I'm glad the driver is safe. However, I'm not sure what posting this letter is supposed to accomplish other than show that the driver is still a Tesla supporter. The remainder of the letter seems to be (potentially) counterproductive in that it describes that the car being on fire wasn't as dangerous as it sounds. Tesla isn't going to be able to tackle a perception problem by promoting safety features of the car when in flames.
Amusing how positive stories about tesla take the top spot on HN while news of the fire was quickly flagged off the front page.<p>Not to question what was said here, but:<p>> Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm.<p>How is that the case? There are cars that are higher off the ground than a Tesla (where it wouldn't have a chance to punch through the floor) and most cars have material in the undercarriage to protect against small blows like this ...
We're reading this on Tesla's site, and they obviously wouldn't have posted it if it weren't at least somewhat flattering, so we have that lens to view it through.<p>But, the letter does raise the important idea that before we decry how awful the failure mode is ("the car caught on <i>fire</i>!"), it's worth considering what the alternative would be---what happens in similar situations in combustion engines?
I love Teslas. If I had the disposable money (and the need of a fulltime car) I'd buy a Model S without hesitation. I think Elon Musk is a brilliant entrepreneur.<p>But this is tripe. I can smell PR and sanitized wordsmithing when I see it--and this post reeks. If that wasn't obvious by the medium of this post--The Official Tesla Blog.<p>Gee, how did it get up there? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, at some point in time the author was in contact with Tesla's PR department? And do you think Tesla PR decided to let someone post something with no oversight whatsoever? And this post just happened to be perfectly on message with the talking points Tesla PR had drafted up?<p>For all we know, every word of this is true, but in this format (a very defensive post on the Tesla Blog giving a 100% pro-Tesla version of the events), Tesla has no credibility. Why not have this person write about this in the user forums and then link to it from the official blog with a foreword from Elon?
I'm a big Tesla fan. I'd like to buy one. I like that they're changing our dependency upon gasoline vehicles. I like that they're taking big chances. Having said that, I find their communication style at times to be very disappointing. I hate the weird inference of "Thank God I was in my Tesla and <i>only</i> caught on fire. It would have been much worse in another car" Why do they have to do that? What proof do they have? They've had 3 car fires in the last 5 weeks out of 19,000 units on the road. Stop trying to turn a negative into some sort of positive. We get it's new technology. There probably will be things that need straightened out. The way they positioned their lease was cheesy. This is now cheesy II. Just say<p>"We take this VERY seriously. We don't think there is any structural issues here but we will continue to investigate. Rest assured if the data points to any possible issues we'll be fully transparent and make any adjustments necessary to ensure the safety of our customers." Not some hack rah rah piece on their blog.
I wonder, if Tesla were to harden the protective shield of the battery pack and issue a recall for the existing vehicles, they could just deploy the new battery packs through the automatic battery swapping facilities in the supercharging stations.<p>The costs would probably be much lower than normal car recalls, and it would also be an interesting value proposition for the owners: "zero downtime, you get for free a safer car <i>and</i> a fresh battery".<p>Anyway, the more I hear about Model S the more it looks like an exceptional engineering feat.
He hit something at freeway speeds that lifted his car into the air yet continued driving, even after he was alerted the collision had caused significant damage to his car?
I mentioned this in another thread about this incident. I was driving a mid 80's Volvo 850 in the early 2000's, and while turning around, I managed to run over a wheel stop and impale my car's oil pan on a piece of rebar sticking out from the top of the wheel stop. From what I remember, the oil pan on that particular year of Volvo station wagon was made out of aluminum of about the same thickness as the battery casing.<p>If an aluminum wall vessel like that is going to encounter a pointy piece of steel with all of the car's momentum behind it, the steel is going through! No getting around it. No designing around it. It's just physics.<p>There was no fire, but this resulted in all of the oil leaving my car's engine. <i>All of the oil.</i> No fire, but it created a situation where I could have wrecked the car and needed to pull over and stop the engine immediately, which I did only because I spotted the trail of oil in the rear view mirror. I never got a warning. In contrast, the Tesla told the driver something was up. IMO, the Tesla system was in better control of its incident and provided clearer and better information.
