Stop making excuses for Tesla!

[Raven5000]

I am a model s owner and a Tesla fan! But the way Tesla has handled the 2 fires due to road debris is unacceptable. I specifically asked about the protection of the battery being underneath the car before I even put my deposit down in June 2012. They assured me that it was very well protected so I believed what they told me. No doubt the car is extremely safe and it did what it was suppose to do. The problem with this is the car was totaled in both cases. Thats 100k to replace it. I'm very concerned with car insurance companies raising the rate for Tesla Model s owners. I'm also upset with fact that they continue to use the defense that electric cars are safer than gas cars. This may be but gas cars don't usually catch on fire from road debris they may get severely damaged but not totaled. I have a friend who's daughter ran over a huge debris going extremely fast in a BMW and the car did not catch on fire but it did wreck to the point where there was 10, 000 worth of damage but not the full cost of the car. In the recent firmware update of my Tesla Model S 5.8 the car no longer lowers when going faster than 55 which is not what I purchased. I think Tesla needs to reinforce the bottom of the model s with something stronger. If my car catches on fire I would advise my insurance company to give the Tesla the bill and replace under warranty.

I'm also dissapointed thats my car has needed to be in Service at least once to twice a month since I got it. I'm a Tesla fan but they need to be honest and take these problem head on and not ignore there customers.

If Elon and Tesla continue on this path I feel it could be the end of the company. I'm also an investor and have stood by the stock but I'm seriously thinking about selling it.

The point is we can't keep making excuses for them as much as we love the car and the company. I feel that running over debri shouldn't total a car. Just my opinion.

 

[aznt1217]

First off, the defense and statistics are there for people to understand that it's unfair focus to Tesla which is entirely true. And statistically (which is what insurance bases quote algorithms on) means that you will be fine. Obviously you don't want to total a car, but if it's a scenario where it was a gas car where 25 tons of force pierces a pack, you'd probably be dead. So which would you rather have? Totaled car or totaled life? At least with these hits it's predictable disaster which just isn't possible in a gas car. What if debris hits a tie rid end or something in the car or breaks a component of the engine it's very unpredictable. That's the whole point about the stats and safety. It's not excuse making it's merely to let people following the mainstream media understand that it's really unfair.

While I agree with sentiment that a 5.8 update communication should have gone out. It's been ONE day. Give it time before whipping out pitchforks, as easily as the "problem" was pushed, it can easily be restored.

 

[liuping]

I am a model s owner and a Tesla fan! But the way Tesla has handled the 2 fires due to road debris is unacceptable. I specifically asked about the protection of the battery being underneath the car before I even put my deposit down in June 2012. They assured me that it was very well protected so I believed what they told me. No doubt the car is extremely safe and it did what it was suppose to do. The problem with this is the car was totaled in both cases. Thats 100k to replace it. I'm very concerned with car insurance companies raising the rate for Tesla Model s owners. I'm also upset with fact that they continue to use the defense that electric cars are safer than gas cars. This may be but gas cars don't usually catch on fire from road debris they may get severely damaged but not totaled. I have a friend who's daughter ran over a huge debris going extremely fast in a BMW and the car did not catch on fire but it did wreck to the point where there was 10, 000 worth of damage but not the full cost of the car. In the recent firmware update of my Tesla Model S 5.8 the car no longer lowers when going faster than 55 which is not what I purchased. I think Tesla needs to reinforce the bottom of the model s with something stronger. If my car catches on fire I would advise my insurance company to give the Tesla the bill and replace under warranty.

I'm also dissapointed thats my car has needed to be in Service at least once to twice a month since I got it. I'm a Tesla fan but they need to be honest and take these problem head on and not ignore there customers.

If Elon and Tesla continue on this path I feel it could be the end of the company. I'm also an investor and have stood by the stock but I'm seriously thinking about selling it.

The point is we can't keep making excuses for them as much as we love the car and the company. I feel that running over debri shouldn't total a car. Just my opinion.

