"Tesla said it has “definitively determined” that the Toronto fire did not originate in the battery, the charging system, the adapter or the electrical receptacle, noting that these components were untouched by the fire."
There is info on /r/TeslaMotors [1] indicating it started near the front of the vehicle. Either an electrical component forward of the passenger compartment, or something in the front luggage compartment (where the motor typically would be in an ICE vehicle).
I forget exactly what it is but there is an important component of the charging system in the front right wheel well that you are not supposed to cut through if you are attempting a rescue of the passenger in a Tesla. They demonstrated that in their emergency responder training videos, saying that it's different from normal cars where you can cut right through the wheel well and here you should not since there are high voltage wires there.
Not much to say until we have more info. With all the amazing advancements that Tesla has made, I can't help but be reminded of Apollo 1's fire. And I have no doubts that they will recover as swiftly as NASA did.
I understand that this is new and scary technology and that gives Tesla some more scrutiny than others, but come on, how many cars caught fire that day in Toronto alone, and where are the comments from those manufacturers?
I noticed that USA media is mostly trying to undermine Tesla for some reason. Almost every article only mentions the fires and distorts the circumstances they were in.
It can be easily explained by how ravenously hungry they are for controversy and fear-generating topics. US news media unfortunately has a lot in common with reality TV.
With 17 car fires per hour in the USA, it seems quite obvious that some of those would be from a Tesla. It's unfortunate that these are the only ones that make the news though.
Relative to other cars, Tesla car fires are quite rare.
When reading any story about a Tesla fire keep in mind that HN users post multiple stories about 100% of Tesla fire events, while 0% of internal combustion stories reach the HN audience. The media create this "issue" by detailing the exceptional Tesla fire events and ignoring commonplace gasoline vehicle fires.
How many of those are spontaneous? The concern over Tesla is understandable if you consider the voltage and currents associated with running the motor.
Anecdote alert! A friend of mine told me a story about how his car spontaneously caught on fire sitting in his driveway while he was sleeping. The fire department had to investigate. I don't recall the cause though. Wasn't anything too crazy.
Let's take it further. It is an internal COMBUSTION engine. But it is unlikely that your car can spontaneously burn up. Electrical fires however start more easily. For example, in spite of the prevalence of gas-heating systems, the most common cause of fire in residential buildings is electric arcing. Granted that this is not conclusive data about high-voltage being more dangerous than IC engines, but it is not as straightforward as it seems. http://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/reports/residential_stru...
I was only able to find very rough numbers. In 2012, there were about 172,500 car fires out of an estimated 243,000,000 total registered cars. That means that about .072% of registered vehicles caught fire in 2012. 6-8 out of 22,000 Teslas built worldwide have caught fire - at worst, .04% of Teslas.
Why would you normalize by model year before having seen any data?
Do you posit that older cars by years since manufacture date are more likely to catch fire? That poorly maintained cars or higher mileage cars are more likely to catch fire? That modern cars are less likely to catch fire? Each of these hypotheses would require some form of validation.
As a point of comparison to a car with an actual fire problem, 10 of the 1,500 produced Ferrari 458s caught fire in a 3 month period before Ferrari recalled the cars to replace a wheel arch adhesive which caused the fires.
They better be. It would strongly surprise me if new cars were equally likely to catch fire as older cars, and the average Tesla is way newer than the average car.
To get a feeling of whether my idea that older cars are more likely to catch fire is true, let's compare what the average car in the USA does. There are 250M cars in the USA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unite...). 17 an hour is about 400 a day or 160k a year. That would mean that about one in 1500 cars catches fire every year.
I don't have data, but I find that very high for new cars.
Also, translating to the about 25k Tesla's in the USA (can't find precise numbers easily), we would expect 15 fires a year or just over one a month. That's within a factor of 2 or so of the frequency with with I read about Tesla fires.
I don't think those arguments are conclusive, but I certainly don't see them as evidence for your claim, either.
Edit: should have refreshed the page. There's some data elsewhere on this page that puts some nuance into this. I still think Tesla cars should be compared to cars of similar age, and don't expect them to do that much better there. Stats on causes do car fires could sway that, though. If many of them are caused by people being careless with gasoline (smoking at the pump, dropping gasoline or oil on a hot engine), things could look wildly different.
Model S is the best-selling car in Norway, which is further north than Toronto. Very low temperatures means it runs a battery heater; it still gets 175-250 miles range in well-below-zero winter days with the cabin heater blasting. There are tons of great Model S winter performance videos on YouTube, as well as independent reviews. Consumer Reports did a Model S winter range test you can read about IIRC.
Note, however, that further north doesn't necessarily mean colder. For instance, looking at the climate data on Wikipedia indicates that Oslo and Toronto have about the same average highs/lows in the winter months.
Meanwhile, Winnipeg (Winterpeg) is a full 10 degrees latitude south of Oslo, but is much, much, colder.
As as aside, though Europe's warmer climate is often attributed to the Gulf Stream, evidence suggests it's actually a consequence of angular momentum. See, for instance,
And no matter how well you test your technology, once you get in the hands of the public, they'll do all kinds of things with your stuff that you could never imagine or test for.
