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Busy night Nigel.:wink:Mod Note: another post went to snippiness. Seriously, let the mods deal with it.
Busy night Nigel.:wink:
Ah, but it becomes like rubber-necking while driving... you hate the folks in front of you that cause the issue, but you can't help but cast that sideways glance as you slowly roll past to see just what sort of distraction caused the issue in the first place!Yup! But we don't have the capacity to edit out snippy comments from so many posts/quotes so unfortunately some useful stuff gets thrown out with the comments; sorry about that.
so if the report is correct a tow hitch.
that notwithstanding, having watched the FOX news piece, I don't think it was beyond reason to have wondered if this was a setup... not 3 cars catching fire, but the third one. Seems extremely unlikely if a tow hitch, but I don't think earlier poster was being unreasonable to wonder.
Here's the video I'm referring to... if something like this gets aired, what else is possible!
Tesla Cars Catching Fire, No Recalls: Car Expert Lauren Fix - YouTube
(edit... corrected phrasing I meant to read "extremely unlikely")
Mercedes-Benz catches on fire and explodes - Tampa Bay sports car | Examiner.com
lexus cars catching fire - Google Search
Chrysler Rejects U.S. Request to Recall Millions of Vehicles At Risk of Fuel Tank Fire | TheBlaze.com
Audi car catches fire in Mumbai - Indian Express
Nissan recalls 140,000 Altimas - AutoSpies Auto News
Toyota Recalls 7.5 Million Cars For Door Fires
Ferrari recalls 458 Italia cars after spate of fires - Telegraph
Exclusive: Lamborghini Gallardo Catches Fire At Portland Auto Show
33,000 Bentley Continental cars recalled amid fears of fire risk | Mail Online
Rolls Royce recalls more than two dozen vehicles due to potential fire hazard | Hodes Milman
Did I forget anyone else?
There are 500 car fires every day in the US. It will take several years to get enough numbers to assess their significance. If it were not for the spontaneous laptop and 787 fires, the topic would be of less public interest.
But placing the energy storage where it is exposed to road clearance problems is worth discussing, just as we would discuss it for an ICE vehicle with its gas tank in the same place as Tesla's armored battery.
Mod Note: OK folks, clean up took place! The biggest delay was caused by the thread being added to faster than clean-up could take place.
A few posts got deleted as they were inappropriate.
A huge number of posts went to snippiness, apologies to the innocents caught up in that move but there were lots of responses and quoting of posts which were getting moved.
Here's a request: Let the mods handle bad behavior and use the report button for offensive posts.
Thanks.
I've been doing the math and Tesla has a problem on its hands. If you consider average age of the car, then Tesla is far more likely to catch fire than any ICE vehicle. Let me explain.
The average ICE vehicle is 11.4 years old (we'll just use 11). During those 11 years, the rate of fire is ~138,600/230,000,000 (controlling for intentional fire, etc.). That means risk of fire over the life of an ICE car is 0.0006. To get the risk per year, we have to divide by 11. We get 0.00005.
Tesla lost $38 million this quarter. They need wide consumer appeal to turn a profit and the fires aren't helping matters any. Whether current owners would buy again or not is of less importance than whether future owners will buy. Why? Because current owners aren't numerous enough to support the company long term.
For comparison, ground clearance on
BMW 5-series: 5.6"
2013 BMW 5 Series 528i Sedan 2.0L 4-cyl. Turbo 8-speed Automatic Features and Specs
Merc S-class: 5.8"
2013 Mercedes-Benz S-Class Base S600 4dr Sedan
I posted these "statistics" over on the Tesla Motors forum, but it might be worthwhile to recap here since my statistics actually suggest (but don't prove) that 2 fires is not unusual relatively speaking (even disregarding the point made earlier about whether 2 incidents is enough to make a statistically valid claim either way).
Google has NHSTA data that shows crashes by year through 2010: http://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...state&ifdim=state&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false
There were 130,892,200 registered automobiles in the U.S. based on the foregoing is 2010 (this disregards trucks, etc.)
From a different report: In the three year period 2008-10, there were 194,000 highway vehicle fires! 68.9% of these were passenger vehicles (the comparable population for Tesla). That means an average of 44,555 standard passenger vehicle fires PER YEAR. See http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v13i11.pdf
Taking the 2010 data from the google link, that means 44,555 / 130,892,200 = 0.000341 fires/registered passenger vehicle in 2010.
If Tesla has 20,000 Model S on the road in the U.S. (not sure about that, but I saw it somewhere), then we have 2 / 20,000 = 0.0001 fires / registered Model S (I am ignoring the Mexico fire because the statistics for fires/vehicle are for the U.S. only and I have no idea what Mexico's rate of fire/vehicle might be). Even if Tesla only has 10,000, that is 0.0002 fires / registered vehicle. Substantially less than for all vehicles in 2010.