helped with PR over the last month.

I doubt that Tesla has the ability to have any pull in Mexico to get access to the car. It's a little out of their jurisdiction.

It's been said the speed exceeded 100 MPH. I don't know if that is official or not but it has been in a few articles.

 

[stopcrazypp]

What bothers me about this incident is Tesla lack of producing a detailed account of what actually happened, Elon briefly described what happened but held back revealing the speed the car was traveling at first impact, releasing more facts, diagrams or even a reenactment by now would have helped with PR over the last month.

Like others have mentioned, Tesla may not have access to the car, nor remote access. If I recall correctly, Tesla needs customers permission to enable remote access to data and in both fire cases in the US, I believe they retrieved the data from the black box in the car (not remotely while it happened).

I guess you didn't watch all the way to 1:55 when a single fire fighter extinguishes the blaze in 15 seconds. Good luck doing that with a gasoline fire. Most of the time fire fighters are left to contain the fire and let it burn itself out to the ground.

I was also surprised at how fast it was extinguished, which was why I suspected it may not have been a battery fire (or at least not the severity of the first one).