| Author | Message | ||
     Sifo |
Third Tesla Model S Fire In Past 5 Weeks Breaks Out After Accident (Updated – Collision With Tow Hitch) | ||
| Hughlysses |
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| Just_ziptab |
Watch it,dammit....I have a Pinto!  | ||
| Fast1075 |
I was riding with a friend in his Pinto once. We stopped at a traffic light and got rear ended pretty hard. We didn't explode, but sitting on the curb waiting for EMS, we watched the gas from the ruptured tank run into the gutter. | ||
| Froggy |
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-fire Even if there is some potential issue with the Model S, the safest car ever tested, they will square it away quickly. The batteries are sensitive but there are safeguards in place to prevent any potential fire, but just like a gas vehicle, a ruptured fuel source can cause a fire. | ||
| Sifo |
That equates to 1 vehicle fire for every 20 million miles driven, compared to Seems that quote is a bit dated, even if only a few weeks old. The statistics are quickly turning upside down for the Tesla. | ||
| Sifo |
Every time a person signs up on ObamaCare, a Tesla burns up. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I was riding with a friend in his Pinto once. We stopped at a traffic light and got rear ended pretty hard. We didn't explode, but sitting on the curb waiting for EMS, we watched the gas from the ruptured tank run into the gutter. IIRC, Lee Iacocca was blamed for ignoring the potential problem with the 1st generation of Pintos as he didn't want to increase the cost of the car. My wife owned a 1st generation (before we met) and a second generation one (that had the factory "fix" to prevent fires) when we got married. The fix to keep the cars from catching on fire was ludicrously simple. The cause of the fires during rear impacts was that the rear axle had a bolt on cover on the center member that had a sharp edge that was turned outward toward the back of the car. The muffler was immediately adjacent to the gas tank on the passenger side of the car. In a rear impact, the gas tank got shoved into the axle, the sharp edge on the center member cover sliced into it, and gas sprayed onto the hot muffler, and BOOM, fire. The fix was to install a ~12" wide, 1/4" thick piece of plastic between the gas tank and the axle (to keep the cover from shearing into the gas tank), and to mount a sheet metal heat shield between the gas tank and the muffler. The parts couldn't have cost $20. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
My father told me that there was an electrical part of the pinto fires. He said if you were "lucky", the wiring harness would be mashed into steel near the spray of gasoline vapor. People are picking on the Teslas more because they are expensive and there are not that many out there. If I crash my wife's corolla into something and it catches fire, do you think that would make the papers? The bottom line is this: If you're going to store enough energy to move you and a steel box 300 miles away, setting it all off at once is dangerous. (but cool to watch from a distance) | ||
| Hootowl |
I'd rather be in a burning Tesla than a burning gasoline powered car. Pretty sure the battery isn't going to go boom. Just saying. | ||
| Sifo |
There was nothing electrical about the Pinto fires. I had one that was fixed in the recall. It was pretty much exactly what Hughlysses stated. My neighbor had a Mustang II back then. Looked to be the exact same setup, but fewer were produced, so fewer fires, so no attention. The problem with batteries is that when damaged, the self ignite. Gas can spray all over the place and not ignite. My '72 Ranchero did that when rear ended by a semi on the expressway. Gas was everywhere, including on the inside of the windshield. I had just filled up about 15 minutes before getting hit too. Full load of fuel. Never caught fire though, even with the rear axle knocked out from under the car. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
I put on a bunch of those Pinto kits. It was the shields and a filler neck. I had a 71 Pinto at the time and was the 3rd owner . . . . and the first one in the area to get the recall notice.From what I heard,Ford got caught with some testing paperwork...but Chevy didn't with their Vega... that doesn't have any protection for it's same mounted gas tank........so they went after the Chevy pick up with side frame tanks. What started the whole Pinto dealio was one that was parked on the side of the road with passengers on board and got squarely creamed in the ass by a speeding semi...north of 80 mph. | ||
| Kenm123t |
How did Tesla rack up 100 million miles there are not that many on the road and the short range. Lets see the source of the info. | ||
| Griffmeister |
If anything, the original Mustang was much worse than the Pinto. It had a "drop-in" gas tank that actually made up part of the trunk floor. In a rear end collision with a tank rupture gas was sprayed inside the passenger compartment. Talk about a hot time in the old town tonight.  | ||
| Blake |
Ken, they're selling over 20,000 vehicles per year. Tesla is getting it done and right here at home in America too. Awesome. They are providing the drivetrain for the impending Mercedes electric car. http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/11/0 5/live-tesla-beats-expectations-on-record-sales-in vestors-decide-to-sell-anyway/ Very interesting. | ||
