Tesla Fire tracks the company's spontaneous combustion problem

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Originally published at: Tesla Fire tracks the company's spontaneous combustion problem | Boing Boing

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Shouldn’t they be mandating some sort of ‘fire suppressing airbag’ --if you will-- flanking the battery compartments in electric vehicles by now?

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Really, this again? Neither the Bureau of Transportation Statistics nor the National Transportation Safety Board keep stats on fires by engine type. Why do respectable outlets insist on spreading un-sourced, unverifiable claims from AutoInsuranceEZ.com as though they’re reliable experts?

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Wow, that is some of the worst passive voice I’ve ever heard. The driver is responsible for what the car does. It’s bad enough we have to accept “car accidents” and “the driver lost control” in our lexicon. Drivers crash cars, and drivers give up control.

Also why is a teenager driving a $100k car?

Such hypothetical technology does not exist. You can’t smother a lithium fire because they make their own oxygen. You can only put them out by using huge quantities of water to deny them heat.

In any case, this is all a temporary growing-pain problem. Newer lithium chemistries are not particularly prone to fire. Manufacturing on the new designs takes a long time to ramp up though.

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Scottsdale.

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Tesla, the American IED

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When my son left home with his car my teenage daughter would often drive the wife’s Model3 until she got her own car. Not a $100k car mind you.

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And also, the Lithium-Iron Phosphate (LFP) chemistry is not as energy dense as other Li-ion chemistry types.

I’ll have to echo John D. Clark’s advice regarding metal fires- “invest in a good pair of running shoes.”

(On a side note, If Wikipedia is to be trusted, Tesla is using mostly LFP battery packs on their post-2021 Model 3 standard range models. I still won’t buy one, though.)

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This FUD is a little tedious.

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I wasn’t talking about LiFePo4 batteries. I was talking about the new Silicon Anode batteries which have double the energy density of current ones and are starting to ramp up production now.

It’ll be a few years before we see these in cars, but they’re coming.

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My apologies, I was not aware of that chemistry type. Should be interesting once it gets ramped up and more broadly field tested.

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