Tesla Model S "Spontaneously" Erupts

You cant really put water on an oil fire either as it will just spread. Personally id rather deal with a lipo fire that stays in 1 place than a flammable liquid fire that can douse people and property.

Near where I live, there was a Tesla that was crashed into a tree. Major accident that damaged the battery.
The fire fighters worked all night to put out the fire, but it kept reigniting. They finally just let it burn till the following mid-day and once it was out they had it towed.
Later that night it caught fire again in the tow yard.

I have yet to see an ICE car have that level of fire problems after a crash.
 
They probably need special types of extinguishing compounds for this special purpose. Acidic bearing agents should work. Mild hydrochloric/boric acid compound maybe.
 
They probably need special types of extinguishing compounds for this special purpose. Acidic bearing agents should work. Mild hydrochloric/boric acid compound maybe.

They had the foam and other "recommended" extinguishing compounds, but the problem with these battery fires is that they provide their own fuel and are difficult to stop.
 
I normally defense Tesla in fires caused by accidents, but this is ridiculous. Unless the user was illegally modifying the car, which is probably unlikely, this shouldn't happen.

 
They had the foam and other "recommended" extinguishing compounds, but the problem with these battery fires is that they provide their own fuel and are difficult to stop.
Maybe a development of a different specialized extinguishing agent to neutralize the caustic electrolyte is what I was thinking.
 
You cant really put water on an oil fire either as it will just spread. Personally id rather deal with a lipo fire that stays in 1 place than a flammable liquid fire that can douse people and property.

Yes, but regular retardant will put out an oil fire as it requires air to burn. Lipos are a chemical fire that contains everything needed to burn on its own, and water/flame retardant does almost nothing. They just keep it cool until they burn themselves out.


I normally defense Tesla in fires caused by accidents, but this is ridiculous. Unless the user was illegally modifying the car, which is probably unlikely, this shouldn't happen.

It's all speculation until we get the facts about what happened. But this sure looks like a staged video from china to discredit tesla.....
 
Car manufacturers and professionals have shared what to do in case of fire. They've covered everything from turning the vehicle over to a wrecker/storage yard (brief the wrecker and yard personnel on the hazards and to place the battery-powered vehicle in a space away from other vehicles, buildings or combustibles) to having sufficient fire personnel and apparatus on scene for an extended operation to monitor the battery’s heat or possible re-ignition.
https://www.firerescue1.com/firefig...rs-need-to-know-about-electric-car-batteries/
 
Show me any instance where a properly maintained lipo battery has spontaneously erupted in flames.... I'll wait. If they aren't over/undercharged or punctured, they are not going to ignite and are far more safe than gas in a plastic tank.
You seem to misunderstand, because you are saying the same thing as me. I said a battery shouldn't erupt in flames unless it is punctured. That's why I said you'd damn well hope that the tesla in the images had some serious damage.

Also, what is a properly maintained battery? How can you improperly maintain a tesla's battery?
 
I am pretty sure they will find a dead short is what started the fire, a battery fire is not going to breach its enclosure that fast from smoke to fire.
 
the part that worries me is Tesla has placed these into the floor structure of the car so that in effect means any catastrophic damage to that part of the car will compromise the battery. we have already seem several examples of these things burning up after a significant impact
 
True, but compare that to equally significant impacts in a similar ICE vehicle. You can't have enough energy to move a couple of tons rapidly without some type of risk. In the (approx.) few hundred vehicle incidents I showed up to I saw about four fires, and they varied from small underhood to entire vehicle ablaze. At the end of the day, I think the batteries are reasonable armored from the impacts that have breached the containment...
 
the part that worries me is Tesla has placed these into the floor structure of the car so that in effect means any catastrophic damage to that part of the car will compromise the battery. we have already seem several examples of these things burning up after a significant impact

You miss the part that Teslas don't spontaneously combust. If there's a short that causes a fire, you have lots of time to get out of the car. In a petrol car, the whole thing erupts in flames.
 
you miss the part where one crashed into a tree killing the driver when it caught on fire because the doors would not open (no electrical power) Guess what started the fire....

 
The thread is about a Tesla battery "spontaneously combusting" yet we're discussing the results of people driving reckless enough to leave the road, flip/spin the vehicle, and knock down trees. If you're going to make a point about vehicle safety and design maybe don't use some sort of Dukes of Hazzard incident to do it.
 
you miss the part where one crashed into a tree killing the driver when it caught on fire because the doors would not open (no electrical power) Guess what started the fire....


