Tesla stock tumbles after Model S catches fire

[Zorro]

Source: AP

Shares of electric car company Tesla sank more than 6 percent Wednesday after an Internet video showed flames spewing from one of the company's vehicles near Seattle.

Shares of Tesla Motors Inc. fell $12.05 to $180.95 — the stock's biggest one-day decline since July 16.

The incident happened Tuesday after 8 a.m. as the driver was traveling southbound on state Route 167 through Kent, said Trooper Chris Webb of the Washington State Patrol. The driver stated that he believed he had struck some metal debris on the freeway, so he exited the highway and the vehicle became disabled.

The driver told authorities he began to smell something burning and then the vehicle caught fire. Firefighters needed several attempts to extinguish the flames because the blaze kept reigniting, Webb said. A trooper who responded to the scene was unable to locate any objects on the roadway, but Department of Transportation workers did observe some debris near the scene.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/tesla-stock-tumbles-model-catches-fire-210456370--finance.html

[longship]

1. Oh dear. The batteries, I'd bet. R&K nt

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Sounds like an electrical fire

which can't be extinguished until you disconnect the power flow. This is going to get a lot of attention, out of context attention I am sure.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. Actually, a metal fire.

Lithium Ion gets annoyed when exposed to atmosphere. Something must have punctured a battery cell.

[Agschmid]

20. The SFGate article says the front of the battery was punctured...

It does seem this caused the fire.

[Old and In the Way]

2. are these LiOn batteries?

If so, great energy density but some runaway heat concerns.

[onehandle]

3. Republican sabotage. nt

[Gman]

4. Cant be ruled out

[Kelvin Mace]

5. Uh....

No.

[hughee99]

23. Exactly. I blame Bush. Clearly, this was his work. n/t

[backscatter712]

6. Seems to me this is an overreaction.

Sure, this fire may very well caused by a short caused by the damage, resulting in the batteries cooking off in a thermal runaway.

But at the same time, the vast majority of us drive around in vehicles powered by explosive liquid that itself is a nasty fire hazard. I have personally seen a vehicle get destroyed by a fire that was exacerbated by fuel, and every fire department in the country is always prepared to deal with vehicle fires that are made worse by the presence of several gallons of highly flammable fuel.

Is this embarrassing for Tesla? A little. Does this mean that the Tesla S or any other car is suddenly too dangerous to use? Not when compared with gasoline or diesel powered vehicles. Not by a longshot.

[Kelvin Mace]

9. Precisely!

Car fires get NASTY very quick because of the abundance of fuel (gasoline, oil, transmission fluid, plastic, rubber tires, etc).

If you don't smother it fast, it is a conflagration in about 90 seconds.

An electrical fire though, is a bit trickier and harder to extinguish on a car carrying that much battery.

The accident reconstruction should be illuminating. I would guess Tesla will have engineers inspecting the car by tomorrow morning. I doubt you would ever see a Detroit car maker do that.

[backscatter712]

12. And since I'm now in the process of watching Breaking Bad...

Conventional vehicles are very, very, far from being immune to electrical/battery fires.

I got a kick out of watching Walt destroy the Bimmer belonging to a douchebag lawyer by shorting out its battery with a wet squeegee.

[sendero]

27. Not to mention..

.... gasoline fires.

This is a speed bump, they might have to reinforce the battery cage and make it less vulnerable to road-debris damage.

Anyone thinking this is the death of Tesla or the electric car is a doofus.

[Psephos]

24. You apparently didn't follow what GM did after the Volt fires.

Another thought: Tesla, as an American-owned company, is more "Detroit" than, say, Chrysler, with its Fiat overlords. Meanwhile, GM does the bulk of its business, and gets all of its profits, from non-North American business. Ford is not far behind.

"Detroit" is a tired meme way past its sell date.