| Pwnzor |
There are a few of them around here in North Georgia that I see on a regular basis... they are sweet looking cars. As far as the danger aspect, well... you could get killed walking your doggie. I just don't see it as being overly risky. Electric car. Accept the fact you are riding a big box full of reacting chemicals. You're almost as likely to be shot by a sniper as be killed by some battery-related incident. I have no facts or figures to back that up, other than my own mental figgerin' | ||
| Hughlysses |
I think Tesla had a genius idea when they first started the company. They knew that developing the lightest, most energy-dense, longest lasting, fastest charging batteries was the key to making an electric car work well and that this would take a LOT of expensive R&D work. Then they thought "Is there another industry that's already working hard at this?" The answer was yes- laptop computer manufacturers. So Teslas were designed around using banks of laptop computer batteries. "Off-the-shelf" technology, readily available, meets all the other criteria, undergoing constant development and improvement, and comes in standard configurations. Settling on this as their power source, they were able to devote their efforts to developing the car, rather than the batteries. Pretty damn smart. (Message edited by Hughlysses on November 08, 2013) | ||
| Griffmeister |
As a matter of fact, weren't some computers setting "laps" on fire just a couple of years ago? | ||
| Fahren |
Yeah, but my laptop computer gets great mileage! | ||
| Hootowl |
"weren't some computers setting "laps" on fire just a couple of years ago" That depends on what web sites you were visiting  | ||
| Hootowl |
And I'm sorry, but Elon Musk sounds more like a fragrance than a CEO.  Maybe it's just me. | ||
| Etennuly |
Hoot.....Gas verses battery in a wreck? You obviously have never seen a battery go BOOM! I worked for a guy who blew the top off a car battery. He was glad that I happened to be there that day, and for what ever reason I thought to grab a water hose and flush the acid off from his head and face right away. He was most fortunate to have the upper part of the battery miss his head as it impacted into the 12'high ceiling above him. This can happen to dry cell batteries also. | ||
| Hootowl |
Yeah, they go boom, but they don't spray flammable liquid all over me in the process. If the power source is going to explode, and I get to choose which one I'm next to when it happens, I'm pretty sure I'd pick the battery. | ||
| Sifo |
Here's what a small battery in a phone looks like when it goes. Imagine a lap top battery that's bigger than the entire phone. Now scale that up to a battery that powers a car for 100 miles or so. I don't want to be anywhere near that. Neither do EMTs.  http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c04_1373813925 Also, you can see a fuel leak. You have no idea when a battery is likely to go up. | ||
| Kenm123t |
Blake I didn't know how many they sold I want one When I can find a Bricked one it has nice lines. A 3.5 Ford twin Turbo would perfect for that car. I see 2 every day on I 95 heading to Palm Beach from Jupiter Island. Talked to one of the owners he said its a great car but he calls it his long day car. He said he has to wait till 6:30 Pm to head home other wise it will not make it home. | ||
| Hootowl |
Yeah, you can see a fuel leak...while trapped in the burning wreck that was your car. Has a modern electric car battery ever exploded? I mean, really gone BOOM? I've never heard of an instance. Tanks full of gasoline on the other hand, while rarely going boom, leak fuel and catch the entire car on fire with the occupants still inside. I'm no advocate of the electric car. I believe them to be ultimately less efficient with a higher upfront cost. That may change, but right now electric cars run on fossil fuel. But if I HAD to be in a car that was about to have its power source go bonkers, I'd rather be in the electric car. | ||
| Sifo |
Has a modern electric car battery ever exploded? I mean, really gone BOOM? I've never heard of an instance. Decide for youself. "Explosion" is just about burn rate. It's pretty relative. | ||
| Sifo |
BTW, as NBC discovered, it's not as easy to make a gas tank go boom as they thought. | ||
| Hootowl |
Sifo, that's a fire. Where's the boom? Where is the immolated passenger compartment seconds after the explosion? If you're referring to the pickup truck fire fraud, I agree, it was harder than they thought. Gas burns. That's why we use it in cars. If the battery catches on fire, even if it does so rapidly, I've got time to get away. Rampant oxidation simply does not occur at the same rate in a battery as it does in gasoline. Do you really think the reverse is true? | ||
| Sifo |
Sifo, that's a fire. Where's the boom? About 14 seconds into the video. Of course we don't see how the fire developed initially. If the battery catches on fire, even if it does so rapidly, I've got time to get away. Rampant oxidation simply does not occur at the same rate in a battery as it does in gasoline. Do you really think the reverse is true? Did you watch the video with the cell phone? http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c04_1373813925 |
