Owner of Battery Fire Tesla Vehicle: Car 'Performed Very Well, Will Buy Again' 232
cartechboy writes "The Tesla Model S fire that, to date, is either electric car Armageddon or 'no big deal' has been fun Internet theatre combined with a dose of crowd-sourced battery-pack pseudo-expertise. Now the actual car owner (and Tesla investor) weighs in with his take, which is, basically, 'nothing to see here and yes, I can't wait to get back into a Tesla.' Owner Robert Carlson wrote an email in response to contact by Tesla's vice president of sales and service, Jerome Guillen, saying he found the car had 'performed very well under such an extreme test. The batteries went through a controlled burn which the Internet images really exaggerates.' Carlson had no comment on the guy who videoed his car fire, who is now Internet infamous for shooting video in portrait mode." You can read Elon Musk's take, along with Carlson's correspondence.
The heater really works (Score:5, Funny)
It's powered by flaming batteries.
Re:The heater really works (Score:4, Funny)
I would say it's not very efficient though - most of the heat is outside the car.
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That's to melt the ice or soften the asphalt on the road, for better traction.
You might think that, but this is actually the first step in a self recharging car [slashdot.org] that occasionally drops a flamed out battery pack to make room for new, chargeable batteries! Try not to park down wind of them... or, breathe in their general vicinity really...
The are mortal after all (Score:2)
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Re: The are mortal after all (Score:5, Informative)
Only in vapor form. You can put out a match by dipping it in gasoline. That's part of the reason gasoline is such a good vehicle fuel.
Good luck having a condition where you have spilled liquid gasoline but no gasoline vapor, which is QUITE flammable.
Gasoline was chosen as a vehicle fuel because once upon a time it was a waste product of kerosene production, so it was cheap and plentiful. The advantage it had was being VERY VOLATILE - easily evaporating into the air to form an explosive mixture. A carburetor does not need to "condition" it at all, just deliver a carefully controlled dose. Because of this you could produce an internal combustion engine without the need for a fuel injection system like diesel engines required, and with a lower compression ratio, so the engines would be simpler, lighter and faster. Less efficient, too, but who really cared when the fuel was so cheap?
=Smidge=
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
A carburetor does not need to "condition" it at all, just deliver a carefully controlled dose.
A gasoline engine with a carburetor runs on air-fuel mixture, not on gas. If you pour gas down the inlet manifold, the engine stops. The carburetor "conditions" the gasoline by mixing it with air in ratio that is prescribed for the given mode (vacuum, RPM, gas pedal, etc. - as many variables as you have money for.) The later carburetors, before they got obsoleted, were quite complex.
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Essentially all ICEs run on a "air-fuel mixture". Burning requires both fuel and oxidizer, and O2 in the air makes for a suitable oxidizer.
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you can run an ICE just fine by pouring gas down the intake manifold. When I was younger and stupider, I did that with my ancient Oldsmobile. Yes, it required a bit of subtlety, but not as much as you'd expect.
Carburetors got quite complex because people expected perfect engine response, at all throttle settings, at environmental conditions ranging from startup at 10,000 feet in the winter to running below sea level at 120 degrees F in the summer, and the government expected minimal emissions in all those situations. But, basic though inefficient operation can be accomplished with a straw and a gas reservoir.
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I once saw a car running on propane with the hose from the propane tank poked into the carburetor.
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We used to do that all the time to drive cars with fuel system problems into the shop. It works like a charm as long as you don't push the gas pedal (or you're really quick with the valve on the propane tank). It works on modern cars, too, you just poke the tube into the air intake.
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In our case we were touring Europe in a Commer based camper van. The engine is right between the two front seats under a hatch which swings back. The carby had a press-on sheet metal cap. We had run out of fuel a few km before a border and would have had to cash another travellers cheque to buy fuel so we gambled on having enough and lost. This was in the 1970s, my dad was driving. So I grabbed the propane tank for my dad and he got the engine going. It was noisy, smelly (like, almost ready to explode) and
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
Try heating it. If you want to see a spectacular fire have an ignition source near gasoline that has been heated. a good car fire is highly dangerous because the gasoline starts to boil at only 120 degrees F. and once it is boiling you can easily get the whole tank of fuel to the superheated vapor point by 200 degrees, easily achieved in a car fire. At that point if you release the pressure of the container and the WHOLE LIQUID MASS will nearly instantly vaporize.
