
Two high school seniors die when Tesla crashes into wall, bursts into flames - Jerry2
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-sb-engulfed-flames-car-crash-20180508-story.html
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nimbius
Speaking as a former mechanic for a salvage/maintenance shop, wealthy driver +
high performance sports car on a long enough timeline is a casket on wheels.
After a wreck cars are often sent to repair shops or tow/salvage lots to soak
up the sun and wait for a bean counter to cut a check or send them to scrap.

'catastrophic loss' vehicles are a little different in that they are typically
bought up by the salvage company, auctioned if assumed functional, or cut up
and parted out. The latter is not a fun process as it involves a time
consuming breakdown of the vehicles fluids, other consumables, and drivetrain
often revealing some very gruesome accessories. Ive had an apprentice run
screaming from a Cadillac because she found a crushed terrier inside the lower
dash.

As for any electric vehicle, god help you if you're going to cut them up
because most insurance carriers will tack on a hazard addendum for working on
them. Prius batteries mean electrician tools and an arc-flash suit...and even
then you're looking at a losing proposition if cells have been punctured or
you have to cut out the armored cradle they sit in.

I worked with a shop tech that tried to drill the batteries out of a car and
drain the acid into a pan. 20 minutes later we wound up with a metal fire so
ferocious it consumed the jack stands and the parking brake.

~~~
tim333
Wealthy teenage driver + high performance sports car maybe. Us oldies slow
down a bit.

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arcanus
"Police said the gray 2014 Tesla Motors Model S may have been speeding
southbound in the 1300 block of Seabreeze Boulevard when it drove off the
roadway and struck a concrete wall about 6:46 p.m. Tuesday."

The car was not operating in autonomous mode.

~~~
mozumder
I think the issue here is the safety of lithium electric batteries?

It's rare for gas tanks to explode.. not sure what lithium battery safety
rates, especially given reports of exploding phones/laptops/Boeing 787s

~~~
plorkyeran
Gasoline cars bursting into flames is so commonplace that it doesn't make the
news when it happens.

~~~
actsasbuffoon
Can confirm. I've seen at least 2 combustion-based cars on fire during my
commute. I don't mean small fires either; these looked like something out of
an action movie.

~~~
EADGBE
Fire from overheating or fire from accident?

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stevew20
If the crash was bad enough to eject someone, then the Tesla catching fire is
sad, but probably not why these kids died. Driving their powerful car into a
concrete wall is what killed them; the make of the car has little to do with
it. This article is written in a overly biased way depicting the Tesla as
being at fault for steering off the road and into a concrete barrier and
killing these kids; note that every time it references an event leading up to
and including the crash, it puts blame on the Tesla...

"when the Tesla they were in crashed into a concrete wall and burst into
flames "

"Police said the gray 2014 Tesla Motors Model S may have been speeding
southbound"

Damn shoddy journalism here! I'd be ashamed to write such a nasty little
article.

I don't want a car that I drive to catch fire in a severe crash, but honestly
the possibility of dying in a normal car crash is several orders of magnitude
higher than getting into a crash that is not severe enough to kill me
instantly, but is capable of breaching the battery housing of the car. I'm
more worried about getting bitten by a shark, which has a higher chance of
occurring than a Tesla fire...

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ckdarby
I feel for the family. I wish our society wasn't so hyper active with media
coverage. This would be a very different story potentially with more facts.

"Reckless teenagers text & driving while exceeding speed limit"

Electric cars are fairly easy to show off with their insane acceleration.
Sadly they're also insanely easy to lose control because of that acceleration.

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kolbe
Motor vehicles deaths in 2016: 37,461

Additionally, high school aged men driving insanely powerful sports cars
probably have a higher risk of death. I'm not sure why this should be anything
more than local news.

~~~
kylehotchkiss
Agreed. Always frustrating how parents will give teenagers such powerful
vehicles.

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Tharkun
> Tesla has been under scrutiny before over several instances of vehicles
> catching fire.

Really? This old chestnut again? I thought the statistics were pretty
conclusively showing that cars with internal combustion engines are far more
fire prone than electric vehicles.

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Davertron
Why is this news?

~~~
jtokoph
This was my first thought. Would this article have been news if it said teens
crash mommy’s Porsche into concrete wall? Maybe this is news because the
Porsche may not have burst into flames.

~~~
Cshelton
Exactly. There are thousands of instances where the article is just a local
news of "teen crashes parents sports car", where the picture is typically a
Ford Mustang. Yet, the make and model of the vehicle is very rarely in the
headline.

Also, there are a ton of ICE crashes where the vehicle catches fire, but, it
is also not news. Any rupture to the fuel tank has a high probability of
catching fire and it happens so much that it never makes a news article.

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mtgx
Non-exploding solid state batteries can't come soon enough. Hopefully we won't
end-up "compromising" on "hybrid" solid state batteries (which Samsung is
currently targeting for manufacturing in the near future) along the way. We
need 100% solid state batteries for EVs.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It is very, very hard to ensure the safety of the energy density required by
consumers of any transportation method except perhaps diesel fuel (which is
damn near impossible to accidentally ignite outside of the engine).
Improvements will continue to be made, but we might never eliminate the
problem.

This might simply be the Paul Walker scenario: too much power with an
inexperienced driver.

~~~
chesimov
LiFePO4 batteries are significantly safer for a penalty of 14% less energy
density

