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Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

arstechnica.co.uk

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Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#31

Post by FireBeyond »

MertsA wrote: post #17
aedron wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I was going to comment that I have never heard of a regular car spontaneously erupting into flames. Warning or no, that is a life-threatening situation. Imagine you had a couple of toddlers strapped in, somehow missed the warning notice, etc.

To add to other anecdotes, there was quite a few fires in new jeeps while parked and off. http://jalopnik.com/why-jeeps-catch-on-fire-and-why-chrysler... http://blog.caranddriver.com/jeep-recalls-164000-cherokees-f... http://www.abcactionnews.com/money/consumer/taking-action-fo... So far for Tesla, all fires have been determined to be caused by collision damage breaching the battery. I guess we'll see if this case wa…

"As a side note, Tesla claims to have put quite a bit of care into designing the floor pan and battery such that in cases like this, a fire shouldn't breach into the cabin for a while. In theory, even after the fire is well underway, the design of the car should give passengers plenty of time to get out."

That's not particularly (or at all) unique to Tesla. Safety regulations and laws require all new cars to be designed in a way to maximize the time needed for flames to impinge upon the cabin.

As a firefighter, vehicle firefighting is an interesting endeavor: we have to cool down bumpers (the heat can cause struts to expand/explode, blowing the front or side bumpers or panels out, possibly directly into the path of legs). Similarly with wheel wells. The typical approach will be to cool down with water as approaching from an angle (or from the direction of the cabin if there are trapped occupants), have a second firefighter breach the hood, get water under there, and go from that point on.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#32

Post by yardie »

ethbro wrote: post #21
yardie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never heard of a regular car spontaneously erupting into flames. I just passed a car completely engulfed in flames on I-95, yesterday. I pass one every few weeks. It seems to happen more often in summer. Except for local traffic updates it's so common national news doesn't bother to pick it up unless there is a fatality.

... Say what you want about the tenets of automotive electrification, but moving electricity around a vehicle seems a lot safer than piping a combustible fluid.

Well, one way to look at it is fuel is a very dense battery. 1 liter of diesel has about 10kWh. 2 gallons of the stuff has as much stored energy as a fully charged Tesla Model S.

I think as battery storage gets denser these fires will become more common. Because there is just so much energy packed into such a small package.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#33

Post by helthanatos »

jmcdiesel wrote: post #30
helthanatos wrote: post #24

Tesla's energy department may want to investigate ways to make their batteries less destructive.

No they don't... cares combust on a fairly regular (albiet low probability) basis... and Tesla actually has sensors and warnings unlike most cars...

It wasn't a slam on Tesla... It would be cool to have batteries that don't explode.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#34

Post by dsfyu404ed »

FireBeyond wrote: post #31
MertsA wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to other anecdotes, there was quite a few fires in new jeeps while parked and off. http://jalopnik.com/why-jeeps-catch-on-fire-and-why-chrysler... http://blog.caranddriver.com/jeep-recalls-164000-cherokees-f... http://www.abcactionnews.com/money/consumer/taking-action-fo... So far for Tesla, all fires have been determined to be caused by collision damage breaching the battery. I guess we'll see if this case wa…

"As a side note, Tesla claims to have put quite a bit of care into designing the floor pan and battery such that in cases like this, a fire shouldn't breach into the cabin for a while. In theory, even after the fire is well underway, the design of the car should give passengers plenty of time to get out." That's not particularly (or at all) unique to Tesla. Safety regulations and laws require all new cars to be desig…

That's kind of odd considering that the failure mode of shock absorbers that are overheated is to pop their seals and lose pressure. I'm sure with a pile of them to set on fire you could figure out a way to make them go boom. Sounds like a "it happened once therefore policy change kind of thing", but I'm not qualified to judge firefighting techniques.

