
The Mission of Tesla - GraffitiTim
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/mission-tesla
======
cloudwalking
Everybody is missing a huge point:

Vehicle fire now completely covered under warranty, even when caused by
operator error.

 _" Third, 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. 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."_

~~~
smackfu
That will be interesting to see a manufacturer warranty stuck in the middle of
normal insurance disputes. Like what if someone is at fault and hits a Tesla
and causes a fire, would that be covered under the Tesla warranty, or the
other party's insurance?

~~~
daliusd
Tesla will pay for that and will have to use its channels to get its money
from the one who is at fault (either his/her insurance company or him
directly). I'm pretty sure that's more or less standard insurance stuff and
Tesla is not inventing anything new - they just invest some of their money
into that. It might be more interesting how they solve international problems
regarding that but I'm sure other car manufacturers should have something
similar to that.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Its called subrogation, and it happens everywhere in the insurance industry to
properly account for fault/cause.

~~~
smackfu
It's interesting that Tesla says they will pay regardless of fault. That must
make the insurers very excited.

~~~
toomuchtodo
An insurer has to pay the manufacturer the full price of the vehicle. Tesla's
margins are approaching 25%. Tesla is betting its cheaper for them to replace
the car at cost than the PR hassle because people suck at math. In the event
another few cars go up in fire, Tesla eats the vehicle manufacturing cost in
return for goodwill and people continuing to purchase their vehicles.

You have to admit, Elon stands behind his vehicles, literally with his
personal wealth. Compare that to other luxury brands. It's brilliant.

------
jwise0
The sentence -- "First, we have rolled out an over-the-air update to the air
suspension that will result in greater ground clearance at highway speeds."
\-- for some reason deeply amuses me. I thought that it was scary to push out
OTAs to phones (I hope everything works like it did in the dev environment); I
can't imagine pushing an OTA to a $85,000 car!

A few sentences later, though -- "Another software update expected in January
will give the driver direct control of the air suspension ride height
transitions." \-- concerns me. Tesla's car computer is becoming increasingly
complex, and the fact that the infotainment system will have such complete
control over the car -- and will still accept data from outside sources -- is
very concerning. I hope that at some point soon Tesla will begin talking about
the security methodology that they use for the firmware running on the car,
and how they prevent unauthorized code from running.

~~~
booyaa00
So as there have been instances of an OTA update "bricking" phones, there will
likely at some point be an OTA to cars which causes mass crashes and
casualties. It's just a question of when...

Yet more movement of freedom and power from individuals to corporations.

~~~
koide
How is that different from the cases where batches of faulty cars are sold and
cause crashes and deaths?

With OTA updates you can at least fix it with a rollback, quickly, before more
people die.

I fail to see this as a move of power from individuals to corporations.

~~~
booyaa00
I guess I just trust hardware far more than software in general.

------
salimmadjd
Flawed argument!

Model S is only 1 year old and it's a premium vehicle. So the fire rate should
be compared to those of premium vehicles about the same age.

~~~
hkarthik
Hate to break this to you, but the internals of most "premium" vehicles when
it comes to things like engines are largely unchanged year to year. I test
drove a lot of premium vehicles last year and found most of them were using
engines/drivetrains that were still based on 15-20 year old designs with only
cosmetic (and cabin electronics) changes over the years.

So in that sense, the Model S is a baby in terms of maturity of the vehicle
platform.

~~~
at-fates-hands
>>> I test drove a lot of premium vehicles last year and found most of them
were using engines/drivetrains that were still based on 15-20 year old designs
with only cosmetic (and cabin electronics) changes.

I'd love to know which cars you're referring to. I've been a huge BMW guy for
years and they generally go on 5 year cycle with their engines and
drivetrains.

For instance, on the M5 the E60 M5 used the same drivetrain and engine (with
minor tweaks) from 2005-2010. Whereas the new F10 M5 engine and drivetrain was
redesigned in 2011 and has yet to see any major changes in its current
iteration.

~~~
hkarthik
I saw it across manufacturers the German manufacturers: BMW, Mercedes, and
Audi.

On the Japanese side, Nissan/Infiniti abused the hell out of their 3.5L V6 in
every car they made for more than a decade.

