Tesla Fires

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edyvw said:
Pinto: 27 fire fatalities.
Tesla: 83.
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The pinto fire thing is an interesting read on corporate stupidity and greed - for those interested.

Ford knew about the issue. The issue was on being rear ended the fuel line was likely to be severed AND the doors were likely to become inoperable - meaning they couldn't be opened. Ford could have fixed the issue in production for like $10 per car, but the bean counters literally decided it would be cheaper to pay out some claims.

This all came out in the court case. The jury made what was the highest punitive award at the time - punitive meaning a fine beyond the actual loss to the plaintiffs.

Lee Iacocca wrote about it extensively in his memoirs. It almost bankrupt Ford.

Search for "Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company"
 
Brons2 said:
Yeah Hyun/Kia had a rash of fires on the 2.4 Theta II because people weren't properly reattaching the fuel supply lines after replacing the cam-driven high pressure fuel pump. Being that it it's driven by the camshaft, the pump is directly on top of the engine and if there is a large fuel leak, bad things happen. As I understand it, Hyun/Kia released updated procedures for reattaching the fuel lines. I don't know what the details of that are though.

There were some people that caught it, I was on a Sonata web forum when I owned mine and some people smelled the fuel and went investigating before a fire resulted. I remember there being a video on the forum showing the leak, it was a lot of gas.
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Lots of engines have that design.
 
SC Maintenance said:
The pinto fire thing is an interesting read on corporate stupidity and greed - for those interested.

Ford knew about the issue. The issue was on being rear ended the fuel line was likely to be severed AND the doors were likely to become inoperable - meaning they couldn't be opened. Ford could have fixed the issue in production for like $10 per car, but the bean counters literally decided it would be cheaper to pay out some claims.

This all came out in the court case. The jury made what was the highest punitive award at the time - punitive meaning a fine beyond the actual loss to the plaintiffs.

Lee Iacocca wrote about it extensively in his memoirs. It almost bankrupt Ford.

Search for "Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company"
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Like that handle design in Tesla.
 
edyvw said:
Lots of engines have that design.
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Yes, agreed, but something in particular about the Theta II caused quite a few fires. Some of these were immediately after engine replacements where the fuel lines would have had to have been taken loose. The replacement engines were sent as incomplete short blocks that required substantial re-assembly, according to Hyundai techs on the aforementioned web forums.
 
Brons2 said:
Yes, agreed, but something in particular about the Theta II caused quite a few fires. Some of these were immediately after engine replacements where the fuel lines would have had to have been taken loose. The replacement engines were sent as incomplete short blocks that required substantial re-assembly, according to Hyundai techs on the aforementioned web forums.
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Well, that was my point. It is Hyundai/KIA specific issue.
VW had a lot of issues on pump on EA113 engines where roller would wear out, but they didn’t burn after replacement.
 
Brons2 said:
Yes, agreed, but something in particular about the Theta II caused quite a few fires.
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Well, most non Kia/Hyundai engines don't need to be recalled and swapped out, so people are messing around with the fuel lines on the other cars a lot less.
 
rijndael said:
Well, most non Kia/Hyundai engines don't need to be recalled and swapped out, so people are messing around with the fuel lines on the other cars a lot less.
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Sadly true, one of the reasons I got rid of mine despite the fact I had the lifetime warranty after getting the software update. I just didn't want to deal with the safety issues of having an in-service engine failure or having to have the car sit for months waiting for a backordered engine replacement, and so forth. It was doing well with 95K on 10w30 but even so I still felt like it was living on borrowed time.

There were other reasons as well that were unrelated to the car, my wife hated the fact it was a manual, which I of course loved about it. I also unfortunately hit a deer with it around 20-25 MPH, not so hard it wasn't undriveable, but the front end was noticeably damaged.
 
edyvw said:
Are they in any way insured by Turo in case of losing a vehicle?
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What a mess.

