Tesla Model S caught on fire outside Seattle (video) A Tesla Model S has caught on fire off Washington State Route 167 outside of Seattle. The fire is concentrated around the front of the vehicle (known as the ‘frunk’). Here’s a video of the incident. Immediate thoughts that the fire was initiated by a problem with the battery appear to have caused the stock price to drop. Those thoughts have been tempered somewhat by the fact that neither the battery nor any major electrical systems are in the front of the car. There is some speculation that there was something flammable being carried in the ‘frunk’ of the car that has combusted after the car had an impact with a metal object. Tesla has issued a statement on the crash. “Yesterday, a Model S collided with a large metallic object in the middle of the road, causing significant damage to the vehicle. The car’s alert system signaled a problem and instructed the driver to pull over safely, which he did. No one was injured, and the sole occupant had sufficient time to exit the vehicle safely and call the authorities. Subsequently, a fire caused by the substantial damage sustained during the collision was contained to the front of the vehicle thanks to the design and construction of the vehicle and battery pack. All indications are that the fire never entered the interior cabin of the car. It was extinguished on-site by the fire department.” Investigations are ongoing and we’ll update the story when we have more information. Our initial thoughts are that the driver may have been carrying a flammable object in the frunk of the car and it has caught fire following the impact. If you were entertaining conspiracy theories you could build a case that someone has shorted the stock and put a jerry can of petrol in the frunk of the car then created the accident. It’s far fetched but with more than a billion dollars wiped off the market cap of Tesla it certainly would have created a reasonable payday for the culprit. Tesla has sold around 15,000 units of the Model S. The US fire department responds to around 280,000 car related fire incidents per annum putting the rate at just over 1,000 fires per car on the road. Meaning the Tesla Model S has a significantly lower rate of fire incidents than standard combustion engine vehicles, although it is still too early in the Model S life cycle for those stats to relied upon. The post Tesla Model S caught on fire outside Seattle (video) appeared first on Daily Tech Whip. bit.ly/GA6jFl bit.ly/1f0TB0E
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 22:52:08 +0000
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