Which is funny because (according to random citation needed sources), gas-powered cars have electrical failures and resulting fires quite a lot compared to Teslas.
This is the part that gets me. In my life I can think of 3 instances of cars catching on fire that I witnessed personally. One was a neighbor who's suv caught on fire in their garage and burned their house down. I dont even remember what brand the car was but with Tesla it's headline news worthy.
> other cars don't generally spontaneously combust
They do. Check out YouTube, or the anecdotes in the other comments here. I'll throw in another -- one of my neighbors' cars spontaneously caught fire sitting in his driveway after midnight. The fire department had to come put it out, along with the front of his house it started to set fire to.
Car drove by my house way back when, smoking rather alarmingly. Stopped a few dozen meters further on, fire from under the hood, firefighters dropping by to extinguish it. Adventures in one's youth. No clue what caused it; probably a short circuit, and given how there's oil and gasoline everywhere, it kinda keeps going.
This reminds me of what Elon Musk stated in an interview (paraphrased): It's not enough for new technology to simply be as good or 2x better than incumbent technology; it needs to be 10x better to overcome industry standard inertia.
It's weird but I've seen a number of Tesla's on the streets of Toronto. A close neighbor of mine has one too as I see him pulling out of the street parallel to mine on most mornings.
Is there a dealership in Toronto or something?
> It's weird but I've seen a number of Tesla's on the streets of Toronto.
It would be interesting to know the Tesla's operating range during the cold part of the year in Toronto and environs. Most batteries are temperature-sensitive and don't charge or discharge as efficiently as they do in warmer climates.
Funny how a Tesla catching fire always makes the news. Were I a conspiracy loon, I'd swear there is a disproportionately thorough coverage of those events by the media.
52 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 63.4 ms ] threadSo... what exactly did catch fire?
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/1xuwx7/tesla_fi...
http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/201...
Your emotional scale needs calibration.
What the hell?
Relative to other cars, Tesla car fires are quite rare.
Can you point to a source for that statement?
When reading any story about a Tesla fire keep in mind that HN users post multiple stories about 100% of Tesla fire events, while 0% of internal combustion stories reach the HN audience. The media create this "issue" by detailing the exceptional Tesla fire events and ignoring commonplace gasoline vehicle fires.
[1] Recall ID # 67472 at http://www.motortrend.com/cars/1999/ford/explorer/recalls/
is that true? do you know the stats on this because that would be interesting, obviously normalized for model year.
Why would you normalize by model year before having seen any data?
Do you posit that older cars by years since manufacture date are more likely to catch fire? That poorly maintained cars or higher mileage cars are more likely to catch fire? That modern cars are less likely to catch fire? Each of these hypotheses would require some form of validation.
As a point of comparison to a car with an actual fire problem, 10 of the 1,500 produced Ferrari 458s caught fire in a 3 month period before Ferrari recalled the cars to replace a wheel arch adhesive which caused the fires.
Source for fire number: http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/fires-in...
How many of these are modern, late-model cars?
To get a feeling of whether my idea that older cars are more likely to catch fire is true, let's compare what the average car in the USA does. There are 250M cars in the USA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unite...). 17 an hour is about 400 a day or 160k a year. That would mean that about one in 1500 cars catches fire every year.
I don't have data, but I find that very high for new cars.
Also, translating to the about 25k Tesla's in the USA (can't find precise numbers easily), we would expect 15 fires a year or just over one a month. That's within a factor of 2 or so of the frequency with with I read about Tesla fires.
I don't think those arguments are conclusive, but I certainly don't see them as evidence for your claim, either.
Edit: should have refreshed the page. There's some data elsewhere on this page that puts some nuance into this. I still think Tesla cars should be compared to cars of similar age, and don't expect them to do that much better there. Stats on causes do car fires could sway that, though. If many of them are caused by people being careless with gasoline (smoking at the pump, dropping gasoline or oil on a hot engine), things could look wildly different.
Meanwhile, Winnipeg (Winterpeg) is a full 10 degrees latitude south of Oslo, but is much, much, colder.
As as aside, though Europe's warmer climate is often attributed to the Gulf Stream, evidence suggests it's actually a consequence of angular momentum. See, for instance,
https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/issue.aspx?id=999&y...
and the paper in PDF form here:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/pubs/Seager_etal...
New technology will always have problems; how you approach those problems will determine how successful you ultimately are.
And no matter how well you test your technology, once you get in the hands of the public, they'll do all kinds of things with your stuff that you could never imagine or test for.
They do. Check out YouTube, or the anecdotes in the other comments here. I'll throw in another -- one of my neighbors' cars spontaneously caught fire sitting in his driveway after midnight. The fire department had to come put it out, along with the front of his house it started to set fire to.
It would be interesting to know the Tesla's operating range during the cold part of the year in Toronto and environs. Most batteries are temperature-sensitive and don't charge or discharge as efficiently as they do in warmer climates.