Tesla Model S Engulfed In Flames During Worst Test Drive Ever

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Tesla sure knows how to do a test drive! Bring some hot dogs, marshmallows and beer to kick the party off right (please make sure the car has come to a complete stop and fully engulfed in flames before consuming any alcohol)! All joking aside, as fast as that thing went up, they should be thankful no one was hurt.

The fire yesterday happened during a test drive in the south of France, with the test driver, his girlfriend, and a Tesla employee in the car. “We were going about 70 km/h (43 mph) on the Boulevard d’Aritxague in Bayonne, we heard a loud noise inside the car,” he told local newspaper Sud-Ouest (our translation). “The [Tesla employee] told me to pull over. She wanted to call Tesla before continuing the test drive. The car was in flames within a minute,” he told a reporter, and “destroyed within five minutes.”
 
Battery fires are awesome, especially in Battle Bots but not so much in your Tesla. It's kinda crazy that they don't have any failsafes in place in case of a lion fire, seriously.
 
thesmokingman said:
Battery fires are awesome, especially in Battle Bots but not so much in your Tesla. It's kinda crazy that they don't have any failsafes in place in case of a lion fire, seriously.
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You'd think the car would detect the fire and warn the passengers.

We haven't heard of two many battery fires since they put the titanium plates in. I'm curious what the cause for this one is.

Salesperson should have played it off like the driver accidentally engaged the espionage self-destruct mode and closed the sale. Amateur.
 
Dang.

That sounds just like my Dodge Nitro. It went from check engine light to full blown flames within 1 minute and I was driving it down the highway going 75mph. Pretty sure the flames were going under the hood for a good while before the check engine light turned on.

Edit with obligatory pic:

387174_10150587165545016_1629004499_n.jpg
 
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The batteries the Tesla's use are the 18650 you find in every electronic device. Makes you wonder.

Tesla-Motors-battery-cell.jpg
 
Quix said:
It's good no one was injured.



There are a lot of measures to prevent and control fires, and a gas fire is not an explosion.
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None of the Tesla fireballs "exploded", they just burn up. Also having witnessed two car fires and an RV fire (which was crazy!), I am not seeing those fire prevention and control systems work terribly well for gas cars. Vehicles are full of flammable materials, both gas and electric.
 
DukenukemX said:
The batteries the Tesla's use are the 18650 you find in every electronic device. Makes you wonder.
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How do you mean 'makes you wonder'?

Tesla has been very open about their battery packs and never once admitted to them being anything other than hundreds of laptop batteries strapped together. The failure here was catastrophic for sure since they have all sorts of thermal precautions on the battery packs even if they are ruptured.
 
Tesla should redesign the pack to eject off the bottom in the case of catastrophic failure... then use some sort of capacitor system on the motors to take the strain of sudden spikes off the battery. Also perhaps design the pack to self smother the battery fires it could develop or the pack itself can contain the fires... I donno maybe make it super modular and if a bank of cells has a issue just part of the battery could eject off the car...
 
Quix said:
It's good no one was injured.



There are a lot of measures to prevent and control fires, and a gas fire is not an explosion.
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Nothing exploded, and took some time after pulling over for the fire to spread. As for measures to prevent and control fires, I assume you have very little to no experience working on cars? Fuel tanks are simple metal or plastic, there are no other active fire suppression systems in place on cars that are not in place on a Tesla.
 
The scariest thing is how quick it happened. Atleast in a traditional vehicle, the fire is likely to come from the engine bay and there'll be ample warning that there's a problem. That's pretty much why the firewall is called what it is. When you've got the point of ignition under the entire vehicle and all you hear is a small pop before the entire thing becomes immolated in under a minute, it raises some questions.
 
There are not many Of those Tesla cars out there. If there as many as gas or diesel then there would be alot more fires. I would not buy one intil it rates as non going to catch on fire as gas cars lol. I tow heavy anyway.
 
Extra-Titanian said:
The scariest thing is how quick it happened. Atleast in a traditional vehicle, the fire is likely to come from the engine bay and there'll be ample warning that there's a problem. That's pretty much why the firewall is called what it is. When you've got the point of ignition under the entire vehicle and all you hear is a small pop before the entire thing becomes immolated in under a minute, it raises some questions.
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Having been in almost the exact situation myself (see above), I can tell you that it can happen just as quickly with a gas car. Like myself, this car was lucky to be in a spot that was easy to get out of. By stroke of luck, I just happened to have needed gas and was already in the exit lane when my check engine light turned on. If I decided to fill up my gas tank before I left for my 250 mile drive, I would have been stuck, on a highway with traffic, in a car that was on fire.