This does make me wonder if the shape of the Tesla's underbody (very flat [1]) is such that debris is more likely to make a direct rather than glancing impact. Perhaps Tesla should take a leaf out medieval armor design and add more contour to the bottom of their car so that it can shed impacts more successfully.<p>[1] <a href="http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/non-make/fe/fe_9171228_600.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/non-make/fe/fe_9171228_600...</a>
This reminds me of an accident in Illinois a decade ago, in which a couple lost all six of their children after running over a mud flap bracket that had fallen off of a semi.<p>The circumstances sound very much like the case described in the link -- the large piece of debris pierced the gas tank and generated sparks, igniting the vehicle in a matter of seconds.<p>(link at <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-11-10/news/9411100233_1_van-wreck-duane-scott-willis-gas-tank" rel="nofollow">http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-11-10/news/941110023...</a>)<p>Who knows exactly how an ICE vehicle would have performed in the current circumstance, or how a Tesla would have performed in the Illinois accident, but it's fair to say that a collision at speed with a large piece of road debris can easily destroy a car and prove fatal to the occupants.
The other discussions about comparing and contrasting the energy densities and relative safeties of fuel versus high-density batteries are interesting and relevant to safety considerations.<p>The car, at this early stage of its evolution, handling the situation as elegantly as it did is just amazing.<p>However the various safety-related tradeoffs play out, it's obvious that the Model S is seriously and well engineered at every level.<p>I imagine the good folks in Palo Alto are already folding updates into the system. "Shit's on fire, yo! Pull over."
I don't understand how this is supposed to bolster Tesla's image.<p>The fact that the car alerted him to the fact that it was going to <i>combust</i> does not mean that it is OK that the car combusted.
Is this the sort of thing that the guy ran over?<p><a href="http://image.made-in-china.com/43f34j00uKJEycPnlgbk/Triple-Ball-Trailer-Hitch-Mount-with-U.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://image.made-in-china.com/43f34j00uKJEycPnlgbk/Triple-B...</a>
<i>I am thankful to God that I was totally uninjured in any way from this impact. Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm.</i><p>Oh <i>really</i> now, isn't this laying it on just a <i>tad</i> thick? How often does this happen? There's junk like this on the road <i>all the time</i> - how often are drivers and passengers actually shish-kabobed by any of it?<p>Tesla's damage-control, image-wise, is surely the envy of industry everywhere, though.
Water? On an electrical fire? Caused by Lithium-based chemistry? Not smart?<p>Tesla's make up less than 0.008% of the US passenger car fleet. Perhaps emergency workers are simply not aware of how to properly deal with electric vehicle accidents? Formula 1 had to deal with this as KERS starter to be introduced. I would be nowhere near a 375 Volt DC battery pack playing with water.
My first car was an early 80's Jeep Grand Cherokee that had been 'modified' by a previous owner. Whoever it was had ripped off anything that might have been EPA mandated, and had then pounded bolts into the vacant holes left in the exhaust manifold. It took months for my father, grandfather, and I to figure out where all the vacuum hoses should go, in order to get it to pass inspection. Even after extensive repairs, well beyond I've described here, the thing would bleed quart after quart of oil as it went down the road.<p>It still did alright for a while, but eventually caught on fire. It happened spontaneously and without warning, while driving home in the snow. No impacts or anything, the thing just overheated and went up in flames.<p>The reporting on these Tesla events make the vehicle sound like my $1 anti-EPA Jeep, but I think it is pretty clear there are a few differences.
You are holding it wrong, don't drive it over large metal objects at high speed.<p>I love the boldness of the Tesla, I'm truly impressed by the PR skill of Mr Musk and his team. Let's hope they have enough data now to diagnose.
Does anyone know what actually cought fire? Can batteries catch fire due to being struck like that? If so, why did it take 5 minutes and how did the car electronics know about it beforehand?
I ask the engineers here, how can the fires be prevented/mitigated?<p>- A different armor plate (titanium? kevlar?)
- An automatic fire extinguishing system, perhaps piping grid inside the battery compartment that can feed a cooling agent to the damaged cell?<p>Is price the only constrain? Cost benefit?
Is there literally any reason to believe that Tesla's are more predisposed to catching on fire? Surely hundreds of cars burn and some explode in the U.S. every day. Where are the apologies from their manufacturers?
These cars can raise and lower the suspension, right?<p>Might be useful to have it use scanning LiDAR and detect debris in the road, raise the vehicle when appropriate. They're working on a self-driving model, why not build that in.