A Model S caught fire while supercharging in Norway (link in Norwegian)

[Blip]

Source please... Link

Tesla tok fyr under hurtiglading - NRK Srlandet - Lokale nyheter, TV og radio

"I en melding til NRK skriver Tesla følgende om bilen som brant på Brokelandsheia:
– Ingen ble skadet. Vi skal gjøre omfattende undersøkelser, for deretter å komme tilbake med flere svar."

Edit Translated:
"In a message to NRK Tesla writes the following about the car that burned on Brokelandsheia:
- No one was injured. We do extensive research and will then come back with more answers."

 

[Yggdrasill]

The quote isn't even attributed to the firemen. It seems little more than commentary by the journalist. (Any native Norwegian speakers confirm)

I can't find a direct qute from the fire department ragarding that specific issue, but I think it's fairly clear the fire department didn't know enough about EV fires. Google Oversetter Of course, they might never have extingusihed an EV fire before, so that isn't entirely strange.

Actual qute from the fire depatment:

"Generally, we are cautious about putting out fires in electric vehicles, because there is high voltage in the battery pack, and fighting the fire can involve danger to the crews and can cause other dangerous situations. In addition, each electric car differs when it comes to preferred method of extinguishing, says Hans Henrik Bakke, emergency manager in East Agder fire departments."

 

[JRP3]

tesla spokesperson comment at bottom of article

Tesla Model S Burns To A Crisp During Supercharging In Norway: Reports

From the article:

The exact cause of the fire is unknown, but firefighters had to use special chemical foam to extinguish the burning lithium batteries.

That's not what they did, they apparently used the foam as containment only, and we don't yet know if the batteries were even involved.

 

[kennybobby]

TM will do a root cause investigation to determine what happened. There are many possible culprits due to the nature of the sensors, signal conditioning, communications, thermal management and control system, ESS charging and control, etc. The results will be reported by EM asap and used to modify monitoring circuits, firmware or interlocks as necessary to prevent this.

 

[FlatSix911]

Interesting to note that only the steel B pillars remained while all of the aluminum structure melted away ...

It is confirmed that is was under charging......remember the work of the firefighters involved
and take in the intense heat needed for the alu chassie structure to burn down totally .....

 

[Yggdrasill]

Another quote from the fire department:

"The car was entirely engulfed in flames when fire crews arrived. The only thing we could do was to contain the area and cool it off with foam, says duty officer Steinar Olsen in Østre Agder fire department to Fædrelandsvennen."

 

[FlatSix911]

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

First (possible) supercharging-related fire in say... 1 million supercharges (100,000 cars? 10 per car on average?). I am not too worried. But ofcourse it will be blown out of proportions again. As if there are not thousands of car fires every day!

While writing this post at least one gasoline powered car burned to the ground.

 

[FredTMC]

Note: I'm not speculating about the cause, just stating some facts (as I've observed).

Seems clear to me that the main HV cells became involved at some point and served as fuel for the fire. I can't imagine what other fuel source would be available to cause the car to completely burn up

thinking thru what's data is available to tesla, at a minimum they know the charge level of the HV battery and when charging started and when it ended. They also know the voltage and current being supplied to the car.

Beyond this, we don't know what if anything the car transmitted about its status to tesla. Certainly, tesla has prior status history of the car since it's not brand new.

Hopefully the prior owner and new current owner are fully cooperative with tesla in their investigation.

As a side note, I recall that tesla designed the cell layout so that a single cell failure doesn't propagate to neighboring cells.

 

[David99]

Looking at this photo, I'm pretty sure the battery burnt up. There isn't enough other flammable material in the car to fuel a fire strong/hot enough to melt aluminum away like we see here. What caused the fire is a different issue but I'm pretty sure the battery has burnt up.
Whatever the cause, this is really bad news for Tesla and EVs in general. Yes we all know more ICE burn up and they burn much more dangerously, but the public's perception and facts rarely match.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Third quote:

"Electric car fires is pretty new to us here in Agder. It's pretty rare for electric cars to burn, and when they do burn, the litium-ion batteries make it more challenging, says Anders Torbjørnsen at the fire department operations central in Agder."

 

[smac]

@Yggdrassill. Thanks for the link:

Is there a translation glitch here? (Seems common for Google to invert meaning by missing out a negating phrase between Norwegian and English)

" They had pulled the car away from the charging station, but was not trying actively to extinguish the fire, since there was a risk to life or other property."