That is the nice fireball you get. Gasoline is a good vehicle fuel because it's dirt cheap and easy to make, it's not because it is incredibly safe.
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When you consider that only a dozen gallons of it contains enough energy to transport a vehicle loaded to 3,000 lbs over 400 miles, it's hard to imagine getting any similar amount of energy into a container and not have be incredibly dangerous.
Solar panel. *ducks*
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
it's hard to imagine getting any similar amount of energy into a container and not have be incredibly dangerous.
Your imagination must not be very good then. Diesel for one is substantially less volatile than gasoline and actually has a higher energy density too.
And if you want to move into the realm of impractical for cars, then you could go for #6 fuel oil.
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Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Funny)
I have a question: Why do you need a 3,000 lb vehicle to transport you to the grocery store and back?
What a troll question as he was obviously using the weight and distance as an example of energy density. But you just have to make this about something other than the safety of gasoline and/or electric vehicles, don't you?
Now I have a question: How much gasoline does it take to push a 3,000 lb agenda?
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Here's another one: why do you live 400 miles from a grocery store?
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My bicycle doesn't violate any federal safety standards, and it only weighs about 20lbs.
My motorcycle also complies with all federal safety standards, and it weighs less than 1/4 of an average automobile.
My question is, "Why do we need cars the size of locomotives to bring the kids to school or to go shopping?"
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
I carry >$100 worth of groceries home on my bike regularly. Got these nifty snap-on panniers and handlebar basket.
I'm not against driving cars. We own two. My point is that we don't all need to be driving >3000lb cars and nobody needs to be driving an 8000lb SUV unless they're using it for business.
This notion of "My family is much more valuable than any other family so I have to buy an SUV as big as a locomotive so that if there's an accident I can be sure whoever had the misfortune of being rear-ended by my wife pays the ultimate price.
Monday, when you're commuting to work, count the number of large SUVs on the highway with only a single passenger - the driver.
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand your reasoning. But it's kind of a good argument for Federal fuel economy standards, isn't it?
There's no incentive for car manufacturers to make lighter vehicles, so it will never happen. Plus, you have people who want to drive locomotives because fuck you that's why.
The only reason we're going to break the cycle of cars getting bigger and heavier is to set some standards. Because even if gas goes to $20/gallon, there's going to be some rich prick who says, "I need my 8,000 lb SUV because I'm the biggest dog on the block". So now everybody else has to get a bigger car so they're safe from John Galt in the SUV. In the meantime, all that weight causes the roads to breakdown sooner, which we've all got to pay for and all the other external costs like pollution and the wars that are necessary to keep a steady supply of cheap gasoline coming.
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:5, Insightful)
You can put out a match by dipping it in gasoline.
....Maybe, if you're very quick. But the gasoline would be giving off vapor upwards, which the match would run into downwards. I've seen the old "dip your hand in water and you can dunk it in liquid lead" trick, but this sounds more like that "heat up a spoon with duck tape around the handle then put it in cold water*" cruel prank.
*do NOT attempt!
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Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:5, Informative)
Not really. Duck tape was actually a generic term from early in the 20th century coming from duck cloth to a variety of strip products using duck cloth backing, some with adhesive, some not.. It fell out of use and was trademarked first in the 1970s, after ductape in fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape [wikipedia.org]
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
The Duck brand has nothing to do with the early history of the tape. The whole story is covered in duct tape [wikipedia.org]. The first duck tape was developed by Revolite. The name "duck" was a mix of being made from cotton duck [sierratradingpost.com], named based on the "Dutch word doek, which refers to a linen canvas once used for sailors’ white trousers and outerwear", and that the resulting product had a duck-like resistance to water.
"Ductape" was the originally trademarked name for a heat-resistant version of the tape sold for duct work, developed by a different company.
