“I felt a firm ‘thud’ as the hitch struck the bottom of the car, and it felt as though it even lifted the car up in the air.”
The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today opened a preliminary investigation into 2013 Tesla Model S battery fires.
The investigation affects more than 13,000 of the $70,000 to +$100,000 Tesla EVs sold in the U.S. Tesla has sold 19,000 of the cars worldwide.
In a required regulatory filing, ODI said that it “is aware of two incidents occurring on US public highways in which the subject vehicles caught fire after an undercarriage strike with metallic roadway debris. The resulting impact damage to the propulsion battery tray (baseplate) initiated thermal runaway.” The battery pack of the Model S is low under the car and protected by a ¼-inch steel plate.
In the latest fire, a Tesla Model S traveling on an Interstate highway near Smyrna, Tennessee caught fire after hitting road debris, once again raising concerns about the safety of its Panasonic lithium-ion battery pack, which is mounted under the electric 4-door. The unhurt driver of the totaled Model S said in a blog post that he struck a trailer hitch in the road. (Third Tesla Model S Fire in Two Months)
ODI also noted that in each incident, the vehicle’s battery monitoring system provided escalating visible and audible warnings, allowing the driver to execute a controlled stop and exit the vehicle before the battery emitted smoke and fire. Based on these fires, NHTSA is opening this preliminary evaluation to examine the potential risks associated with undercarriage strikes on model year 2013 Tesla Model S vehicles.
“We have requested that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conduct a full investigation as soon as possible into the fire incidents,” claimed Tesla CEO Elon Musk who is fighting for the survival of his company in a blog posting. In fact, NHTSA had previously said it would investigate the Model S fires. 172,500 highway vehicle fires occurred in the U.S. during 2012, a decrease of 8% from 2011, resulting in 300 civilian fire deaths, 800 civilian fire injuries and $1.1 billion in property damage.
Tesla’s claim that gasoline cars catch fire at greater rates in defense of the first reported fire, while technically true, now doesn’t address questions about how many actually catch fire after a crash or hitting road debris – adjusted for the vehicle population and miles driven. While it could be just a run of bad luck, three Tesla fires with such limited exposure need looking into. (See *1 below)
“While we think it is highly unlikely, if something is discovered that would result in a material improvement in occupant fire safety, we will immediately apply that change to new cars and offer it as a free retrofit to all existing cars. Given that the incidence of fires in the Model S is far lower than combustion cars and that there have been no resulting injuries, this did not at first seem like a good use of NHTSA’s time compared to the hundreds of gasoline fire deaths per year that warrant their attention. However, there is a larger issue at stake: if a false perception about the safety of electric cars is allowed to linger, it will delay the advent of sustainable transport and increase the risk of global climate change, with potentially disastrous consequences worldwide,” Musk claimed.
Musk also said that, “We have rolled out an over-the-air update to the air suspension that will result in greater ground clearance at highway speeds…. The theoretical probability of a fire injury is already vanishingly small and the actual number to date is zero. Another software update expected in January will give the driver direct control of the air suspension ride height transitions.”
“To reinforce how strongly we feel about the low risk of fire in our cars, we will be amending our warranty policy to cover damage due to a fire, even if due to driver error,” Musk said.
“Unless a Model S owner actively tries to destroy the car, they are covered. Our goal here is to eliminate any concern about the cost of such an event and ensure that over time the Model S has the lowest insurance cost of any car at our price point. Either our belief in the safety of our car is correct and this is a minor cost or we are wrong, in which case the right thing is for Tesla to bear the cost rather than the car buyer.”
In Tesla’s latest 10Q SEC filing it outlined the risks it faces going forward. Among them came this prescient warning from a document signed by Elon Musk: “We have designed the battery pack to passively contain any single cell’s release of energy without spreading to neighboring cells and we are not aware of any such incident in our customers’ vehicles.
“However, we have delivered only a limited number of Tesla Roadsters and Model S sedans to customers and have limited field experience with our vehicles, especially Model S. We have also only delivered a limited number of battery packs to Toyota and Daimler.
“Accordingly, there can be no assurance that a field or testing failure of our Model S or other battery packs that we produce will not occur, which could damage the vehicle or lead to personal injury or death and may subject us to lawsuits. We may have to recall our vehicles or participate in a recall of a vehicle that contains our battery packs, and redesign our battery packs, which would be time consuming and expensive.
“Also, negative public perceptions regarding the suitability of lithium-ion cells for automotive applications or any future incident involving lithium-ion cells such as a vehicle or other fire, even if such incident does not involve us, could seriously harm our business,” Musk said in part.
As with all things associated with Tesla, AutoInformed remains skeptical about a company that has never showed a profit since its inception except in Q1 of 2013. For the first six months of this year, Tesla lost $1,916 per car based on a net loss of $19.254 million from sales of 10,000 Model S and a few Roadster EVs, which was -$0.17 a share.
*1: Here’s Musk’s claim after Tesla fire number one:
“There are 150,000 car fires per year according to the National Fire Protection Association, and Americans drive about 3 trillion miles per year according to the Department of Transportation. That equates to 1 vehicle fire for every 20 million miles driven, compared to 1 fire in ~100 million miles for Tesla. This means you are 5 times more likely to experience a fire in a conventional gasoline car than a Tesla!,” Musk claims. Well, add 2 more fires and divide: 100m/3 = 33 million miles driven. The gap is closing. Tw0 more and Tesla has a greater rate of fires. – editor)
See:
- Tesla Signs Battery Deal. Second Model S Fire Reported
- Cadillac ELR debuts in January at $75,995. Tesla Killer?
- Tesla Web Site Ignores Devastating Fire Coverage
