Washington Post Tesla Fire hit piece

[ucmndd]

Just the facts:

All told, however, car fires happen. With 174,000 fires alone (in 2015) in the United States, that’s about one every 3 minutes. No matter how safe you make a vehicle, it always has the chance to catch fire.

It’s also clear that electric vehicles are less likely overall to catch fire, even with the current Bolt fires. Tesla claimed that gas cars are about 11 times more likely to catch fire than a Tesla. They refer to fires per 1 billion miles driven. With 300,000 Teslas on the road in 2019, and more than 7.5 billion miles driven at the time, there were about 40 fires reported. That’s five fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars.

These "facts" are meaningless when the "far less likely" BEV fires just so happen to occur when the car is sitting idle in a garage and will burn your home to the ground in the middle of the night.

Gasoline cars don't do that.

 

[SO16]

These "facts" are meaningless when the "far less likely" BEV fires just so happen to occur when the car is sitting idle in a garage and will burn your home to the ground in the middle of the night.

Gasoline cars don't do that.

They don’t?

Parked BMWs bursting into flames leave owners with questions

BMW owners across the country are asking how their parked car could catch fire.

abcnews.go.com

 

[MP3Mike]

These "facts" are meaningless when the "far less likely" BEV fires just so happen to occur when the car is sitting idle in a garage and will burn your home to the ground in the middle of the night.

Gasoline cars don't do that.

But they do. Hyundai and Kia even had a recall for that recently: More Hyundai/Kia Fire Recalls Related to ABS Controller and Almost 190,000 Hyundai And Kia Models Recalled Due To ABS Issue | Carscoops and Hyundai And Kia Recall Almost 600,000 Vehicles Over Fire Risk | Carscoops

Approximately 180,000 Hyundai Tucson models from the 2019-2021 model years are involved in the recall, as are roughly 9,000 Kia Stingers from the 2019 model year. Hyundai says there is a risk of fire both when the car is running and when the ignition is off. Owners are being recommended to store their vehicles outside until they can be repaired.

A recall notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reveals that due to a suspected supplier quality deviation issue, brake fluid may leak internally inside the Hydraulic Electronic Control ECU (HECU) which, over time, could trigger an electrical short. An electrical short in the HECU increases the risk of an engine compartment fire while driving – and Hyundai has added that an engine fire could even happen if the car is not turned on..

And BTW the fix was only to prevent the fire from starting while the ignition was off, so apparently it is fine if the car catches fire while you are driving it.

 

[ucmndd]

Fair enough. "Gasoline cars don't do that" was clearly a poor choice of wording.

But I don't think I'm out of line to suggest that the incidence rate of spontaneous parked combustion is orders of magnitude higher for BEVs than gasoline cars. It's just a reality of electrochemical energy storage. It's inherently higher risk.

Recalling 600,000 cars for a fire risk is an impressive number, but try as I might I can't find any instances of those Hyundais *actually* catching fire while off/parked. Maybe they would have as they aged, and the manufacturer and NHTSA obviously did the right thing by forcing a recall, but the observed risk seems to be quite low. The BMW article clearly posted some obvious examples of this happening, although I found it interesting that the first guy they talked to had a new battery of all things put in the car the day before.

 

[David.85D]

Sorry I meant AC coolant:
Safety Data Sheet R143a - ICool USAwww.icoolproductsusa.com › SAF...

Talk about FUD. This data sheet is for the highly flammable R143a.

That is not what is in a Tesla

a US car would have had non flammable R134A.

An EU car would have had 1234yf.


Don’t know what the new heat pumps use.

 

[MP3Mike]

Ok, while this is older, here is a recall of almost 10 million vehicles for the potential to catch fire while parked: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2007/RCORRD-07V336-1234.pdf

The investigation started because of ~300 reports of fire while parked.

So there is a long history of ICE vehicles catching fire even when parked. (I knew someone that had a Pontiac catch fire in their driveway overnight, the cause was never identified.)