The battery is well protected and Tesla's don't "usually catch on fire from road debris" either.

Your example of a friend who hit debris is antidotal and statistically meaningless. Based on that, do you assume all BMWs take $10k of damage when they hit a piece of road debris? How many of you friend's with Tesla's caught fire or taken $10k of damage from road debris?

As far as your car needing device multiples time every month, that sounds unusual. If you are unhappy with it and Tesla is not fixing things, perhaps you should file for replacement or a refund under the CA Lemon law?

 

[EnergyMax]

The BMW did not run over a three prong trailer hitch. Any other car could have had death as a result, as relayed by the doctor driver. So, we are not apologizing for Tesla, but rather suggesting BMW is not up to the same standards.

 

[David_Cary]

Come on - do you really believe that an ICE car that runs over debris would kill people, sure it could happen but.... Also - a gas tank and a battery are not the same size. The gas tank might be 20% the size of a battery so the chance of a puncture from road debris (all else being equal) would be less than 20% of the battery. Probably even less since the gas tank is usually in the rear and the debris would get lodged on something before the tank. I am trying to imagine a tow hook penetrating the floor board and killing someone. I know in the old Beetles it happened once or twice but that tow hook in a worse case would be a penetrating injury to the foot or leg - hardly fatal. And on the subject, does a modern car gas tank explosion actually cause fatalities? I could imagine that the explosion wouldn't actually enter the passenger compartment and there would be time to leave.

2 or 3 fires in a few months is kind of a big deal. Any denying that is not honest. The Nissan Leaf has zero reported accidents leading to fires (the Leaf caught in a wildfire doesn't count). There are more Leafs on the road then Teslas and they have been for a longer time. And yes - the Leaf can drive on the highway and probably (although I can't prove it) there are still far more highway miles driven by Leafs than Model S's. Since the Leaf can travel at 10 over any speed limit in the country, I really doubt that speed is the real issue.

The "doctor driver" is unlikely to be an expert on car collisions with road debris so you can assign him the credibility of a lay person.

 

[brianman]

Come on - do you really believe that an ICE car that runs over debris would kill people, sure it could happen but....

Yes. We've seen examples of it on TMC (in the various fire threads) where road debris ends up in deaths, regardless of whether the vehicle catches fire or not.

 

[FreeOfPge]

Google search, selection custom 9/1/2012 to 9/1/3013. Search term: road debris https://www.google.com/search?q=roa...tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:9/1/2012,cd_max:9/1/2013&tbm=

Car fire from a cardboard box is the top search result.

 

[RobStark]

Yes. We've seen examples of it on TMC (in the various fire threads) where road debris ends up in deaths, regardless of whether the vehicle catches fire or not.

True, you don't need to hit the gas tank to cause death.

Tow hitch or other shrapnel goes through floor pan and hits the femoral artery in the leg for example.

When this happens with an ICE car it does not go viral and pushed be EV haters on youtube.

Death in an ICE car is an accepted risk as part of modern life for most people.


Fear of dying in EV fire is like getting eaten by a shark.

It may be that having the battery where the transaxle used to be is safer with regards to battery fire. And it better protects the battery against damage.

But it sacrifices low center of gravity and therefore some superior handling characteristics that help the Tesla driver avoid certain accidents.

And the Tesla placement of the battery also allows for a bigger battery pack with longer range without sacrificing interior or storage volume.

The bigger battery pack also allows for superior acceleration that allows for avoiding another set of accidents.

If you don't like the design choices Tesla has made there is always Leaf .

 

[PokerBroker]

The daily crashes that injure and kill people in less safe vehicles are FAR more costly to insurance companies than a rare fire that totals a vehicle. Insurance rates won't go up.

