
Tesla electric car catches fire in Toronto; company has not yet explained - uladzislau
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/tesla-says-cause-of-toronto-garage-fire-not-yet-determined/article16898563/
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alkonaut
I understand that this is new and scary technology and that gives Tesla some
more scrutiny than others, but come on, how many cars caught fire that day in
Toronto alone, and where are the comments from those manufacturers?

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deletes
I noticed that USA media is mostly trying to undermine Tesla for some reason.
Almost every article only mentions the fires and distorts the circumstances
they were in.

~~~
ericd
It can be easily explained by how ravenously hungry they are for controversy
and fear-generating topics. US news media unfortunately has a lot in common
with reality TV.

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redthrowaway
Seems like they're taking the right approach: offer compensation, figure out
what went wrong, then fix it.

New technology will always have problems; how you approach those problems will
determine how successful you ultimately are.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Which is funny because (according to random citation needed sources), gas-
powered cars have electrical failures and resulting fires quite a lot compared
to Teslas.

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dopamean
This is the part that gets me. In my life I can think of 3 instances of cars
catching on fire that I witnessed personally. One was a neighbor who's suv
caught on fire in their garage and burned their house down. I dont even
remember what brand the car was but with Tesla it's headline news worthy.

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Scorponok
"Tesla said it has “definitively determined” that the Toronto fire did not
originate in the battery, the charging system, the adapter or the electrical
receptacle, noting that these components were untouched by the fire."

So... what exactly did catch fire?

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toomuchtodo
There is info on /r/TeslaMotors [1] indicating it started near the front of
the vehicle. Either an electrical component forward of the passenger
compartment, or something in the front luggage compartment (where the motor
typically would be in an ICE vehicle).

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/1xuwx7/tesla_fi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/1xuwx7/tesla_fire_in_toronto_garage/cfev2h0)

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IgorPartola
I forget exactly what it is but there is an important component of the
charging system in the front right wheel well that you are not supposed to cut
through if you are attempting a rescue of the passenger in a Tesla. They
demonstrated that in their emergency responder training videos, saying that
it's different from normal cars where you can cut right through the wheel well
and here you should not since there are high voltage wires there.

~~~
toomuchtodo
[http://www.teslamotors.com/firstresponders](http://www.teslamotors.com/firstresponders)

[http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/201...](http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/downloads/20130214_ModelS_Emergency_Response_Guide.pdf)

~~~
IgorPartola
Yup. Check out pages 9 and 10. Looks like it is the 12 volt battery.

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seancoleman
This reminds me of what Elon Musk stated in an interview (paraphrased): It's
not enough for new technology to simply be as good or 2x better than incumbent
technology; it needs to be 10x better to overcome industry standard inertia.

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ben174
With 17 car fires per _hour_ in the USA, it seems quite obvious that some of
those would be from a Tesla. It's unfortunate that these are the only ones
that make the news though.

Relative to other cars, Tesla car fires are quite rare.

~~~
shas3
How many of those are spontaneous? The concern over Tesla is understandable if
you consider the voltage and currents associated with running the motor.

~~~
aestra
Anecdote alert! A friend of mine told me a story about how his car
spontaneously caught on fire sitting in his driveway while he was sleeping.
The fire department had to investigate. I don't recall the cause though.
Wasn't anything too crazy.

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latifnanji27
Why is Tesla, when it catches fire, the only car to make it on hackernews?

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Houshalter
Because it's a new technology and of interest to Hacker News, and because
other cars don't generally spontaneously combust.

~~~
dangrossman
> other cars don't generally spontaneously combust

They do. Check out YouTube, or the anecdotes in the other comments here. I'll
throw in another -- one of my neighbors' cars spontaneously caught fire
sitting in his driveway after midnight. The fire department had to come put it
out, along with the front of his house it started to set fire to.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Car drove by my house way back when, smoking rather alarmingly. Stopped a few
dozen meters further on, fire from under the hood, firefighters dropping by to
extinguish it. Adventures in one's youth. No clue what caused it; probably a
short circuit, and given how there's oil and gasoline everywhere, it kinda
keeps going.

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VeejayRampay
Funny how a Tesla catching fire always makes the news. Were I a conspiracy
loon, I'd swear there is a disproportionately thorough coverage of those
events by the media.

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mladenkovacevic
It's weird but I've seen a number of Tesla's on the streets of Toronto. A
close neighbor of mine has one too as I see him pulling out of the street
parallel to mine on most mornings. Is there a dealership in Toronto or
something?

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highsea
There's one at Yorkdale.

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nasalgoat
They're also building one in Scarborough.

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bostonpete
People drive electric cars in Toronto? I can't imagine they get much range in
the winter...

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dangrossman
Model S is the best-selling car in Norway, which is further north than
Toronto. Very low temperatures means it runs a battery heater; it still gets
175-250 miles range in well-below-zero winter days with the cabin heater
blasting. There are tons of great Model S winter performance videos on
YouTube, as well as independent reviews. Consumer Reports did a Model S winter
range test you can read about IIRC.

~~~
hdevalence
Note, however, that further north doesn't necessarily mean colder. For
instance, looking at the climate data on Wikipedia indicates that Oslo and
Toronto have about the same average highs/lows in the winter months.

Meanwhile, Winnipeg (Winterpeg) is a full 10 degrees latitude south of Oslo,
but is much, much, colder.

As as aside, though Europe's warmer climate is often attributed to the Gulf
Stream, evidence suggests it's actually a consequence of angular momentum.
See, for instance,

[https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/issue.aspx?id=999&y...](https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/issue.aspx?id=999&y=0&no=&content=true&page=5&css=print)

and the paper in PDF form here:

[http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/pubs/Seager_etal...](http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/pubs/Seager_etal_QJ_2002.pdf)

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undershirt
Not much to say until we have more info. With all the amazing advancements
that Tesla has made, I can't help but be reminded of Apollo 1's fire. And I
have no doubts that they will recover as swiftly as NASA did.

~~~
justin66
> With all the amazing advancements that Tesla has made, I can't help but be
> reminded of Apollo 1's fire.

What the hell?