The Duck brand is the current owner of the original tape design. But they didn't acquire that name until almost 50 years after the "duck cotton" name started.
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The original tape was just rubber adhesive applied to a type of waterproof canvas called "duck cloth". Hence "duck tape".
The modern plastic-coated cloth tape is correctly called "duct tape", which is the industry it comes from. Although, just to confuse things further, they don't use duct-tape to tape ducts any more, they use much thinner silver plastic tape. So you can buy "Duck Brand Duct Tape" which is neither duck tape nor duct tape.
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Although most people now refer to it as "duct tape" the original term was "duck tape".
http://mentalfloss.com/article/52151/it-duck-tape-or-duct-tape [mentalfloss.com]
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Re: The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
From what I understand, the point of the whole "hot spoon with duct tape" thing is not that it's supposed to explode, but rather that it's a cruel prank to heat up the duct tape's adhesive without the person realizing it before it sticks to and burns their hand. That video author "cheats" by holding it with a cloth, rather than gripping the duct tape directly. Of course the spoon doesn't explode, as some people claim. That still doesn't mean you should be doing it, since there's something else going on that's potentially dangerous.
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You can put out a match by dipping it in gasoline.
That's probably true under certain conditions, but most of the time you hear that fact used for heavier fuels like diesel and kerosene/jet fuel. Gasoline has a pretty high vapor pressure compared to the other two, even including butane in the mix depending on the season.
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Only in vapor form. You can put out a match by dipping it in gasoline. That's part of the reason gasoline is such a good vehicle fuel. It has to be conditioned in a carburetor or a fuel injection system to be very volatile so it's fairly safe as a fuel.
Yes, you can put out a match in gasoline (petrol), but you have to be quick about it. If there's enough vapor about it will certainly go PHOOM!
I've seen plenty of regular cars burning by the side of the road, without even the benefit of striking or being struck by another vehicle. And when the gas tanks begin to boil, that's when the fire fighters are very circumspect about getting near one as an exploding tank can fling flaming fuel for a large radius.
In contrast, this Tesla car fire is dullsville.
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You can put out a match by dipping it in gasoline.
You can do that with Diesel. I really wouldn't try it with gasoline.
Re: The are mortal after all (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're planning on putting matches out by throwing them into the gas tank, gasoline is just the BEST vehicle fuel. Plus, it's so cheap and easily obtainable. You can just back your car up to those gasoline lakes and fill 'er up.
But it's good to know I can throw a match into the gas tank and be perfectly safe. That's probably why internal combustion cars never catch fire.
Clearly, this Tesla fire is proof that electric cars can never work.
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I actually drove right by a vehicle fire today, on the 51 freeway in north Phoenix, around maybe 7th ave or so. It was a 90s-model Chevy pickup truck, with the engine compartment and front tires on fire (smelled fantastic, by the way). The thing I thought most impressive was that the lighted sign only about a mile before it already said there was a vehicle fire ahead, but when I got there it seemed like it had only started minutes before because of how small it was (hell, the tires hadn't even popped yet)
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I get your sarcasm clearly, but why does everyone think local and state government has shutdown just because the federals have? City, county and state should still be running in a federal shutdown, unless they've taken the opportunity to grab a vacation and blame it on the feds.
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Yup in the hobby world we charge our LiPo batteries in kevlar bags that have an anti flammable lining and a metal closure to keep air out.
LiPo batteries are dangerous as hell, I have no idea why they sell them everywhere to anyone. They are little bombs if you charge them wrong.
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As opposed to a plastic bin full of highly volatile, easily vaporizable, combustible fuel?
Re:The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
As I understand it, no electric cars use the old LiCo chemistry, or we'd have seen a far more exciting fire in this Tesla.
Re:The are mortal after all (Score:4, Insightful)
... I guess they really are just like all the other cars out there.
A car that can't suddenly roast its occupants in an explosion should be regarded as a step forwards. Don't forget how dangerous it is to travel at speed in a vehicle that carries both a tank of highly volatile liquid and an engine that, even when functioning properly, turns 70-75% of that potential energy into heat.