Regarding the BMW M5, the F10 is actually very similar to the F01 which came
on the previous 7 series in 2008. Even the E60 was considered an upsized 3
series engine.[1]

Regardless, the point I'm trying to make is that Tesla is really trying to
break new ground and needs about a decade for their vehicle platforms to
mature before comparisons can be made with any of the current luxury brand.
The other brands have a pedigree which goes back multiple decades so even
their newer vehicles have a few decades of maturity baked into them.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_F10#cite_note-12](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_F10#cite_note-12)

~~~
btr15
Your BMW example is not even close to 15 years. Care to explain?

------
MrMeker
Mr. Musk seems to have a habit of publicizing his back-of-the-napkin
calculations. "Based on the Model S track record so far, you have a zero
percent chance of being hurt in an accident resulting in a battery fire."

It seems to have worked well for him. Maybe I should pick it up.

~~~
gambiting
It's just like in the 60-ties the US government calculated that there is a 0%
risk of accidental detonation of nuclear bombs[1],because they have not
experienced it yet.

I believe that electric cars are safer than gasoline cars,but the sample size
for Tesla is way to small to draw such conclusions yet.

[1] Eric Schlosser, "Command And Control"

~~~
dkokelley
Out of curiosity, has there been an accidental detonation of a nuclear bomb
yet? I browsed through
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accide...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents)
but could only find non-nuclear detonations.

~~~
pwnna
There were a close call involving a bomber that accidentally ditched a nuke (i
think?). It was the last fail safe that stopped it.

I remember reading about it here, don't have the article in hand. I'm sure you
can find it.

~~~
gambiting
Read that book I mentioned in the original post. It mentions plenty of
nuclear-related accidents. The one you probably think about happened when an
armed thermonuclear bomb fell out of a bomber, yanking the arming wire out,
arming every subsystem as it fell - barometric switches activated,thermal
batteries ignited , and upon hitting the ground the piezoelectric crystals in
the nose cone crushed activating the high explosives surrounding the core.

It would have detonated, except that the "fire-safe" switch in the cockpit was
not switch to "fire". That switch was just two very low voltage wires running
close together, and it was found later that pretty much anything in that
bomber could have triggered it. It was extremely lucky that that bomb has not
detonated that day.

There were also a few bombs which were lost in fire on the ground, couple of
those had their high explosives ignite without producing a nuclear yield but
spreading plutonium around, contaminating ground.

There were bombers which fell apart in the air, which crashed, most of the
time the nuclear bombs they were carrying survived intact,but a few times
those crashes resulted in a widespread contamination with plutonium - a famous
one in Spain and another near an American Polar station that the bomber was
monitoring from Soviet attack - that one is particularly interesting,because
had the bombs aboard that bomber detonated and destroyed that station, it
would be extremely likely that the US government would assume that it was
destroyed by a Soviet nuclear strike,and not by their own machinery - and that
would probably cause them to retaliate starting a nuclear war.

------
bachback
This just shows how insane the media world is. Great rebuttal. I love this
one: "It is literally impossible for another car to have a better safety track
record, as it would have to possess mystical powers of healing."

------
nfm
Why are people desperate to see Tesla fail? Is it a negative PR campaign from
the auto or oil industry? This blog post shouldn't need to be written.

~~~
alan_cx
Its the opposite, especially here.

Musk and Tesla are given far more benefit of the doubt than any one else.
Criticism is jumped on and scorned very quickly, and is a karma massacre. As
such, I normally do not comment on Tesla threads at all. There seems to be
little reason applied, its like saying some one's baby is ugly.

If it were a Microsoft car catching fire, or over stating benefits and what
not, I suspect the reaction would be very, very different. Im beginning to see
Tesla as the automotive Linux. Wont be long until we have people claiming
Tesla cars cure cancer.

This fawning attitude, and unwillingness to allow debate and criticism
seriously puts me off Tesla. I mean, even you have tried to suggest that any
criticism is not reasoned debate, but oil and automotive negative PR. The
criticism cant possibly be reasonable, it simply must be a conspiracy of the
oil industry. You even say that the opinion should not be written at all. So
much for open society.

All this, IMHO, is a big problem for Tesla. When people are being
unrealistically positive and rejecting criticism like its some sort of heresy,
Tesla becomes an easy target to shoot at. Especially for its enemies.