 

[brianman]

Just saw the Allstate commercial about road debris. It's part of their series about "mayhem" but it struck a chord given all the recent discussion.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Google search, selection custom 9/1/2012 to 9/1/3013. Search term: road debris https://www.google.com/search?q=roa...tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:9/1/2012,cd_max:9/1/2013&tbm=

Car fire from a cardboard box is the top search result.

This link doesn't work for me... :crying:


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Come on - do you really believe that an ICE car that runs over debris would kill people, sure it could happen but.... […

Yeah, I guess it could… Feel free to skip to 0:09:

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…/ I am trying to imagine a tow hook penetrating the floor board and killing someone. I know in the old Beetles it happened once or twice but that tow hook in a worse case would be a penetrating injury to the foot or leg - hardly fatal. /…

See above… And also: In what universe is a severe permanent injury to the feet and legs something that folks wouldn’t care about?

 

[EnergyMax]

I am sorry, but any time there is a high speed incident with major damage to a leg, the chance of permanent personal injury or death increases dramatically. The Model S shield may cause a spectacular frunk fire under these conditions, 5 minutes after impact. An ICE car may kill you in moments. Thus, ICE is not up to the same safety standards.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

I am sorry, but any time there is a high speed incident with major damage to a leg, the chance of permanent personal injury or death increases dramatically. The Model S shield may cause a spectacular frunk fire under these conditions, 5 minutes after impact. An ICE car may kill you in moments. Thus, ICE is not up to the same safety standards.

Agree 100%. Hope that NHTSA will consider this. IMO your thought implies that the Model S is a very safe car. The fact that because of a road debris the Model S can be totalled as it happened twice is another matter. I am sure that Tesla will work out also this in the long term.

 

[FreeOfPge]

This link doesn't work for me... QUOTE]

Strange, it is working for both Chrome and IE when I try. Maybe copy and paste will work:


road debris - Google Search

Sorry for some reason I can not unlink it, TMC seems re-links after I post. Maybe someone with better computer knowledge can help out?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Insurance:
Using a cost of 120k per car, 1 write-off per month for every 15,000 cars is $96 per year, $8 per month. If a Model S owner is concerned about that, I suggest they bought the wrong car. More a concern for Gen 3.

Insurance companies are concerned about the cost of repair but prjmarily they're concerned about avoiding expensive, er, serious injury, the double cost whammy.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

@ FreeOfPge

No worries. I’ll try the search term instead…

 

[nolngrgrsngslde]

And the Tesla placement of the battery also allows for a bigger battery pack with longer range without sacrificing interior or storage volume.

The bigger battery pack also allows for superior acceleration that allows for avoiding another set of accidents.

It also allows the battery to be easily swappable, quickly via a robot. Which is one of the demands people have.

Are there any statistics on injuries per miles driven, Tesla vs any ICE?

Or. cost to insurance companies per miles driven, Tesla vs ICE?

I have not heard of any fatalities in a Tesla. For the same miles driven, how many ICE deaths?


I am sure that next model batteries will have a shield of sorts in the front section at least.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

…/ 2 or 3 fires in a few months is kind of a big deal. Any denying that is not honest. The Nissan Leaf has zero reported accidents leading to fires (the Leaf caught in a wildfire doesn't count). There are more Leafs on the road then Teslas and they have been for a longer time. And yes - the Leaf can drive on the highway and probably (although I can't prove it) there are still far more highway miles driven by Leafs than Model S's. Since the Leaf can travel at 10 over any speed limit in the country, I really doubt that speed is the real issue. /…

I don’t know how many times this has been covered? Are we really counting the one in Mexico? So that leaves 2. And according to our resident CERN-physicist Mario Kadastik and many others, such a number really can’t tell us much at all at this point…

[Ugh. Another Model S fire - 2013-11-06 - Page 40 (Post #399) (My edit.)]