Re:The are mortal after all (Score:5, Funny)
Yay uninformed internet conservative!
Re:The are mortal after all (Score:4, Informative)
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I'm guessing he's relying on his engineers and not shooting from the hip, regardless.
Kind of on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
For the love of all things holy, can camera software / smartphone software detect if the user has _initiated_ the recording rotated and adapt appropriately?
Alternatively, can we get some simple, easy software which rotates video easily? Pictures are a breeze, video seemingly not. It's 2013 already!
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The lens probably provides an orientation neutral, disc-shaped image. If the image sensor and recorder supported a disc shape, then the viewer (or editor) could choose the framing: horizontal, or vertical, square, Cinerama, or just leave it as a disc.
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The quote you were looking for is:
"Just avoid holding it that way."
- Steve Jobs
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Software can't fix vertical video since the sensor was oriented the wrong way to begin with . The only "fix" would be to crop down to a lower resolution or design a phone where the sensor rotates independent of how it's held.
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The core problem is that you record a video in 1080x1920 which is then scaled down to 608x1080 to fit into a horizontal player, thus you lose information. The trivial fix would be to simply not squish vertical video into a horizontal player, instead play it in a vertical player, thus preserving all the image detail.
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But it would have to crop the image as the sensor is fixed to the phone, if that's what you want you can crop your portrait to landscape post processing and get a fugly video.
Re:Kind of on topic (Score:4, Informative)
But what if they *want* it in portrait? It should do what the *user* wants, not what most people think is right.
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But what if they *want* it in portrait? It should do what the *user* wants, not what most people think is right.
As my Photography professer told me early on. "You have to know the rules in order to break them."
After viewing the footage, I doubt this guy was breaking the rules. as he knew them. Which an observer could come to a quick conclusion that he had no idea what he was doing
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Why not use a square sensor?
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Why not use a square sensor?
Because it would be sensor space that would rarely be used. It's not that common that people would hold in portrait but intend to shoot in landscape. And then on top of that, I don't know that it is technically possible to manufacture a plus-shaped sensor. If not, then that would mean either there would be a lot of the sensor that is completely unused (which means wasted cost of manufacturing, and possibly wasted battery life if it's not possible to keep portions of the sensor powered down), or you'd have t
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Nobody should intend to film in portrait mode except in rare conditions that do not apply here with phones. The reason people do it is because it is the natural way to hold the phone, not because it is the natural way to watch the video. The phone should fix their mistake by cropping the image down to landscape or square. I don't understand what you mean by "sensor space that would rarely be used". With a square sensor, the recording would ALWAYS be square regardless of portrait or landscape orientation.
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Nobody should intend to film in portrait mode except in rare conditions that do not apply here with phones. The reason people do it is because it is the natural way to hold the phone, not because it is the natural way to watch the video.
Why should nobody intend to do it? I do it from time to time, and I intend it. If the subject I'm capturing is naturally vertical, and I don't intend to view it full screen on an HDTV, why should I waste all that space and resolution capturing stuff I don't care about on each side? I'll shoot it portrait and capture the subject that I am actually interested in with as much detail as possible.
The phone should fix their mistake by cropping the image down to landscape or square.
Then you end up with a much lower resolution, which is very undesirable.
I don't understand what you mean by "sensor space that would rarely be used". With a square sensor, the recording would ALWAYS be square regardless of portrait or landscape orientation. It might be different than what users expect, so the cropped area on the display could show application icons for various features that are often hidden in pie menus.
But to use a square sensor, you give up a lot
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Who says it needs to be wasted space? Let the user capture a square image.
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Why can't youtube display vertical movies? It's 2013 already!
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A single image is always going to be easier to modify than 100,000 images (ie. a video). That said, kmenc15, virtualdub, etc., can easily flip, rotate, gamma correct, crop, or do many other modifications to your video.
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Yeah. And maybe YouTube could handle showing fullscreen portrait video properly on a portrait-oriented device. *facepalm*
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Why rotate it? From what I can see, the video is already rotated appropriately: Up on my monitor is up on TFV.