Too much "one of us" vibe here as far a Musk is concerned. He is a great
bloke, and Im am very much in the positive camp, I've been advocating and
keenly following electric cars for years before Musk ever got involved and I
am 100% glad that a man like Musk has invested loads of his own money and time
in to it, but fans need to be realistic and not so silly about criticism.

Tesla and Musk are not the problem, the fans however are.

~~~
natural219
I take the opposite viewpoint. 99.9% of startups, tech companies, and subjects
on Hacker News can go hang themselves. People comparing Steve Jobs to Elon
Musk are, frankly, completely missing the point.

Seriously, this is what baffles me most about Tesla hate. Did everyone forget
that our world has had a massive, unsustainable energy crisis for 50 years?
Forget climate change for a second, our entire foreign policy since 1973 has
been based around securing cheap oil. Every person in our country should be
unified in heaping as much praise as humanly possible on Musk because Tesla is
_literally saving the goddamn world_.

~~~
sz4kerto
Tesla cars do not sure solve the energy problem at all. They don't use
significantly less energy than a modern diesel BMW, they just use batteries
not oil. The energy crisis we have is more related to how can we produce the
energy for the batteries.

~~~
pwnna
Internal combustion engines are incredibly inefficient, compared even to coal
plants.

~~~
sz4kerto
They're around 20%. Increasing that to 50-60% (as you need t consider the
inefficiencies of batteries, transportation of electricity, not just the
efficiency of the motor itself) won't save the planet. It helps, but what we
need is fusion or something like that.

~~~
ericd
Reducing automotive energy use by a half or two thirds would have an extremely
large impact, especially if you consider all of the new autos that will be
coming online in India+China. Sure, we still need to switch power generation
to cleaner tech as well, but this simplifies the solutions greatly, as power
generation will then be concentrated. If we can stop focusing our national
attention on trying to secure our oil supplies, we have a better chance at
solving the problem as well.

------
felix
Whatever you think of the blog post and Musk's spin - he puts his money where
his mouth is. He's put into writing that if a 3rd party investigation into the
fires finds anything they can do to improve safety - everyone gets a free
retrofit. And short of an owner actively trying to destroy their car, Tesla's
warranty will cover fire damage.

How many CEO's have that level of confidence in their product? Can you imagine
Honda, Audi, BMW or any of the others reacting that way to something like
this? And they've been around for much longer.

~~~
onebaddude
> _Can you imagine Honda, Audi, BMW or any of the others reacting that way to
> something like this?_

Yes, I can.

Do you really think he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart?

These fires are both a legal and PR nightmare. Nobody, at this point, knows
how big of a problem this is. Despite the yarn that Musk is spinning, ICE cars
don't combust when they hit road debris. Personally, I think the problem is
exaggerated, but let's not dismiss the fact that there's a battery across the
whole bottom of these cars. Go to the Tesla forums; there are owners there
that are legitimately concerned for their safety.

------
Killah911
This whole fiasco reminds me of Ryan Holiday's book "Trust me I'm lying". I
can't help but wonder if some "media manipulator" was involved in the possible
manufacture of some negative PR for Tesla. This assumption is not unreasonable
since Ralph Nader was attacked by hired gun media (hired by the big three)
when he dared challenge the status quo. I'm not that the big three are
involved, but the stink caused by the car fires seems a bit "manipulated". My
friend rolled his truck this weekend. He's looking for the new car and when I
suggested a Tesla, he gave me a Resounding no, due to fire hazard. While this
a heuristic observation, he is a pretty innovative guy and I'm confident he
would a picked or even considered a tesla had it not been for the negative
press. Lastly, I wonder if Elon's doing the right thing by repeating this.
Maybe he should talk to Ryan Holiday type. I genuinely hope that this blows
over and that Tesla & Elon can get back to building awesome cars & changing
the world rather than playing PR.

~~~
anon1385
There has been some absolutely ridiculous media coverage from the usual
suspects like Fox[1], but it doesn't really have the smell of a organised
campaign to me (yet). It's just the usual right wing talking heads taking a
skewed view of things because of their preexisting biases.

I think a lot of Tesla fans are getting into the conspiracy theory zone with
this and they are starting to sound fairly cult-like. HN and the Tesla users
forums had quite a few people seriously suggesting that some agent of 'big
auto' was out on the highway looking for teslas to throw debris under (no
doubt the 'big auto' spies inside Tesla had alerted them to the vulnerability
of the underside of the battery pack).

The personality cult surrounding Musk turns a lot of people off. Also the
Boeing incident is coming back to bite him now, and rightly so.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhMjRzvE1Ng](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhMjRzvE1Ng)

------
san86
I did not see Elon complaining when a car launch got so much attention from
the press. This just seems to be the other side of the same coin. This happens
to every runaway success. Remember the "death grip" nonsense for iPhone4 and
how it was blown out of proportion? Media loves the story of a man who worked
against all adds to build/create something amazing. Unfortunately, they love
"the fall of the guy" even more.

