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I live in a major city and we have freeway closures due to vehicle fires on a near daily basis. Most recently a truck full of bread caught on fire and resulted in one of the cities most major arteries being closed both ways for 4+ hours.

"more than 150,000 annually, which kill some 209 civilians every year" http://www.businessinsider.com/17-cars-catch-on-fire-every-h...

No it happens, so friends car was overheating, opened up the bonnet to see flames, car was engulfed within 7 minutes of stopping the car.

Yep, the wire harness in two different cars of mine have caught fire over the years.

"On average, 31 highway vehicle fires were reported per hour."

It's not news because it's so frequent.

http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/vehicle-...

Over a 10 year period 2003->2013: 2,395,000 car fires causing 4,050 deaths and 13,215 injuries

roughly: 656 fires and one death every day

http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/vehicle-...

This data is valuable but also slightly I'll-fitted for this purpose.

How many relatively recently sold modern gasoline vehicles in a similar category to the Tesla catch on fire? That's the proper number for the comparison.