 

[Fairchild]

These "facts" are meaningless when the "far less likely" BEV fires just so happen to occur when the car is sitting idle in a garage and will burn your home to the ground in the middle of the night.

Gasoline cars don't do that.

Say what? Just the facts.

BMW recalls 1 million vehicles for fire risk

Fires can occur even in parked cars, as highlighted by ABC News investigation.

abcnews.go.com

 

[ucmndd]

Say what? Just the facts.

BMW recalls 1 million vehicles for fire risk

Fires can occur even in parked cars, as highlighted by ABC News investigation.

abcnews.go.com

We already covered this. Keep reading my posts.

That said: 40 cases in a million cars.

What's the ratio for BEVs? An order of magnitude or more higher?

 

[SO16]

We already covered this. Keep reading my posts.

That said: 40 cases in a million cars.

What's the ratio for BEVs? An order of magnitude or more higher?

I thought most EV fires were after an accident or running over something, not often charging.

And for the ones that were charging, I thought Tesla sent an OTA to help mitigate that on older vehicles. And I think newer vehicles seem to be a bit better with some engineering changes. I haven’t seen any recent issues with charging. The last one I did see, looked like the fire was from something else in the garage, not the vehicle.

 

[2101Guy]

Ive read three pages, and then I went to google "most valuable car company in the world"

Guess what?

 

[2101Guy]

try as they might (car fires, AP crashes, customer service woes, QC woes)...its like bad boy records. Cant stop..wont stop.

 

[ucmndd]

I thought most EV car fires were after an accident or running over something, not often charging.

And for the ones that were charging, I thought Tesla sent an OTA to help mitigate that on older vehicles.

Some, certainly. Although I don't think anyone could claim "most", particularly with emerging issues like the LG Chem stuff affecting Chevy and Hyundai.

My point is that regardless of cause, the reality of electrochemical energy storage currently presents a (IMO substantially) higher risk for unattended vehicle fires. That's an important distinction with respect to risk that you can't just explain away with absolute numbers like the Fred Lambert "gas cars are 10x more likely to catch fire" line.

That said, this is still an emerging technology and I'm certain that the controls and risk mitigations will get better with time. I just don't think it does anyone any favors to gloss over the issue, be defensive about it, or pretend that it doesn't present a different overall risk profile that needs to be considered and controlled.

... and yes, I still park my Tesla in the garage.

 

[SO16]

Some, certainly. Although I don't think anyone could claim "most", particularly with emerging issues like the LG Chem stuff affecting Chevy and Hyundai.

My point is that regardless of cause, the reality of electrochemical energy storage currently presents a (IMO substantially) higher risk for unattended vehicle fires. That's an important distinction with respect to risk that you can't just explain away with absolute numbers like the Fred Lambert "gas cars are 10x more likely to catch fire" line.

That said, this is still an emerging technology and I'm certain that the controls and risk mitigations will get better with time. I just don't think it does anyone any favors to gloss over the issue, be defensive about it, or pretend that it doesn't present a different overall risk profile that needs to be considered and controlled.

... and yes, I still park my Tesla in the garage.

I should have clarified, I’m only talking in regards to Tesla. Other EVs that are poorly made, could tarnish EVs in general. I do park my Tesla in the garage every night too (and charge it).

 

[brucet999]

Just the facts:

All told, however, car fires happen. With 174,000 fires alone (in 2015) in the United States, that’s about one every 3 minutes. No matter how safe you make a vehicle, it always has the chance to catch fire.

It’s also clear that electric vehicles are less likely overall to catch fire, even with the current Bolt fires. Tesla claimed that gas cars are about 11 times more likely to catch fire than a Tesla. They refer to fires per 1 billion miles driven. With 300,000 Teslas on the road in 2019, and more than 7.5 billion miles driven at the time, there were about 40 fires reported. That’s five fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars.

 

[brucet999]

Just the facts:

All told, however, car fires happen. With 174,000 fires alone (in 2015) in the United States, that’s about one every 3 minutes. No matter how safe you make a vehicle, it always has the chance to catch fire.