Please everyone stop [drawing erroneous conclusions from (My edit.)] the statistics. The ICE fires are in the thousands and their distribution is governed by the normal distribution that most of your statistics are based on. The Model S statistics are so low that it's governed by Poisson statistics and that has completely different characteristics. I deal with low probability events daily (Higgs search at LHC) and have had to handle the differences and you can't believe how much difference there is. Your math here has error bars that are so huge that you cannot draw any conclusions really. In Poisson statistics 0-2 events are statistically inseparable so even if you expect 0 events and observe 2 you cannot claim disparity between the two measurements. With three you start to get somewhere, but only if you really expected 0 in the first place. If you expect even one (or worse ca 3), then one to about six events are fully compatible (or one to ten). You can start using your normal statistics when the number of incidents expected is largish i.e. my statistics teacher used to say that 30 and infinity are about the same, it's not quite that simple, but around that region the Poisson starts to converge towards the normal distribution...

so overall I'd have to do some more complex math and not going to do this from my iPad in bed, but three or one fires make no statistical difference at this point. They do however make a world of difference to public perception especially due to nearness in time. Physics is full of freaky occurrences where unlikely events happen at start and are averaged out over time. We almost claimed discovery in 2011 of a new particle when events started to pop up at high mass with a subtantial gap to anything expected. We expected ca 0.1 events and saw 3 in a very short timeframe all together. Papers were written and taistics were debated as it was borderline close to discovery threshold. For safety it was conceded that a fourth event would lock this down hard so the papers etc were held ready and a special priority analysis was run almost live on new data daily, some people didn't sleep for a week as this was big (fundamental physics changing big). Int he end the event didn't come. After a couple of weeks we went from red alarm to orange to yellow to green as background expectations caught up and we went from 99.9% probability down to 95% to 68% and dropped further. Statistical fluctuations happen, but nature takes care of it over time...

[Ugh. Another Model S fire - 2013-11-06 - Page 87 (Post #868) (My edit.)]

My point on stop [drawing erroneous conclusions from (My edit.)] the statistics was that claiming that three fires is very huge news and significant in comparison to ICE fires is an absurd statement because so low event count systems require one to properly compute the confidence intervals and those are not necessarily always deducible "logically". If you talk about 3000 vs 6000 fires (i.e. population is 2000 times higher), then that's far more likely to be significant, but in this case we went from 2 fires to 3 fires and everyone and their uncle went bonkers that this is happening so much and it's more relevant than the ICE fires etc etc.

Yes you can compare the various distributions, but you have to take into account the error bars. That's what I wanted people to fathom especially as the error bars on the 3 events are pretty large and therefore we cannot claim that we have a significant deviation from mean expectation where the mean expectation is taken from high statistics of ICE miles driven and fires (and therefore I'd assume with relatively low error bars). Our assumptions and results are fully dominated by the observed number of events and its inherent low count at this point.

So I'm not arguing with you, just making sure everyone understands that in statistics most of the time you cannot ignore the errors that are involved if you want to make any claims. If you have huge huge statistics (billions of miles driven by millions of cars and thousands of fires), then you can maybe work with just mean expectation values and ignore the errors as they'll be relatively small, but in a 20k car 3 fire event situation you cannot ignore them.

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There does however seem to be merit to the argument that the Model S with the auto-lowering Air Suspension, apparently sits lower to the ground than many other cars. Consequently objects that are low enough for all other vehicles to clear them – including Leafs and Volt’s – might get hit by something like a Model S. And that in turn seems to be the reason why Tesla – as I understand it – currently has disabled the auto lowering function of the Air Suspension in the new Firmware v.5.8 update…

 

[Twiddler]

 

[Thumper]

To the OP, Gasoline cars DO burst into flame sometimes from running over debris in the road. A notorious case was in 1994 near Milwaukee, WI. A family van ran over a mudflap/taillight assembly. The debris pierced the gas tank and six members of the family died in the explosion/fire! Minister, Wife In Van Crash Leave Flock For A New Life - Chicago Tribune This does not make your issues with Tesla any different but no protection is absolute. How much is enough protection is open for discussion.