This is a bit scarier though considering just how volatile a ruptured lithium ion battery is (and the fact that it literally lines the bottom of the entire length of the car) and I have a feeling things would have been very different if the Tesla employee had not been in the car to advise.

1/2bent's concern up there about the low percentage of Tesla's out there is pretty worrisome when it comes to the reliability of these battery packs as a whole. Hopefully they can figure out a way to minimize not only the cause of the fire but the damage done around the vehicle itself. That's quite a raging fireball.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Nothing exploded, and took some time after pulling over for the fire to spread. As for measures to prevent and control fires, I assume you have very little to no experience working on cars? Fuel tanks are simple metal or plastic, there are no other active fire suppression systems in place on cars that are not in place on a Tesla.
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Let's see... there are about a 400-500 million gas cars on the US roads vs a few thousand Teslas. Compare the rate of fires -> Teslas are matchboxes on wheels. With the amount of Teslas built they should not statistically burn more than once in a few hundred years.
 
B00nie said:
Let's see... there are about a 400-500 million gas cars on the US roads vs a few thousand Teslas. Compare the rate of fires -> Teslas are matchboxes on wheels. With the amount of Teslas built they should not statistically burn more than once in a few hundred years.
Click to expand...

If every car fire was reported on the news like Tesla fire, you wouldn't even notice the small number of Tesla fires.
 
Sonicks said:
Dang.

That sounds just like my Dodge Nitro. It went from check engine light to full blown flames within 1 minute and I was driving it down the highway going 75mph. Pretty sure the flames were going under the hood for a good while before the check engine light turned on.

Edit with obligatory pic:
Click to expand...
You realize Check Engine Light means stop, now. Most people ignore it now because thanks to the government, specifically the epa, if your emissions go a bit out of whack it sets the same code because the tree huggers wanted you to treat it the same as an imminent failure and immediately stop. Kind of like setting the fire alarm off if someone doesn't recycle. So the majority of check engine lights are emissions warnings that if you ignore, you wouldn't notice. So everyone's learned to ignore check engine. You should only do that if you have a code reader and you know you're getting an emission code (most likely 02 sensor) often.
 
jpm100 said:
You realize Check Engine Light means stop, now. Most people ignore it now because thanks to the government, specifically the epa, if your emissions go a bit out of whack it sets the same code because the tree huggers wanted you to treat it the same as an imminent failure and immediately stop. Kind of like setting the fire alarm off if someone doesn't recycle. So the majority of check engine lights are emissions warnings that if you ignore, you wouldn't notice. So everyone's learned to ignore check engine. You should only do that if you have a code reader and you know you're getting an emission code (most likely 02 sensor) often.
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Well, an alarm is only useful if it raises alarm. If it's akin to Homer Simpson's "Everything is Okay" alarm, its kind-of useless.
 
Extra-Titanian said:
The scariest thing is how quick it happened. Atleast in a traditional vehicle, the fire is likely to come from the engine bay and there'll be ample warning that there's a problem. That's pretty much why the firewall is called what it is. When you've got the point of ignition under the entire vehicle and all you hear is a small pop before the entire thing becomes immolated in under a minute, it raises some questions.
Click to expand...

Never been in a car fire have you? You think a minute is short, but a gas fire that can engulf the car in seconds is somehow better? The firewall is nothing more than a bulkhead of sheet metal just like any other part of the car, the Tesla has far more in place to contain fires. The engine bay, and under the car and fuel tank under the car can all catch fire. At least they had a sound warning (probably hit something like the others), while in gas cars you often have nothing but smoke and flames as a warning. If you are going to try and talk about how poor one design or type is, please understand what you are comparing it to and not just hearsay.

1/2 bent said:
There are not many Of those Tesla cars out there. If there as many as gas or diesel then there would be alot more fires. I would not buy one intil it rates as non going to catch on fire as gas cars lol. I tow heavy anyway.
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EV fires are already lower than ICE fires sooooo.......?
 