The thing about bumpers just sounds plain dated. Nothing's had bumper shocks since the 1980s and most sedans don't have an appreciable amount of metal in the bumper to the point where it's about as structural as the core support and the time would be better spent on a different part of the problem. Citation?

x2 about cabins being designed for survivability though.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#35

Post by dsfyu404ed »

yardie wrote: post #32
ethbro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Say what you want about the tenets of automotive electrification, but moving electricity around a vehicle seems a lot safer than piping a combustible fluid.

Well, one way to look at it is fuel is a very dense battery. 1 liter of diesel has about 10kWh. 2 gallons of the stuff has as much stored energy as a fully charged Tesla Model S. I think as battery storage gets denser these fires will become more common. Because there is just so much energy packed into such a small package.

And it WILL be released if the pack is breached.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#36

Post by dsfyu404ed »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #29
holtalanm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was gonna say that. Gas burners don't give any such warning. When I was a kid, I remember seeing my neighbors truck going up in flames in mere SECONDS. They got in the truck, turned the key, and it didn't start. They felt the dashboard and it was hot. As soon as they got out, the whole truck went up in flames. This was an older truck, but still, can't think of any vehicles nowadays besides a high-tech car giving a wa…

I wonder if they could add sensors for fire detection to an ICE vehicle, or if the fact that it literally contains thousands of fires a second, belches smoke out the exhaust pipe, and has internal components at hundreds of degrees makes this impossible?

I'm betting the warning from tesla was basically a "if the battery sensors go out of normal range on the high side and don't respond to additional cooling system input then tell the passengers to gtfo" Which isn't much more advanced than the old "printer on fire" error.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#37

Post by dsfyu404ed »

brador wrote: post #16

Why not separate the driver compartment from the battery packs using a fireproof wall? Or surround the batteries in a fireproof "box" with a vent? Or add a gas based fire damping system like data centres use? Battery bursting into flames, destroying the whole car and putting the driver and passengers at risk just seems so archaic.

The navy used to use this thing called asbestos to do just that. Then people complained about safety and the good times came to an end. Ironic how you're basically asking for something to do what asbestos was good at for a safety application.

Whoever creates a material with similar properties and cost to asbestos without all the cancer will become very wealthy.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#38

Post by dsfyu404ed »

helthanatos wrote: post #33
jmcdiesel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't... cares combust on a fairly regular (albiet low probability) basis... and Tesla actually has sensors and warnings unlike most cars...

It wasn't a slam on Tesla... It would be cool to have batteries that don't explode.

Good luck. They store energy by picking up a bunch of negative charge. When they're physically deformed/destroyed those electrons will find their way somewhere else very quickly and things will get hot when that happens.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#39

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Already__Taken wrote: post #10

Cars burn really well as it is. I saw someone hop a curb in front of me. Must have nicked the sump because there was a tiny flame under the now stopped car. I came back not more than 30 minutes later to see the fire brigade had put out a completely burnt out husk of a car.

Doubt it involved the oil pan. Motor oil is VERY hard to ignite and normally won't sustain itself once its on fire. ATF, p/s fluid (or other general purpose hydraulic fluids) is more flammable but there's a really wide range depending on the oil in question. Some ATF burns easy, other stuff not so much. I'd put my money on battery cables and shorts knocking stuff of its mounts could definitely pinch a cable and short.

Re: Tesla Model S battery bursts into flames, car “totally destroyed” in 5 minutes

#40

Post by ethbro »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #35
yardie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one way to look at it is fuel is a very dense battery. 1 liter of diesel has about 10kWh. 2 gallons of the stuff has as much stored energy as a fully charged Tesla Model S. I think as battery storage gets denser these fires will become more common. Because there is just so much energy packed into such a small package.

And it WILL be released if the pack is breached.

I suppose shorts are easier to cause by physical breaching than fire by introduction of spark (e.g. you can puncture a gas tank and still not have it burst into flames without ignition).

But on the other hand, I'd assume the majority of car fires are caused by either fuel or oil lines into the engine being punctured and leaking around something hot enough to ignite them. Over a longer maintenance period (10 years+), I'd still bet on insulation over physical containment of a pumped liquid.

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