~~~
nonchalance
> Unfortunately, they love "the fall of the guy" even more.

Tesla went out of their way to flaunt the safety features of the car, alleging
a 5.4 NHTSA score when the agency explicitly said that they don't issue scores
that high. Tesla said they had the safest cars on the road, and this is the
eventual result (people actually expect it to be safer).

IMHO the reaction is entirely appropriate given Musk's and Tesla's behavior up
to this point. If Musk and Tesla weren't flaunting their safety claims, this
wouldn't be a significant issue

------
thom
"It is also why arsonists tend to favor gasoline. Trying to set the side of a
building on fire with a battery pack is far less effective."

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

~~~
Pitarou
I suggest you start here:

[http://www.terminalcornucopia.com/](http://www.terminalcornucopia.com/)

Check out the "fraggucino", which combines a lithium battery, water, a condom,
and a coffee flask to make a big bang.

~~~
PeterisP
Look at the bang made by that "fraggucino". Look at the effects of the same
coffee flask if used as a Molotov cocktail. These two things are not in the
same league.

~~~
Pitarou
And look at the tiny quantity of lithium involved. What could we do with, say,
half-a-liter of powdered lithium?

I should shut up now. I'm probably already on an NSA watchlist for the search
term I used to find that site.

------
damon_c
This is probably the first article I've read linked from HN where "firewall"
referred to a barrier designed to partition fire.

------
codex
In general, I'm not a big fan of linking directly to PR put out by self-
interested parties. It's very hard for the average reader to de-spin the
propaganda put out in these missives. They're being manipulated and don't know
it. I'd much prefer a link to a well written analysis of events from an
unbiased industry expert.

------
001sky
_Reading the headlines, it is therefore easy to assume that the Tesla Model S
and perhaps electric cars in general have a greater propensity to catch fire
than gasoline cars when nothing could be further from the truth._

Actually, the Data do not support Him. He is starting to tread on shallow
ground, and perhaps should re-evaluate and stratify his data analysis to fires
'on public highways'.[1,2] That is where all of the Tesla Fires are happening.
Unfortunately, those data do not support him.

 _By this metric, you are more than four and a half times more likely to
experience a fire in a gasoline car than a Model S! Considering the odds in
the absolute, you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime
than experience even a non-injurious fire in a Tesla._

And, Bayesian statistics might give you a different analysis.

From a PR perspective, I wonder if this is really doing him any favours? The
note he wrote after the october crash was flawed, but perhaps excusable. This
is too pre-meditated and now must just be considered somewhere on the spectrum
of 'wrong' to 'misguided' to 'misleading'.

[1] In data terms, it excludes intentional fires like vandalism, and parked
cars being struck, and accidents in motor repair facilities, etc.

[2] [http://legal-
dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Public+highway](http://legal-
dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Public+highway)

~~~
quarterto
So where are the data for gasoline car fires on public highways? You're
accusing someone of not being supported by their data, and offering
_absolutely no data_ in counterpoint.

~~~
001sky
see, for example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6691541](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6691541)

~~~
gjm11
You have pointed to another HN comment in which you make assertions about car
fires without providing any actual evidence.

I've had a look and entirely failed to find any evidence supporting your claim
that 80% of car fires occur while the car is not being driven on roads.

It _does_ appear that most car fires are not the result of crashes or
collisions. I don't see that that's relevant. If I were deciding between two
cars on the basis of fire risk, the question I'd care about is "how likely is
this car to catch fire and injure me?", not "how likely is this car to catch
fire and injure me _as a result of a collision_?".