I presume it means

" They had pulled the car away from the charging station, but was not trying actively to extinguish the fire, since there was NO risk to life or other property."

 

[DavidB]

According to: Vehicle fire trends and patterns

"According to the U.S Federal Highway Administration data, roughly 2,980 billion miles were driven, on average, per year on U.S. roads during this period. Roughly 90 highway vehicle fires and 0.15 highway vehicle fire deaths were reported per billion miles driven."

On average, 90 highway vehicle fires per billion miles driven. There have been (maybe) 1.2 billion miles driven in Teslas, so you might expect 1.2*90 or 108 fires. There have been only 6 fires.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Note: I'm not speculating about the cause, just stating some facts (as I've observed).

Seems clear to me that the main HV cells became involved at some point and served as fuel for the fire. I can't imagine what other fuel source would be available to cause the car to completely burn up.

This is the first time we've seen a Tesla fire where it has been allowed to burn out. Aluminium is flammable, as is all the plastics, transmission oil, etc.

This is what a burned Fisker Karma looks like, where the battery pack was intact:

- - - Updated - - -

@Yggdrassill. Thanks for the link:

Is there a translation glitch here? (Seems common for Google to invert meaning by missing out a negating phrase between Norwegian and English)

" They had pulled the car away from the charging station, but was not trying actively to extinguish the fire, since there was a risk to life or other property."

I presume it means

" They had pulled the car away from the charging station, but was not trying actively to extinguish the fire, since there was NO risk to life or other property."

Indeed. Google translate sucks at times.

 

[nwdiver]

This is the first time we've seen a Tesla fire where it has been allowed to burn out. Aluminium is flammable, as is all the plastics, transmission oil, etc.

This is what a burned Fisker Karma looks like, where the battery pack was intact:

Well... a Fisker also has a gas tank... the ignition temperature of aluminum is >700C... I have a really hard time imagining anything in the car except the battery producing that kind of heat.

Be interesting to see what the investigation reveals...

 

[Hoffa]

Video
http://www.vgtv.no/#!/video/122942/her-staar-teslaen-i-full-fyr

 

[Doug_G]

Video
http://www.vgtv.no/#!/video/122942/her-staar-teslaen-i-full-fyr

That confirms that the battery pack was involved. Nice little pop with a bunch of sparks. Doesn't mean it started in the pack, of course.

Also aluminum will burn at a high enough temperature.

We should also point out that this is only newsworthy at all because it's a Tesla. Hundreds of gas cars a day burn in the USA alone.

 

[smac]

According to: Vehicle fire trends and patterns

"According to the U.S Federal Highway Administration data, roughly 2,980 billion miles were driven, on average, per year on U.S. roads during this period. Roughly 90 highway vehicle fires and 0.15 highway vehicle fire deaths were reported per billion miles driven."

On average, 90 highway vehicle fires per billion miles driven. There have been (maybe) 1.2 billion miles driven in Teslas, so you might expect 1.2*90 or 108 fires. There have been only 6 fires.

The problem with averages is that not all cars are average, some are decidedly sub-par.

We have a big thing here with Vauxhall Zafira's catching fire. They are mainly old ones, that have been poorly maintained, with people replacing switches which fail due to blocked cabin filters with cheap knock off chinese parts.

Root cause found for Vauxhall Zafira fires | Autocar

The amazing thing is GM recalled all the cars to check for botched repairs done outside their dealer network on cars approaching 10yrs old!



Anyway back on topic, does this or any other Tesla fire article make me think my car is going to spontaneously combust? Nope.


One thing really not going for Tesla is quite how spectacular the end result looks, whilst a fire damaged ICE it may just look superficially scorched, it's just as totalled.

The reality is in a case like this where the fire brigade can just wheel the car out the way cordon it off and leave it, with an ICE they have to put out the fire in case of a fuel tank explosion, and further risk to property or life. Unfortunately the former leads to more headline grabbing pictures like this one.

Of course most people aren't that capable of critical thinking like this but that's a whole different story

 

[stopcrazypp]

Well... a Fisker also has a gas tank... the ignition temperature of aluminum is >700C... I have a really hard time imagining anything in the car except the battery producing that kind of heat.

Be interesting to see what the investigation reveals...

The car has plastics (a petroleum based product), cloth, leather and other flammable materials inside. Let's see what the investigation says before drawing conclusions.

Definitely not a good way to start the year though.

 

[yobigd20]

Those look like aftermarket 20s.