ZeroHedge | by Tyler Durden Tuesday, May 24, 2022 – 09:20 AM
Solar flares? The alignment of the planets? Just plain old terrible production quality? What possible explanation could their be for two separate Teslas catching fire within a couple days of each other this weekend?
In fact, the incidents in question took place so close to each other, that we couldn’t even finish writing about one of the stories before the other one broke – we so combined them into one piece.
First, it was reported late last week that a blaze in California had been started by a 2019 Tesla Model 3.
Owner Ediel Ruiz said that after taking a trip in the vehicle, he was greeted with a notification on his phone that his car’s alarm was going off. When he looked outside at the car, it was filled with smoke and flames.
Ruiz said the first thing to melt was his 4-month-old’s car seat, according to KBAK.
“Honestly, I didn’t know how to react, I mean it just kind of happened,” he said. “We had that, the stroller, formula, [his partner] had just graduated from USC the day prior. All her graduation stuff burned up.”
“We were going to go to Bakersfield to go eat at Texas Roadhouse. Luckily, for whatever reason, her grandparents canceled and we didn’t go. It didn’t happen while we were driving.”
He called the California City Fire Department to help remove the vehicle after the blaze: “I tried to make it clear that the car was completely gone. I don’t think they understood how bad the fire was. So when he showed up, he said, ‘I’m not prepared or equipped to remove this, I can’t drive this down the freeway or the ash will go everywhere.’”
Then, on Monday morning, it was reported by electrek that an almost brand new Model Y caught fire after powering down while driving. The incident happened last Friday, when the owner was says the car “pushed an error notification and then powered down” before the cabin began filling with smoke.
He told the fire department: “I had to smash the window to get out of the car. I kicked through the window. Everything stops. The power didn’t work. The door didn’t open. The windows didn’t go down so I’m thinking I need to get the f*ck out of this car so I kicked through.”
“Oh f*ck there’s the fire,” you can hear someone on the video say. “I swear to God, all of a sudden my car just shut down, it just said ‘error, error, error’, and then all of a sudden the battery started smoking…”
“It’s going to be interesting to see the results of this investigation,” electrek wrote. To which we ask, what investigation?
Here is video of the incident, where you can see clearly how the driver had to kick the window out:
Cars need energy to create movement. Petrol and diesel store their energy as a flammable liquid and then release it in a combustion chamber or occasionally as a bloody great fire killing occupants. I have had my Nissan Skyline catch fire on a very hot day, standing in the open.
Electric cars store energy in chemical form in a battery. When charging or discharging, batteries get warm/hot and sometimes they, like petrol, just catch alight for the fun of it. Just wait until the main store of energy is Hydrogen, that catches light with a lovely big bang.