What _does_ look fishy to me about Musk's argument here is that most vehicle
fires seem to be the result of mechanical or electrical faults, which become
more likely with age as things wear out and break and corrode. All Tesla cars
currently on the roads are rather new, so comparing them against the
population of cars at large could be quite misleading.

[EDITED to add: aha, following a longer chain of links from your earlier
comment I found some statistics. The terms used in the NFPA report in question
are ambiguous, but what's clear is that the statistics you yourself cited
_plainly refute your 80% figure_. Here are the figures: 22% "residential
street, road, or residential driveway"; 18% "vehicle parking area"; 17%
"highway or divided highway"; 8% "unclassified street"; 6% "street or road in
commercial area"; 5% "mercantile or office"; 4% "open land, beach or
campsite". So, at a bare minimum, the lowest fraction of fires that could be
on roads would be 17% + 8% +% 6% = 31%, and that assumes that _none_ of the
"residential street, road, or residential highway" and "mercantile or office"
figures are for cars being driven on the road -- which seems monstrously
improbable.]

~~~
001sky
The data comes from Figure 1 of the Report that Tesla cited in October. I
provided the above merely as an example of another way to read the report, but
feel free to do your own analysis. Clearly, Telsa fires were 100% on public
highways (by any definition). To which the report reads:

 _Where do automobile fires occur? Roughly three-quarters (71%) of automobile
fires and associated deaths (76%) occurred on highways, streets or parking
areas. While only 17% of the fires occurred on highways or divided
highways..._

So, taken strictly the analyis seems apples to apples. In any event there is
clearly some adjustment that needs to occur rather than a blind-usage, IMHO.
Whether the haircut is 33% at a minimum or a higher amount.

[PS I prvly addressed the :Edit: points in another comment below>
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6760562](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6760562)]

------
codex
The Tesla counter spin to avoid a recall here is incredible. The OTA update is
a de facto recall but it only partially addresses the issue.

~~~
alex_c
So, what is the issue that needs to be addressed exactly? That cars get
damaged when they hit things?

~~~
smackfu
That the "armor plate" they are using to protect the battery pack isn't strong
enough to deal with some road debris. They seem to have underestimated exactly
how much energy they were dealing with. And they could have made that metal
thicker but it would have negative affected the range.

~~~
Wingman4l7
It's already much stronger than the typical protection of gasoline tanks --
and it was claimed that it was a very exceptional circumstance that allowed
that armor plate to be penetrated.

------
ececconi
Yes, but the Model S's on the road are less than a couple of years old. How
many gasoline fires are caused by cars that are a couple of years old? I would
guess this comparison would put the gasoline fires more in line with Tesla car
rates. I would assume that most of the gasoline engines that catch fire are
from older cars which haven't been maintained well.

------
sanj
"First, we have rolled out an over-the-air update to the air suspension that
will result in greater ground clearance at highway speeds."

Wow. Now I live in the future.

~~~
freehunter
I'm actually curious on that statement as to how it affects the rated MPGe. My
understanding is that the car is low to the ground for better handling and
better aerodynamics. Even if this change doesn't result in lower MPGe, what
would happen if a OTA update to a future car resulted in lower-than-rated MPG?
I wonder what the EPA would have to say about that.

~~~
ams6110
Good observation... and by how much does this reduce the operating range of
the car?

------
TrainedMonkey
I find their statistics to be somewhat misleading. Can we see fire statistics
on cars produced from the same time as Model S? Because I am not surprised a
lot of the older cars are catching on fire.

I still believe Tesla will be safer then gasoline cars, but gap definitely
would not be orders of magnitude.

------
chris_mahan
What I want to know is what Elon Musk is working on next. He's not 100% on
Tesla 24x7, because now he has people to optimize the factories and work out
the next models. What else is he doodling about on his notepad.

This is the Elon Musk I want to see, not the harried auto executive making PR
stunts.

------
robomartin
I don't know what's going on but I sometimes wish someone would tell Elon to
cool it and really think things through before making public statements. I
realize there's a lot of emotion involved. His competitors are loving every
minute of him flying off the handle and making dumb statements.

> Based on the Model S track record so far, you have a zero percent chance of
> being hurt in an accident resulting in a battery fire

This is right up there with Bush's "Mission Accomplished", his Dad's "Read my
lips. No new taxes.", Obama's red line and "You can keep your plan. Period".

