Tesla catches fire on Highway 50 near Rancho Cordova | Hacker News Reader

Tesla catches fire on Highway 50 near Rancho Cordova

kcra.com

12 pointslatchkey19 comments

Why is this news? I'm not a big fan of Teslas, but gas-powered cars catch fire all the time, especially in the deserts of California and Arizona. People just think it never happens because it doesn't make national news.

Electric vehicles can generate temperatures of nearly 4,900 degrees when they burn[1], that's what's different.

[1]: https://www.kttc.com/2022/09/01/iowa-firefighters-express-co...

In the end they say ICE cars catch fire more than EVs. In my European country older diesel cars catch fires and burn quite regularly unfortunately.

EV fires are a PITA to put out, this one needed thousands of gallons of water.

You can't smother a lithium battery fire with anything, it will continue to burn even underwater. Your only option is to cool the battery to a point where its below the point of combustion. And that takes considerable time and a lot of water.

This is also happening to relatively new cars not some 30 year old piece of junk.

Isn't water the wrong solution then? In the fire triangle of fuel-temperature-oxidizer, you can also take away the oxidizer using foam, can't you?

Yes. Water is also a very poor choice for gasoline fires.

At least the battery will mostly stay in one place, rather than floating off on the surface of the water, possibly setting things on fire at a considerable distance from the original source.

I'm not seeing a source for that figure, or even whether it's F or C.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA238154.pdf (pdf link)

says that lithium burning in air reaches a maximum temperature of about 1,000 C (about 1,800 F).

https://www.thoughtco.com/flame-temperatures-table-607307

says that various hydrocarbons (butane, candles, ethane, methane) produce pretty much the same temperature range when burned in air.

they buried the lede, how easy it was to put out relative to a ICE fire

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture...

Using water on an EV battery fire wasn't very bright now, was it?

Car sized fire blankets are the go - quick, simple, easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO8cVWOqZcg

As soon as they take off the blanket the battery reignites again.

And, so . . . ?

How long does that persist for and how can that be worked into a response procedure?

(Don't stop at ankle deep trivial observations, solutions are required)

Understanding the impact of first responder infrastructure to me is one of the things that seems to get lost about increasing the amount of EVs on the roads.

Not sure it’s a tremendously great solution is to lay a blanket on a EV fire and have the fire department camp out to manage the situation for 12 hours waiting for the batteries to cool to the point where they don’t self combust again so the the vehicle to be safely moved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5vDWhMHTwE

Same. I actually own a Tesla but I wouldn't call myself a "fan" any more than the other cars I own. But I've been asked by strangers (and family) if I'm afraid my car will catch fire. Because of articles like this, a lot of people think that there are just Teslas combusting everywhere.

Spontaneous combustion of a brand new, well maintained car while traveling down the highway is newsworthy, Tesla or not.

https://archive.ph/ykM1P

Can't read it in Europe

Site is probably spyware.

>Site is probably spyware

The site is a local NBC television station, the story was reported by their local news crew.

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