They have a manual override to open them without power..... You missed the user error part.
 
you miss the part where one crashed into a tree killing the driver when it caught on fire because the doors would not open (no electrical power) Guess what started the fire....

Umm let me guess, hitting the tree?

The car has a manual door release for exactly this reason... the moron didn’t use it.
 
Umm let me guess, hitting the tree?

The car has a manual door release for exactly this reason... the moron didn’t use it.
lol you call the guy a moron but you do not even know if he was conscious or could even get to the manual door release...
 
lol you call the guy a moron but you do not even know if he was conscious or could even get to the manual door release...

Well, speed is a suspected factor to the collision. While not reliable, witnesses reported he was travelling 75 mph. Traveling that speed is pretty reckless on surface streets, so it could still qualify him to be a moron. It did, after all, result in a collision.
 
yes and cars typically do not burst into flames after impacts (well unless you are a tesla)
 
Umm let me guess, hitting the tree?

The car has a manual door release for exactly this reason... the moron didn’t use it.
Yeah lets not go around calling a guy who died in a car accident a moron. Remember, that man was someones Son, father, husband. How would you feel if someone blamed your father, and called him a moron, because he died in an accident?
 
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Yeah and lets not go around calling a guy who died in a car accident a moron. Remember, that man was someones Son, father, husband. How would you feel if someone blamed your father, and called him a moron, because he died in an accident?
slow down there new guy. where did anyone say that? those two that didn't know how to use the manual release in non accident situations were called morons.
 
Man... the entire pussification of today's modern society is astounding...

Yeah it sucks that stuff catches fire, people die, blah blah blah... but its like everyone has simultaneously forgotten the ugly 110 year history of ICE automobiles. At multiple points in history, vehicle engines have been notorious for starting fires and killing people, especially during times when performance or better emission standards have been pushed. Internal combustion engines catch fire all the freaking time, and people die in them all the time because upholstery and plastics burn like no tomorrow... speaking of which - if you have a car with snazzy heated seats, guess what is at risk of catching on fire...

My 2012 Chevy Cruze had a service recall not more than 2 months after I bought it brand new because they were catching fire after oil changes... the under-body pan was engineered a couple inches too close to the oil plug, and when the oil was being changed a bunch of it was caught by the pan and was being ignited by the catalytic converter, so the under-body pan around the oil plug had to be cut back to prevent oil from getting caught in there. Which reminds me - NEVER park in tall dry grass... Catalytic converters operate between 900-1300F (the exterior of these things get HOT) and will cause dry grass to spontaneously combust which has caused multiple car fires in of itself when an unaware driver simply pulls off to the side of the road for whatever reason.

Oil itself has a flashpoint of 350F+ depending on the type. Stoichiometric combustion produces temps of 2500F... Combustion engines get HOT... the damn thing is a fire waiting to happen chock full of safety mechanisms to keep it from happening.

I swear... I hear about every single freaking Tesla fire, but nobody ever mentions how many ICE vehicles catch fire on a daily basis. I am tired of hearing about Tesla fires... YES they happen, YES they are hard to put out, but once a vehicle is on fire, the ignition source is a moot point, the whole damn thing is going up in flames regardless of how it started because of all the combustibles in these things.
This happened a few hours ago, and its not a Tesla:


Seriously, if automobiles were invented today, they would be outright banned because they would be considered "too dangerous".
 
slow down there new guy. where did anyone say that? those two that didn't know how to use the manual release in non accident situations were called morons.

How do you know that they didn't know how to use the manual release? How do you know that they weren't accidents? I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about the screenshot posted above?
 
I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about the video posted above.
the two guys that got trapped in their cars because of dead batteries is who got called morons. so your rant about walker was unnecessary.
 
I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about the video posted above. Which is what YueMaiMai was quoting

the two guys that got trapped in their cars because of dead batteries is who got called morons. so your rant about walker was unnecessary.
What rant about walker? Was that Paul walkwer's car crash video posted by Marcine Joseph to twitter? Because I was talking about Biznatch's quote of that video.
So did you first think I was talking about a different article and then think I was talking about Paul Walker? If so, I think my original post stands and that we might want to have a bit more class than calling a car crash victim a moron.
 
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your response after the paul walker comment didn't have a quote in it when I quoted it. so I thought you were talking about that. sorry for the confusion.
 
your response after the paul walker comment didn't have a quote in it when I quoted it. so I thought you were talking about that. sorry for the confusion.
No worries, dude. Things get confusing in in threads with lots of quotes. I even had to go back and check that I was sure of what I was reading.
 
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