It’s also clear that electric vehicles are less likely overall to catch fire, even with the current Bolt fires. Tesla claimed that gas cars are about 11 times more likely to catch fire than a Tesla. They refer to fires per 1 billion miles driven. With 300,000 Teslas on the road in 2019, and more than 7.5 billion miles driven at the time, there were about 40 fires reported. That’s five fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars.

"That’s five fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars."

To be fair, these data include millions of old and poorly maintained gasoline cars being compared to relatively new Teslas (average vehicle age in US is almost 12 years; 25% older than 16 years). For a proper comparison of the tendency to fires of Teslas vs Gasoline and Diesel cars, One would have to include only fires in cars built since 2012. I would expect something like the classic "80-20 rule" to apply to vehicle fires, i.e.; 80% of fires occur among the worst/oldest 20% of vehicles, for instance.

If by chance, the ratio above really fell close to the 80-20 rule, then among post 2012 cars we might expect something like 11 ICE fires (20% of 55) per billion miles driven vs Tesla's rate of 5 per billion. Still a big difference (more than 2x), but a comparison more fair than Tesla's claim comparing all ICE vehicles to relatively newer Teslas.

 

[Fairchild]

"That’s five fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars."

To be fair, these data include millions of old and poorly maintained gasoline cars being compared to relatively new Teslas (average vehicle age in US is almost 12 years; 25% older than 16 years). For a proper comparison of the tendency to fires of Teslas vs Gasoline and Diesel cars, One would have to include only fires in cars built since 2012. I would expect something like the classic "80-20 rule" to apply to vehicle fires, i.e.; 80% of fires occur among the worst/oldest 20% of vehicles, for instance.

If by chance, the ratio above really fell close to the 80-20 rule, then among post 2012 cars we might expect something like 11 ICE fires (20% of 55) per billion miles driven vs Tesla's rate of 5 per billion. Still a big difference (more than 2x), but a comparison more fair than Tesla's claim comparing all ICE vehicles to relatively newer Teslas.

Bah Humbug. Speculation. Just the facts
That's why the new BMWs are burning up! Right.
"BMWs have these fire problems for a very long time," said Jason Levine, executive director at the watchdog group The Center for Auto Safety. "They've taken a very long time to respond to them. And it doesn't seem that they're getting to the bottom of the problem."

BMW Car Fires: More fires reported in parked cars while engines off

There are new questions surrounding mystery fires involving some BMW's and Mini Coopers; both made by automaker BMW. The ABC 7 I-Team and ABC News are uncovering new cases of parked car fires, without fire-related recalls.

abc7chicago.com

 

[brucet999]

Bah Humbug. Speculation. Just the facts
That's why the new BMWs are burning up! Right.
"BMWs have these fire problems for a very long time," said Jason Levine, executive director at the watchdog group The Center for Auto Safety. "They've taken a very long time to respond to them. And it doesn't seem that they're getting to the bottom of the problem."

BMW Car Fires: More fires reported in parked cars while engines off

There are new questions surrounding mystery fires involving some BMW's and Mini Coopers; both made by automaker BMW. The ABC 7 I-Team and ABC News are uncovering new cases of parked car fires, without fire-related recalls.

abc7chicago.com

90 fires over a period of several years is a lot for one manufacturer, and all of those would appear to have been less than 9 years old, so the would be rightly compared to Tesla.

But that doesn't refute the logic that cars older than 9 years should not be included in comparison to Tesla, since older vehicles naturally have more mechanical problems, on average, than newer ones, so it is safe to assume that they would also have substantially higher rate of fires than newer models.

 

[SO16]

But that doesn't refute the logic that cars older than 9 years should not be included in comparison to Tesla, since older vehicles naturally have more mechanical problems, on average, than newer ones, so it is safe to assume that they would also have substantially higher rate of fires than newer models.

Page 8 of the attached does show fires by age of car. Older cars do have more problems.

https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osvehiclefires.pdf

 

[Fairchild]

Still a big difference (more than 2x)

 

[trayloader]

BTT this Tesla Fire died a fast death. Seems the OP had the five minutes of fame.