If you don't like the vertical viewpoint, just crop it and zoom it and bend it 90 degrees. You -will- lose information in doing so, just as you must in doing so with still pictures, even if the latter is "a breeze." (There are tools that make it "a breeze" with video if that's what you really want.)
Or are you requesting that image sensors on cell phones be a 1x1 matrix instead of a 4x3 or 16x9 m
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The phones are capable of shooting in portrait or landscape and auto-rotating the video.
One would assume when you start the recording process in a portrait state, you want to see it "normal".
Furthermore, how hard would it be for a camera app to display a small arrow on the display depicting where "up" is.
Finally, I don't care about rotating on the phone itself, rotating even on a PC isn't that simple either :/
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Rotating video on something like a mobile is difficult, there's not much processing power so it will take a while with large videos and drain your battery.
Negative. It takes no additional processing power at all to rotate the video on a mobile. I'm sorry, but the rest of us articulate beings shouldn't have to suffer simply because your lowest-bid manufacturer opted for fused wrist joints.
Better safe than sorry (Score:5, Funny)
Till they fixed this problem I certainly will stay away from any Nvidia product.
Search Youtube for "car fire 2013" (Score:3)
Search "car fire 2013 -race" About 1,740,000 results.
Eliminates motor sports car fires.
Yes, the burning Tesla is on the first page. However, you could spend the rest of your life just watching all the non-Tesla burning car videos for just one year.
So why is one Tesla on fire such a hot item?
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So why is one Tesla on fire such a hot item?
Because there are very few Teslas around, and because they showed up on the market just about a year ago.
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Because it appears to be the first one, and media might still remember the Fisker Karmas that ignited after hurricane Sandy. Personally, I still want a Tesla.
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it's on fire, so it's a hot item
Want to know more about car fires in America? (Score:5, Informative)
From 2008-2010 "Approximately one in seven fires responded to by fire departments across the nation is a highway vehicle fire. This does not include the tens of thousands of fire department responses to highway vehicle accident sites.". The leading factors in ignition where "mechanical failure" (44.1%) and "electrical failure" (22.3%). 1 [fema.gov]
The actual number of highway car fires in that period was approximately 582,000, or an average of over 500 car fires every day on American highways.2 [nfpa.org]
In this accident which involved an electric car a large piece of sparking metal debris was run over by the car and thrown up with enough force to slice through the cars stored energy compartment, in this case one of the batteries. The driver was alerted via the display to a problem and instructed to pull over immediately due to the fact that one of the batteries was now leaking and smoldering. A short time later the burning ember reached critical temperature and was able to ignite the softer materials in the adjoining 'frunk', the carpeted front side trunk located where most cars have an engine. The other 15 battery compartments, having not been skewered by a giant metal spike, remained unharmed due to the firewalls and other protection, as did the passenger compartment.
If the owner had been driving a gas powered car and that metal spike had instead been driven up into the gas tank, ripping it open and showering the fuel with sparks as it was dragged along the highway, would the driver have had any warning other than a loud bump and then the passenger compartment being consumed by flames?
This is not the first Tesla fire, there was another involving the Roadster resulting in a recall of 439 vehicles. The source of the fire in that instance was not the advanced battery at all, it was one of the old style 12V lines (Tesla vehicles still include a regular 12V battery for lights/instruments and 'ignition') being in a bad position near a headlight and susceptible to damage that could spark a fire. Going back to the statistics above we have over 100 car fires each day (22.3% of 500) caused by those 12V wires and components being damaged and shorting out. For example Honda recalled over 140,000 (non-hybrid) Fits in the US this year because the wiring in a 12V door switch could get wet, short out and start a fire. GM had the same problem last year and had to recall almost half a million vehicles.
Re:Want to know more about car fires in America? (Score:5, Insightful)
I attribute the serious press coverage and negative tone to paid coverage by other car manufacturers. They are scared of Tesla because they've developed everything in house and now hold patents on a lot of key electric car technology.