It's not true. Or put in better terms, the data is not statistically
significant. And he knows it.

These are the kinds of statements you really regret making when reality
catches up with you.

> There are now substantially more than the 19,000 Model S vehicles on the
> road that were reported in our Q3 shareholder letter for an average of one
> fire per at least 6,333 cars, compared to the rate for gasoline vehicles of
> one fire per 1,350 cars. By this metric, you are more than four and a half
> times more likely to experience a fire in a gasoline car than a Model S!

Again, he knows this math is wrong. To make this comparison stick you'd have
to aggregate data going back to the very introduction of gasoline powered
vehicles. You'd also have to include every kind of vehicle --trucks, vans,
busses, not just cars. And then you'd have to remove the percentage of fires
that were caused intentionally which, from what I was able to garner, could
represent a massive 20% to 30% of fires. Fires due to collisions represent a
smaller fraction of all automobile fires.

Further to that, you'd have to also consider vehicle age, maintenance and
environment. Is it fair to compare a fire on a a 15 year old truck in a rural
setting on substandard roads against a brand new Tesla in the city on great
roads? How are Tesla's going to perform (in terms of safety) when they are
five, ten, fifteen or twenty years old?

Perhaps the comparison should be restricted to fires caused by collisions (not
intentional or other non-collision causes) on new cars operating in the same
urban centers where Tesla's are found.

In other words, he is grabbing numbers without any though given to
applicability.

Again, these are statements that obviously come from anger and frustration and
you could end-up regretting them.

> you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than
> experience even a non-injurious fire in a Tesla.

From [1]:

"The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in
700,000. The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000."

So we are comparing the odds of something happening over someone's lifetime
(50 to 90 years?) with a fire in a car that's been in the market for ONE YEAR?
Really? How about we compare it to the 1 in 700,000 yearly case? It's still a
bullshit comparison. But, hey, since we are slinging bullshit.

Again. Please. Think before saying such things. All you need is one fire where
someone gets hurt or killed and this statement could be thrown back as an
utter joke. With only 20,000 cars on the road every incident has the potential
to change numbers in a radical way. If that happens you now have a 1 in 20,000
chance of being killed in a Tesla in any one year. See how stupid it is to
make such statements?

> The far more deadly nature of a gasoline car fire deserves to be re-
> emphasized.

Who do you think you are talking to? Who's your audience? Children? There are
a BILLION cars in the world[0]. A BILLION. That number might not include
motorcycles, trucks and other variants. I would suggest gasoline powered
vehicles are pretty damn safe, particularly when you consider markets where
they might not have pristine roads, regular maintenance and where cars are
used for ten, twenty and thirty years rather than flipping them every few
years as is often the case in affluent communities in the US and elsewhere.

Anyhow, the point is that sometimes you have to lead by not reacting to things
with emotion and by not saying things you know you will have to regret. The
strongest statement he could make right now is to crash several Model-S's (as
painful as that might be) into concrete walls, into each other and into
gasoline cars and show --in a very public way-- just how safe they might be.
If they are not. Fix it and then show the public. Release the videos and let
people sort it out.

[0] [http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/23/car-
population_n_934...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/23/car-
population_n_934291.html)

[1]
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_lightningfacts.html)

------
gress
Why are comments here focussing on Tesla so much. Isn't it time to acknowledge
that the media are actively damaging society with misinformation and fear
mongering, often in support of entrenched corporate interests?

------
Pitarou
This is a marketing problem.

For marketing purposes, Teslas must be perceived to as safe, if not safer in
every respect than gasoline cars. So if they're more likely to catch fire when
they hit road debris, that's a problem.

------
daily
Hope it's not superfluous to point out, but it's kind of funny: "By By Elon
Musk" is seen under the title. That sounds hostile :) (the duplicate By isn't
seen in other posts on the blog)

------
11thEarlOfMar
FD: TSLA Shareholder

We should discuss whether the situation changes over time. As gasoline cars
age, their likelihood of catching fire increases. As electric cars age, does
their chance also increase?

The flammable elements of a gas-powered car also have wear and tear issues,
and poor service risks. A do-it-yourself mechanic replacing a fuel filter is a
worry, for example.