Lunas said:
Tesla should redesign the pack to eject off the bottom in the case of catastrophic failure... then use some sort of capacitor system on the motors to take the strain of sudden spikes off the battery. Also perhaps design the pack to self smother the battery fires it could develop or the pack itself can contain the fires... I donno maybe make it super modular and if a bank of cells has a issue just part of the battery could eject off the car...
Click to expand...

So that way instead of just endangering one car...all the cars travelling on a road suddenly have to play dodgeball at speed with a ticking flammable timebomb dropped in the middle of it?

Think about that a bit more.
 
jpm100 said:
You realize Check Engine Light means stop, now. Most people ignore it now because thanks to the government, specifically the epa, if your emissions go a bit out of whack it sets the same code because the tree huggers wanted you to treat it the same as an imminent failure and immediately stop. Kind of like setting the fire alarm off if someone doesn't recycle. So the majority of check engine lights are emissions warnings that if you ignore, you wouldn't notice. So everyone's learned to ignore check engine. You should only do that if you have a code reader and you know you're getting an emission code (most likely 02 sensor) often.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, I literally was exiting when it turned on and I thought "oh, I'll check this out in the next minute when I get gas". Not to mention this truck was only 2 years old and barely had 45k miles on it so I didn't think much of it.

I'm no stranger to cars man, but it going up in flames within 60 seconds of that light going on was something else and you cannot fault me, or ANYONE, for thinking it would be anything more than some minor-to-medium issue to look into.

The picture I posted was about 30 seconds after I stopped and ran away from it and thank goodness there was a cop following behind me (and I'm also lucky that I didn't make it to the gas station I was heading to) that must have noticed smoke coming from my car as I drove it. The fire dept was on the scene no more than 5 minutes after I stopped but by then the truck was toast and so was everything I had in there since I was moving back up to Denton, TX to finish up my last semester of college.
 
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B00nie said:
Let's see... there are about a 400-500 million gas cars on the US roads vs a few thousand Teslas. Compare the rate of fires -> Teslas are matchboxes on wheels. With the amount of Teslas built they should not statistically burn more than once in a few hundred years.
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Under 300 million actually, and it comes to miles driven, not number of cars, Tesla also has around 150 thousand cars on the road, not just "a few thousand". The fire rate of miles driven for Tesla's to ICE has already been looked at...many MANY times, and at current standing, Tesla's have a 3 times LESS likely chance of catching fire than an ICE. It has also been found that EV fires are less dangerous as the fires that have happened with ALL EVs has resulted in no deaths or the like, while ICE fires have a pretty high number. Many of the fires that have happened with Tesla's were charging related (not by the car) or from crashes.

The fear mongering around EVs is sometimes quite shocking. I would expect more research and understanding from people on a tech forum.
 
jpm100 said:
You realize Check Engine Light means stop, now. Most people ignore it now because thanks to the government, specifically the epa, if your emissions go a bit out of whack it sets the same code because the tree huggers wanted you to treat it the same as an imminent failure and immediately stop. Kind of like setting the fire alarm off if someone doesn't recycle. So the majority of check engine lights are emissions warnings that if you ignore, you wouldn't notice. So everyone's learned to ignore check engine. You should only do that if you have a code reader and you know you're getting an emission code (most likely 02 sensor) often.
Click to expand...

Many wrenches I know give this advice:

A) If the Check Engine light is solid, get it checked...but you're likely not in eminent risk

B) Check Engine Light is flashing...you're f*cked. Stop the car. Now.
 
jpm100 said:
You realize Check Engine Light means stop, now. Most people ignore it now because thanks to the government, specifically the epa, if your emissions go a bit out of whack it sets the same code because the tree huggers wanted you to treat it the same as an imminent failure and immediately stop. Kind of like setting the fire alarm off if someone doesn't recycle. So the majority of check engine lights are emissions warnings that if you ignore, you wouldn't notice. So everyone's learned to ignore check engine. You should only do that if you have a code reader and you know you're getting an emission code (most likely 02 sensor) often.
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Says the check engine light means stop now, goes on to explain that it really doesn't...
 
Tawnos said:
Why?
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I'm thinking the same thing....That is a rather odd thing to hope for...