I used to rent out a Ford Escape on Turo. It was mostly an OK experience but when you needed help from Turo for any reason, they were incompetent and useless.

I feel bad for the Turo hosts who own these vehicles in these attacks as they are in for a big mess, unless they were commercial hosts with a fleet that was properly insured. If it was just a random person like me with a single car on the platform as a side gig, they're not going to have a fun future. In theory, Turo does have insurance, but in reality, it's a huge gray area and likely going to result in years of lawyers to resolve.
 
billt460 said:
A Tesla Cyber truck burst into flames in Vegas this morning, killing 1, and injuring several others. It blew near the valet parking lot at the Trump International Hotel.

They were working to extract the body from the vehicle. Apparently they were basically roasted alive.
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That was a giant IED. When you load up fuel, explosive, and a detonator in the back of the truck, it doesn’t matter if it’s an ICE, or BEV…

That is a bomb carrier.
 
alarmguy said:
Yeah, this is a confusing thread. Two different subjects vehicles starting on fire and an act of terrorism in Vegas where someone intentionally blew up a Cybertruck.
I did say in this forum more than a year ago I think. I always wonder if lithium vehicles can become tools for terrorists. Even more so when one is completely self driving, it could self drive to a destination and blow up. Call me crazy but it sounds more dangerous than a drone threat.
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I agree, today I chose not to go down that rabbit hole here.
 
alarmguy said:
Yeah, this is a confusing thread. Two different subjects vehicles starting on fire and an act of terrorism in Vegas where someone intentionally blew up a Cybertruck.
I did say in this forum more than a year ago I think. I always wonder if lithium vehicles can become tools for terrorists. Even more so when one is completely self driving, it could self drive to a destination and blow up. Call me crazy but it sounds more dangerous than a drone threat.
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I guess that would be possible if you cool fool the car into thinking a living, breathing human that is alert behind the wheel then it would work. The internal camera reads the driver’s eyes. That would be a lot harder than building the bomb.
 
BHopkins said:
I'm old enough to remember the Pinto fires. Even had a high school teacher that survived, losing her Pinto to a fire, on the side of I-15.

edyvw, would you mind sharing your source. If accurate, this is very interesting. I've been somewhat curious, if Tesla car fires are really more frequent than other cars, or not, but just over reported by the news. This would be an interesting comparison.
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According to many sources Teslas have more accidents per mile than other vehicle makes.
"Since 2014, there have allegedly been 83 fatalities linked to Tesla fires, and reports indicate 218 fire incidents involving Tesla vehicles between 2013 and early 2024."
From reading and earlier reports Tesla chose a battery with a higher density but the tradeoff was more instability and needing better thermal management.
 
Torrid said:
I guess that would be possible if you cool fool the car into thinking a living, breathing human that is alert behind the wheel then it would work. The internal camera reads the driver’s eyes. That would be a lot harder than building the bomb.
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Well, I guess anything is possible right? But maybe technology would figure out a way to stop it.
I was under the impression that Tesla's dream was for a Tesla owner to leave his car parked at night and have it pick up passengers as a taxi? IN that instance no one would be in the car...

And what about the planned driverless cars without even a steering wheel?
I dont doubt technology MIGHT be able to prevent it, even if it wasnt driverless like the Vegas bombing right now. A bus load of multiple cars loads of lithium batteries driverless or not in the wrong hands sounds dangerous to me. I do think our security apparatus in this country is top notch, without question. I still think these are things that need to be looked at as anything can possibly be re-programmed.

https://opentools.ai/news/tesla-shifts-gears-towards-self-driving-taxis-by-2025
 
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Torrid said:
I guess that would be possible if you cool fool the car into thinking a living, breathing human that is alert behind the wheel then it would work. The internal camera reads the driver’s eyes. That would be a lot harder than building the bomb.
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What happens if they wear sunglasses. I know it can make the subaru system flip out.
 
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