California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water to extinguish flames after a crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.
In addition to the huge amount of water, firefighters used an aircraft to drop fire retardant on the “immediate area” of the electric truck as a precautionary measure, the agency said in a preliminary report.
Firefighters said previously that the battery reached temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 Celsius) while it was in flames.
The NTSB sent investigators to the Aug. 19 crash along Interstate 80 near Emigrant Gap, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento. The agency said it would look into fire risks posed by the truck’s large lithium-ion battery.
Good point. I’m not sure. It may be that we’re (I’m) hearing more about Teslas catching fire because they’re the largest distributor in the US (and I live here). However, they’re not the largest in the world and I haven’t heard of this problem happening with other EVs (though they may be).
Regardless, Elon Musk is a pompous charlatan and defrauder that deserves much worse than he’ll ever get. Bias be damned.
Wow, you should look into the hundreds of ev car fires in China that happen for may more reasons than crashes. Such as charging the battery and just sitting there in traffic or just sitting in an ev car lot. BYD is one of the largest ev brands in China, and their shit just catches fire for no reason some times.
You don’t hear about them because Western media doesn’t make as big a deal about them.
If you can throw the word Tesla or Elon on something it gets plastered everywhere, including here.
Same with recalls.
Tesla recalls something software related like the unbuckled seat belt chime not working if you do steps A B then C and its huge news. Within the next 2 weeks 5 or 6 other major OEMs do recalls and you barely hear about it. And yes, recalls happen in groups like that where other OEMs wait for someone to go first and take the bigger hit.
That’s fair. I fully acknowledge my limited scope/understanding and bias.
I wish we lived in a better world with better intentioned people overall. It’s easy to focus on Elon Musk because he’s the biggest/loudest dragon, hoarding the most gold. There are others just like him everywhere. It’s depressing and overwhelming.
I’m not a fan of cars in general, but understand their necessity in plenty of situations. EVs have great potential, but need good-intentioned engineers with plenty of oversight to safely fuel their development. I’m sure these companies have some brilliant scientific minds in there and they should be allowed to usher in a new age of invention, not limited by the bottom line of vampiric shareholders and the egos of CEOs. It’s just so sad.
There are others just like him everywhere. It’s depressing and overwhelming.
Pretty much ya.
… brilliant scientific minds in there and they should be allowed to usher in a new age of invention
Not specific to cars but it’s sad to think about what we could have had if we let these people build things properly. So many things don’t happen due to money. Inventions and knowledge getting bought and squashed as it’d interfere with the bigger companies plans etc.
All ev batteries will burn like this, though. It’s the nature of this type of battery.
Not all EVs need Li-Po batteries. They probably won’t be in the next couple of years. The cheap end of the market will use sodium-ion, and the more expensive end solid state lithium. Both have much better fire protection and puncture resilience than Li-Po. Both types of batteries are at the manufacturing stage, but aren’t in cars yet.
Yep yep surely, but I think batteries could be manufactured to be just more or less resistant
