Originally published at: When Tesla burst into flames mid-ride, driver was told to bring burned heap to a service center (video) | Boing Boing
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Not the type of “burnout” you want in your car. 
Edit for smaller gif.
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“You need to bring it to a service center.”
“Welp, you’re the boss.”
Gets out and sends it to service center on autopilot. Screams into the glass windows while on fire.
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I think I am missing something, but isn’t this a car insurance situation to deal with not Tesla*
or for that matter if any car caught on fire your insurance deals with it and maybe the manufacturer the insurance and maybe the government have a conversation ?
- Not a tesla fan or Elon “pedo guy” musk fan
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Good question. It may be that the insurance company told him to contact the Tesla, as this is certainly some sort of manufacturing/design defect. I’m sure the insurance company doesn’t want to pay out for Tesla’s crap standards.
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When my sister’s Dodge Colt burned down to bare steel after bursting into flame on I-95, we had to get a flatbed tow truck to take it to the insurance company’s evaluation center. As I recall, it was literally one phone call.
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That’s the insurance company’s problem. They are free to sue Tesla to recoup their losses (and insurance companies do sue each other and other companies all the time for this) but they have to cover it regardless.
It may be that he called the insurance company and they’re handling things, but then he also called Tesla just to see what they’d say. All this accomplished was stressing out some poor call centre employee in India whose script does not cover this situation. I don’t what he thought they would do for him.
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Yah the whole “how can I drive my wrecked car to X” part of this story is a bit melodramatic. People bring undriveable cars places all the time. It’s what flatbed tow trucks are for.
It sucks that his car caught fire and I’m glad he’s okay, but call the insurance company, they’ll write it off, and get you a new one. This kind of thing does happen.
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I’m not entirely convinced this is an insurance issue. If the car just spontaneously caught fire, and it’s still under warranty, that’s a manufacturer issue, not the insurance company. Like, if I had a brand new car, and the engine wouldn’t start, I’m not calling my insurance company because that’s not their issue. If the fire was caused by an accident or some other external source, I would agree it’s up to your insurance company to deal with.
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Yah, that’s true- if it might be a warranty issue, you would indeed need to call the dealership.
Then call a tow truck. His ranting to the CS rep about how he can’t drive it still grinds my gears. Dude, most car failures render the car undriveable. Call a tow truck. It’s why we invented them.
I feel bad for the guy that his car burned to the ground and I’m sure that was very scary and I’m generally first in line for the periodic Let’s Drag Tesla Party here, but the way this guy talks reeks of privilege. Like someone who’s never had a lot of car trouble because they’ve always driven brand new cars.
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Oh, good, just in time for wildfire season. 
I wonder who would be liable if one of these infernos set one off, the company or the car driver/owner?
For sure. Like…the person at customer service didn’t personally build the car, nor do they make policy or procedure. They’re just trying to do their job. I sometimes find myself getting angry at customer service for whatever, especially Xfinity’s, but I try to stop myself and remind myself that they didn’t cause my cable problem and they aren’t management.
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Someone really needs to do a real study on this some time, because people keep quoting the AutoInsuranceEZ numbers, but they don’t seem to have a lot of merit to them.
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Oh, not that bullshit again. It’s been debunked, what? half a dozen times?
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I would appreciate a pointer to a debunking, then.
The link @chenille provided is interesting, but basically it just seems to be saying that since the author doesn’t know anyone who’s had a car fire, the national highway traffic safety administration (source for the EZInsurance numbers) must be lying.
If you read it, it also says the NHTSA was not actually the source for the numbers, and it’s not clear where they came from. So given they don’t seem to check out, it would be nice to have a pointer to something establishing them as at all trustworthy.
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Search the BBS for “tesla fire” threads. It’s been debunked here many times. In detail.
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