[rwsanders]

10. And it is just the battery, nothing wrong with the vehicle.

Last edited Thu Oct 3, 2013, 12:07 AM - Edit history (1)

And there is a lot of R&D that will likely yield a better, safer battery in the near future. The pentagon sees it and has invested a lot in research into better batteries and alternate energies.
From what I understand the army's current bid for a replacement for the hummer calls for a hybrid.
My wife and I have a small sailboat and I sold her on the idea of buying it with an electric motor. I told her the motor was one component and batteries could be changed as the technology improves. She loves it. Quiet, reliable, as fast as a diesel, and the boat handles better because we have all the torque we want at low rpms.
We don't really have investments, but I was actually hoping the stock had taken a bigger tumble. I just finished watching "Revenge of the Electric Car" and would have considered buying some if it had dropped to the $15-20 range.

[Orrex]

11. Yeah, yeah. Wait until one of these Teslas dumps 20 gallons of electricity all over the road

Then we'll see!

[Ash_F]

18. Yeah, I've seen a few car fires in my day. /nt

[NickB79]

28. True that. I saw an F150 on fire once

In a Cracker Barrel parking lot. Fire department was just pulling up as I passed, but that thing was just billowing black smoke.

[Xyzse]

30. Agreed

Heck, I saw a Police car on fire on my birthday one year.

[W T F]

8. Holy $h!t,.....That NEVER happens to Gasoline powered cars! I'll bet Gasholes will have a field day

With this

[Rain Mcloud]

13. There is very little that can burn in the Frunk area.

The motor and controller is under the rear of the car and the battery pack is under the passenger compartment.
According to AutoBlog Green the driver hit some debris in the road which the vehicle detected and instructed the driver to pull over and stop.
The fire did not enter the passenger compartment.
The scenarios that i can figure is that the debris was flammable and either the collision ignited it if unstable enough or the collision ruptured the alleged container and heat generated by the front braking components ignited the contents.

The other explanations would be malicious in nature or fraudulent.
Vehicles burn every day of the year,but an electric car on fire is suddenly news.
[link:https://www.nfpa.org/safety-information/for-consumers/vehicles|

[Rain Mcloud]

25. Update:fire was in the battery pack

here is a link to more info at ABG,i hope
[link:http://www.autoblog.com/2013/10/03/tesla-says-model-s-fire-started-in-li-ion-battery-share-prices/|

[backscatter712]

29. Debris may have penetrated into the battery pack and shorted some cells out.

That would most likely cause a thermal runaway, resulting in a fire.

Sounds to me like a freak accident - the piece of debris the guy ran over must have been substantial.

And it looks like the car's safety systems worked - it detected something was wrong, told the guy to pull over, so the driver escaped the fire.

[grantcart]

15. I sat in one at a mall

They are gorgeous.

Unless there is a pattern, which I doubt, one off events like this are not significant.

[blkmusclmachine]

16. Who Killed The Electric Car?

[marble falls]

17. Buy stock. We went to the moon, Telsa can refine the design.

[daleo]

19. Oh noes

Fortunately gas engines never catch fire, nor do gas tanks, gas lines, or just generally gasoline.

[JackRiddler]

21. Non fatal car accident!!! HEADLINES!!!

Move billions on the markets!!! HURRY!!!

Electric car involved in non-fatal accident!!! LIBERALS DID IT!!! SOLYNDRA!!!

[lonestarnot]

22. Yeah. Tumble some more. Tee hee.

I'm in for the long haul!

[ripcord]

26. The fire kept reigniting

The firefighters had to jack up the front of the car and use a saw to get to the battery pack, I hope they get ahead of this quickly.

[jakeXT]

31. I wonder what would've happened with a hydrogen tank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_tank

[Stuart G]

32. Today the stock is up...who knows what will happen in the long run.

But, If lots of people buy these cars, then this incident will be long forgotten...

[freethought]

33. How many car fires have I seen?

Oh, probably not quite a dozen. A previous poster said it right, this is an overreaction. As I understand it, the car's safety and warning systems worked just as they should have so nobody was even hurt. So, one Tesla Model S has problems after running over debris that may have disrupted the battery pack, and that's out of how many sold so far?

[Mother Muckraker]

34. 2nd Fire in Mexico

Elon Musk has made several misleading statements which this articles addresses:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/1102/Tesla-Motors-Model-S-fires-Another-setback-for-electric-cars