Anyone with any brains looked at this as said so what. I've seen car fires, obviously gas car fires and they are fucking scary. I watched a gas car go from a little smoke to smouldering ember in less than 2 minutes. The driver barely made it out alive. People are routinely killed in car fires because gas cars burn very very fast. Apparently the Model S told him there was trouble and to pull over and he was out of the car waiting for help long before the fire started. Though it makes for an interesting video had that been a gas fire the car would have been a smoking ember before the fire department got there.
Not terribly surprising. (Score:2)
I figure that anyone who's invested has probably got at least some idea how the battery tech works... And anyone who does, knows that compromising one or more cells with something conductive (I read something about metal road debris piercing the battery?) is literally one of the surest ways to cause a catastrophic failure of a lithium chemistry battery pack.
So yeah, if I were in his shoes, I'd be keeping things in perspective, too.
Man, I've seen photos of R/C car and plane batteries having done absolutely
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But that's just how it goes if you wanna store an assload of clean energy in a small enough space to power a vehicle.
that's just how it goes if you want to store an assload of ANY KIND of energy in a small enough space
Top Gear (Score:2)
Let's just end any doubt... (Score:2)
From the blog:
"Earlier this week, a Model S traveling at highway speed struck a large metal object, causing significant damage to the vehicle. A curved section that fell off a semi-trailer was recovered from the roadway near where the accident occurred and, according to the road crew that was on the scene, appears to be the culprit. The geometry of the object caused a powerful lever action as it went under the car, punching upward and impaling the Model S with a peak force on the order of 25 tons. Only a fo
Re:It's so dirty! (Score:4, Funny)
I know this will probably get lost in the comments but, when my mom isn't home I like to go into her garden, cover myself in dirt, and pretend I'm a carrot.
Funny, that's how you were conceived.
Re:Didn't blow up, would buy again (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, it's exactly the same tech. Tesla uses laptop batteries for their vehicles.
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Actually things like Kindles use the far more dangerous LiPo battery.
Re: Didn't blow up, would buy again (Score:4, Informative)
What a stupid post. It is no-brainers like you that shut down the government to make a point.
Listen, probably anyone who buys a Tesla also invests in companies including Tesla, because they like it and believe in it.
The best electric car in the world.
If you read the blog post, you can see that even though an L shaped piece of metal levered up and punctured quarter inch armor (which ordinary cars don't even have), the engineering design worked perfectly, flame was compartmentalized and directed downward, no flame entered the passenger compartment, and total combustible power was 1% of an ordinary car. Even after being punctured, instead of exploding the vehicle told the driver to get off the road and exit the vehicle. That's a smart car! And the company dealt with him very professionally too.
In the end, you are just a FUD-monger subhuman and your posts are not worth the electricity it takes to read your drivel and I ask you politely to get off slashdot and crawl back into your asshole. The rest of us want to work hard, do a good job, and make enough money to buy one one day.
Incidentally although I have not invested in Tesla and don't even have a car I have gotten in one and had a salesman give me a test drive.
The car is fricking awesome. It was built by an awesome businessman who took his money and built yet another one or two awesome things with that. This story is so high in the stratosphere above your grimy imaginings I don't expect you to understand, I just hate the idea of your poison leaching out of your septic tank into the wide world.
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... if it had been a regular car, fire would have been the least of your worries.
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Yes they can. In fact pick any car and I can get it to catch fire by driving it over a single metal object.
The metal object will be a puddle of molten stainless at 3000 degrees, the car will almost instantly burst into flames.
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No need. All you need is a tank puncture and a spark. Spark can be easily provided by friction caused by such puncture.
Of course, that won't "catch fire", it will "explode" with far more lethal consequences.
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More likely, and more common, rupturing a fuel-line near the engine. Fuel spraying over the hot engine or exhaust tends to ignite easily. (Or breaking the fuel filter, or damaging the fuel pump, or...)
Coincidentally, this would be roughly the same place that the Tesla was struck.
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The car catching fire is pretty bad, but at least the car's owner didn't get electrocuted. Now *that* would have been a shocker.
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Where do you get "car executive"?
Have you seen what Tesla stock has been doing lately?
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/stock-chart [nasdaq.com]
A year ago, the stock was at $30. Today, it's close to $200. I bet there are more than a few owners of AAPL who wish they'd sold their Apple shares and bought Tesla last September.
