Regardless of how you feel about Tesla, or whether you believe these articles are PR pieces written by oil shills, this is just bad journalism.

Good journalism would give us any piece of the following information:

  - The number of fires in Tesla vehicles compared to:
    - other gas-powered cars in the same vehicle class
    - other electric cars in the same vehicle class
    - overall vehicle fire statistics in the country
  - A possible explanation as to what mechanism in Tesla vehicles causes fires like 
  this.
  - Some brief exploration of how concerns about Tesla's safety standards might affect 
  its broader offering, brand, and stock price.

Instead, we get:

Whether the latest news will have any lasting effect on public perceptions is doubtful. But it offered more fodder for bears who have been dumping Tesla shares since the company reported third-quarter earnings earlier this week. Tesla's stock has been on a tear most of the year but in the last month has lost more than 20 percent of its value.

Wait, sorry, was I trying to be impartial at the beginning of this comment? This is pure shill journalism. The big three are scared. Ignore them.