Electric vehicle "spontaneously combusts" on California freeway. Oh, you know the brand

I even heard it in my head as my mind recognized the picture.

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Go knock on their door and say “hey guys, a little help here?”

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My first, part-time, job was at a petrol station*.
TWICE we had cars on fire drive onto the forecourt in the six months I worked there.
What goes through anyone’s head to think “oh, car’s on fire, best get to the petrol station, they’ll know how to fix it”?

*Gas Station for USians. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Sounds like you should delete the comment

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Also they can burn hot enough and long enough to destroy the asphalt beneath the vehicle along with the vehicle itself. Not only is a fire going to snare up traffic during the time it takes emergency responders to put the thing out, it may require a whole road crew to repair the smoking crater it leaves behind.

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Gonzalez?

  Gonzaaaleeezz?

“But ya are, Blanche; ya ARE!”

Flaming Tesla’s should really be added to the other list…

Oh wait, @Mindysan33 is already way ahead of me, as usual.

:stuck_out_tongue:

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I wonder how well it works.

I was going to say, if someone comes up with a good way to put out lithium battery fires, they will make some money on it. :confused:

Like a lot of things, cognitive bias will skew how often on things a Tesla catches fire (or other EV). Not that there might be issues that can be fixed in the design.

I haven’t seen good numbers. I know the one that some one put out is rife with errors. With all the ICE out there, they for sure account for MORE fires, but not sure on the per capita rate, which is the important one.

I’ve seen at least one truck on fire at the side of the road IRL. And had a scary moment under a hood once, trying to get a car to start.

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Thanks. I’ve lost count of what “inventions” from this “genius” that people worship are real and what’s vaporware.

You know what? Gonna drop the reference anyway.

“Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts! Canyoneroooooo!”

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With enough of this you will get combustion. It may not be internal combustion.

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I’ve seen gas vehicles burn down to a twisted hunk of steel more than a few times. And I’ve been in gas cars that spontaneously burst into flame two or three times now, too, although none of those got out of control before we managed to put them out. The interesting thing to me is that within 48 hours they look like they’ve been sitting on the side of the road for years; once the paint burns off, they rust colorfully just from the dew.

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That is kinda what happened, ahahha. Turns out my fuel pump died. I ended up donating that car to the Cars for Kidney’s group.

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Giant Yeti cooler full of ice.

Bonus, it can be used for parties on the weekend.

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Wait, that’s not the intended purpose of the Cybertruck? /s

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Can it carry enough ice to effectively reduce the heat and contain it’s own fire?

What is the remaining cargo capacity left once the ice has been loaded?

Does the range estimate include the energy required to keep the ice frozen during the trip?

Will this become a new IIHS EV recommendation, that vehicles carry enough ice to cool any potential fire. That will probably have quite the design impact across models.

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Thumbs Ok GIF by MOODMAN

Back to the show!

Anticipation Popcorn GIF

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Not really, though. I think the reason the EV fires make such a splash is that, in addition to burning with a heat that destroys roads, they’re all relatively new.
I looked it up for a previous thread, most ICE fires are on autos older than any EVs on the road. By a long shot.
I’m sure if a batch of relatively new (insert make and model ICE auto here) were bursting into flames, it would make as much of a story. But there wouldn’t be a bunch of people swooping in to argue “what about.”

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Trips taken/days driven is another consideration. I live in a town and most new cars here are EVs or PHEVs which run on electric around town. They may have an older car but it’s not necessarily the daily driver.

ETA
As many have pointed out age is important. Our first car burnt a few times. It was an old banger though. And that was a good few years ago. And two cars ago.

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I drove past a car on fire on the side of the M40 a week ago. It was a total inferno. Very frightening to see.

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Only a half year or so ago, also in Sac, a Tesla which caught on fire (from a collision this time) and was extinguished, caught on fire again at the scrap yard, three weeks later.
So the firefighters dug a hole in the ground filled it with water and submerged the car in it to prevent it from catching on fire yet again.

I don’t know what automaker is going to replace Tesla as the biggest EV supplier but I know it needs to happen real soon.

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