Average volume is like 20million shares. There are a whole lot of people buying Tesla stock who are not "car executives". Although I b
Re:Exaggerates? (Score:5, Insightful)
Things went from bad to worse very fast.
He was able to push the thing into the middle of the street while it was in the infancy of the burn stage.
During the height of the burn, all of the neighbors were out with their garden hoses trying to keep the gasoline down, but kinda useless... the tank overheated, ruptured, and sent a small stream of ignited gasoline down the street. Of course, everybody moved their cars pronto. The gasoline went on into the gutter and went underground - what happened to it down there is anyone's guess, but it was well lit and smoked a lot down there.
Point I am trying to make is that when the energy which was intended to move a car and its passengers hundreds of miles is released in the space of a few minutes, the results can be spectacular, and destructive.
The fact the car did not literally explode says a heck of a lot.
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I think this is the only worthwhile comment I've read on this entire page.
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We've told you a million times: Don't exaggerate!
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BMW motorcycles will burn to the ground. It's actually a common failure point. the germans used crap fuel lines that will age and crack in only 5 years. The other failure is burning starter relays that are undersized by "german engineering" but they fixed that in 2005.
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I can almost verify this; I was riding along one day (2003 BMW K1200GT) and suddenly my pant leg was saturated with cold fluid.
I quickly pulled over, and yep, it was gasoline... luckily, luiquid form and rapidly evaporating without a ready ignition source.
The bike has never been in an accident, it's been well taken care of - but the fuel lines were obviously not up to the task of carrying gasoline!
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Fire fighting procedures and battery... (Score:2)
Actually the letter from Tesla said that, while the firefighters did follow their own standard procedure and ultimately got it under control, it would have been better in this case if they had not punctured the battery pack to inject water. The letter says these holes allowed the flames to enter the trunk area. The implication is that perhaps the fire would have remained confined to one section of the the (individually fire-walled) battery compartment or directed away from the car had it not been holes punc
...yet was put out with water (Score:4, Informative)
The article linked to a letter from Elon Musk. In it he wrote:
"When the fire department arrived, they observed standard procedure, which was to gain access to the source of the fire by puncturing holes in the top of the battery's protective metal plate and applying water. For the Model S lithium-ion battery, it was correct to apply water (vs. dry chemical extinguisher), but not to puncture the metal firewall, as the newly created holes allowed the flames to then vent upwards into the front trunk section of the Model S. Nonetheless, a combination of water followed by dry chemical extinguisher quickly brought the fire to an end."
You should probably know what you're talking about before stating that as fact.
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Well then, I guess there will be "flames [venting] upwards into the front trunk section" when they arrive. And then they will put the fire out.
Notice nobody said "OH GOD! DON'T EVER PUNCTURE THE FIREWALL! GAAH!" And even if they had, we already have a video showing that the earth isn't going to implode if that does happen, as it did here...
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Seriously, you really should read the correspondence linked at the bottom of the summary. It really is quite informative. I'll just copy and paste the next two paragraphs, the pertinent stuff anyway.
...the combustion energy of our battery pack is only about 10% of the energy contained in a
"It is important to note that the fire in the battery was contained to a small section near the front by the internal firewalls built into the pack structure. At no point did fire enter the passenger compartment.
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They don't even need to do that - in most devices the CMOS is a square and it's simply software which dictates whether the output is portrait or landscape. You could simply force it to capture widescreen even when held in portrait mode. Probably the reason they don't do this is it would confuse the folks who.. don't understand this stuff. "I'm holding it vertically, why isn't it recording vertically?" Actually - it's really just usability, but perhaps there should be an option on most of these devices "Alwa
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ever wanted to film sideways?
people take portrait mode pictures all the time on purpose.. why not video? as if this was the first instance of portrait cellphone video going viral..
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Yes, seriously. As in, the burn was controlled by the car's safety mechanisms. As in, it did not spread rapidly, it did not explode, it did not turn part of the car into a violently expanding debris field, and nobody got hurt or killed.