Or, an old engine with a compromised head gasket, coated in leaked oil and
then overheating.

No time to do the analysis myself, but I am guessing that the failure modes of
a gas car that cause fire are many and the failure modes of a Tesla are few.
Moreover, the likelihood of a particular failure mode in a Tesla may not
increase at the same rate as gas as the cars age.

------
matponta
I can't say enough how much I respect Tesla and the integrity they approach
their market with. Other automotive companies are miles behind!

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shaunrussell
The amount of hate in this thread is sickening.

------
ZanyProgrammer
To make money, of fucking course.

------
robomartin
I've said this before and now I'll generalize my statement to say that the
most important issue in the electric vehicle segment is and will be that of
high power and high voltage system safety, of which the battery is one
component. If the public becomes spooked by problems and accidents in this
area it could set the electric vehicle market back a decade or more.

The real test for electrics will come when one or two million electric
vehicles of all types are sharing the road. That's when this issue of battery
and power system safety will be hugely important. I can imagine semi's with a
million Wh battery systems rolling down the highway. What I cannot imagine are
chain reaction collisions involving a variety of electric and liquid fuel
vehicles.

Tesla is at the forefront of this movement, which means all eyes are on them,
the arrows are on their backs and they have the burden of proof.

One of the most expensive types of businesses to get into are those where you
have to educate your customer base before a sales pitch can even begin. Having
to educating the market before you can sell to them can seriously derail one's
focus and cost bundles of money that could be put to better use elsewhere.
I've been in markets like that. It's a horrible slog.

Up until now, for the most part, electrics have avoided this territory. I fear
that period is ending. Up until now the conversations about electrics were
about range and relative cost when compared to gasoline vehicles. It feels
like we are now entering the domain of having to potentially prove to the
market that the technology is safe as well as to remove (or stop the potential
of the development of) fears of fire and electrocution.

Tesla, due to their position in the market, has the honor of having all
microscopes aimed at everything they do. Every mishap is amplified. Now that
the NTSB has officially opened an investigation every afternoon news show is
jumping on the issues. It will soon be everywhere. And Tesla now has to
defend, educate and prove to the market that what they are doing is safe.

Competitors are now going to pull back and let Tesla take the hits. In markets
where a huge investment is required in order to educate the customer base it
is often a good idea to not be a pioneer. They will let Tesla burn reputation,
bleed cash and resources to deal with the challenge of getting people to be
comfortable with the technology. In these markets letting someone else slot
through this phase is often the most intelligent strategy.

Once things settle, competitors will come in and enjoy a market segment that
has been paved flat by the pioneer/s. It is far less costly --at all levels--
to enter at that point. The mentality of a typical potential customer --after
massive investments in educating them-- is now very different. Now customers
look at the available products and think about which one to buy rather than
whether or not to take a risk with this new technology. That's a massively
different mind-set. That's a mind set primed for well executed product,
marketing and sales strategies with wide distribution, solid sales channels
and a solid post-sales support infrastructure --all of which the established
players either know how to do or already have in place.

Manufacturers entering the market after the education phase can focus on
pricing, marketing and, in general, execution rather than educating or
evangelizing the audience. There's a huge difference in cost of sales in
"nicely paved markets".

When that happens, when the market is "flat" and competitors enter in force,
they could run right over Tesla, push them right off the edge of the market or
they could be swallowed-up by a larger organization. Let's not forget Tesla
sold somewhere in the order of twenty thousand cars --total. There are
companies that probably sell that many cars per day. The difference in scale
is huge.

It is possible that Tesla is at the start of an existential threat. It is hard
to predict which way this will go. It's all on them now and they are all-in.
They can't afford many more fires. And they certainly can't afford to have the
market turn on them. They need to be way ahead of this and spend lots of money
to show people this technology is safe. And, if it isn't, they need to move
quickly to make it safe and then show the market. Quickly.

Volvo used to run commercials featuring cars being rolled and crashed in order
to show how well they protected occupants. Tesla might have to crash a few
cars into concrete walls or into each other to demonstrate how survivable
their high voltage and high current systems might be. If they don't get ahead
of this and more accidents are reported the cost to regain market trust will
grow exponentially. And that could be very difficult to survive.

------
sciguy77
Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is persuasive writing.