Maybe he works for big oil? Or maybe, like Trump supporters, he's afraid of what he can't conceptually grasp (yes, I just got politics involved, but it's a JOKE).

It's odd for someone to hope for failure when the end result only benefits us with more choices.
 
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B00nie said:
Let's see... there are about a 400-500 million gas cars on the US roads vs a few thousand Teslas. Compare the rate of fires -> Teslas are matchboxes on wheels. With the amount of Teslas built they should not statistically burn more than once in a few hundred years.
Click to expand...

i work across the street from a tow yard. I've seen 15 burned out vehicles in the last month, that's just the ones I've noticed, mind you. none were EV, so..
 
thesmokingman said:
Battery fires are awesome, especially in Battle Bots but not so much in your Tesla. It's kinda crazy that they don't have any failsafes in place in case of a lion fire, seriously.
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Lithium fires burn pretty hot and catch nearby batteries on fire. Water actually makes it worse. Not like pouring water on gas is smart either... but it's often a persons first reaction.

Generally looks like a torch. The batteries should be monitored for temperature. I once read Tesla's were water cooled. I'd be surprised if there's no warning?
 
Dayaks said:
Lithium fires burn pretty hot and catch nearby batteries on fire. Water actually makes it worse. Not like pouring water on gas is smart either... but it's often a persons first reaction.

Generally looks like a torch.
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They're very different animals. But it also depends on what exactly one is dealing with...

Lithium metal (read non-rechargeable) batteries need a Class D Lith-X fire extinguisher....but Lithium-Ion batteries (read rechargeable ones) can be put out with an ABC extinguisher, if you can get close enough fast enough, since they don't contain metallic lithium.
 
Skripka said:
So that way instead of just endangering one car...all the cars travelling on a road suddenly have to play dodgeball at speed with a ticking flammable timebomb dropped in the middle of it?

Think about that a bit more.
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Sounds like a real life Mario cart game :D
 
Vercinaigh said:
i work across the street from a tow yard. I've seen 15 burned out vehicles in the last month, that's just the ones I've noticed, mind you. none were EV, so..
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And I'm sure most of them where old cars, not new cars on a test drive.

Most car fires (ice) are due to a leak in the gas line, either due to a seal failing, or physical damage. Smaller amount are due to electrical shorts, but they usually don't cause the car to go up in flames in minutes.
 
nutzo said:
And I'm sure most of them where old cars, not new cars on a test drive.

Most car fires (ice) are due to a leak in the gas line, either due to a seal failing, or physical damage. Smaller amount are due to electrical shorts, but they usually don't cause the car to go up in flames in minutes.
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And of course the ever popular ex-girlfriend...
 
BlueFireIce said:
Nothing exploded, and took some time after pulling over for the fire to spread. As for measures to prevent and control fires, I assume you have very little to no experience working on cars? Fuel tanks are simple metal or plastic, there are no other active fire suppression systems in place on cars that are not in place on a Tesla.
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Actually there's very little gas under the hood. A few oz and that's it. The only time you see a gas fire is there's a leak in the line and it's spitting out gas and it somehow ignites. It's usually not that case though.

Oil on the other hand, you'll have 5-6 quarts for engine oil, 5-6 quarts gear oil (or ATF), power steering fluid, few oz for brake fluid, and a few oz for clutch fluid. It's pretty much all oil and all flammable. Have any of it leak on the hottest portion of the exhaust and that thing will light right up.

Oil leaks are more common, cause there's so many locations that require oil. It's usually a gasket that needs replacing every 50-100k miles and the owner simply never gets that preventative maintenance. They instead wait until a problem happens (like an oil leak), before getting it fixed.
 
Ocellaris said:
If every car fire was reported on the news like Tesla fire, you wouldn't even notice the small number of Tesla fires.
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Sorry but I haven't seen a car burn more than 1-2 times in my entire life if you rule out the deliberately torched insurance frauds and vandalism. Car fires are extremely rare, spontaneous (not a direct result of a collision to an 18-wheeler etc) car fires even more so.

I personally had a Mercedes CDI diesel that went to a diesel pump gasket replacement. The tard at the shop didn't tighten the high pressure diesel line properly and it popped off after 100 miles of highway driving and squirted diesel directly on the exhaust manifold / turbo. The result was a bit of diesel vapor coming from the hot parts - no flame.
 
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