Charred remains of Tesla Model X found on frozen Lake Champlain

WMUR reprint from Popular Mecahnics ^ | March 5, 2019 | Avery Thompson

[woodbutcher1963]

SHELBURNE, Vt. — Over the weekend, a Tesla Model X caught fire on the frozen surface of Lake Champlain in Vermont.

The fire happened around 8 p.m. on Sunday, and the fire almost completely consumed the vehicle.

A few news reports had mentioned the burned-up Tesla. So, we decided to walk out onto the lake and have a look:

WMUR-TV

Avery Thompson/Popular Mechanics

The Shelburne Police Department tells Popular Mechanics that the owner of the vehicle took their Tesla onto the ice to go fishing, and that at some point during the expedition the car hit a rock.

The car started making unusual noises, and shortly after that caught fire. No one was hurt.

The specific cause of the fire is as-yet unknown.

People on Tesla forums who saw the crazy pictures began to speculate about insurance fraud or some other oddball explanation, but the most likely explanation would be a battery failure.

If damaged, lithium-ion batteries can rapidly discharge their stored energy in the form of heat, leading to an inferno.

The bigger the battery, the bigger the fire.

Teslas necessarily have giant battery back, so if the car suffers sufficiently severe impact, it can go up in flames -- as plenty of previous Tesla incidents have illustrated.

WMUR-TV

Avery Thompson/Popular Mechanics

For the time being, this Tesla's burned out husk remains on the lake, where Popular Mechanics photographed it on Wednesday afternoon.

No word yet on what will become of the charred remains, but it's hard to imagine someone freeing the metal from the ice and dragging it away, so we'd have to guess these remains are bound for the bottom of the lake once springtime melts the ice.

[blu]

Marine salvage ain’t cheap.

Ya, but a couple of cases of beer, 4 Fords with 4x4, and a few slightly tipsy but very happy (hey, they get free beer and they are helping the community...what's the loss?)buddies, a warm Saturday when the salmon winds are blowing...Piece of cake.

[grey_whiskers]

Old Ford Pinto: I catch fire in crashes.

Tesla: Hold my battery.

[sphinx]

My first thought was that it was a ritual sacrifice by some obscure Vermont Gaia cult. But it was just a freak accident. What a letdown.

[Rocky]

I believe he means:

ICE = Internal Combustion Engine

[jjotto]

Joyriding at high speed, I’d bet.

The Model X has some ground clearance, but I think breakover angle might be a problem on ice heaves.

[castlebrew]

Start a betting pool on the day it breaks through the ice...

[grey_whiskers]

The Husk from Musk smokes mainly in the Dusk!

[woodbutcher1963]

This is what you call a Green New Deal.

[Kommodor]

For those who might accidentally see this, Tesla puts the massive lithium battery pack beneath your butt. This has the benefits of lowering the center of gravity and putting the battery somewhere that it’s not in your way.

The downside is that impacts that damage the underside of the vehicle have a chance of puncturing the battery. A nice, big, pointy rock on the shoreline would do it. There’s supposed to be an armor plate on the bottom to protect the battery, but it can only do so much.

As for the rest, look up “lithium battery fire” on the youtubez, you’ll be entertained for hours.

I learned about the critters flying R/C planes. They’re great fun, but if you’re not careful, they’ll burn your house/car down.

Personally, I have a nice, paid for V8 sedan. Gas is cheap. I intend to enjoy it.

:)

[Steely Tom]

Yeah, the guy with the Jaws of Life goes flying.

[chuckles]

One thing they don't advertise about electric cars is they contain very high voltages. Anywhere from 270 volts to 460 volts are running all through the chassis. Firemen have to take a special class on how to handle electric wrecks. They can't work on the wreck until they get to a special disconnect under the hood, or trunk depending on the car.

Several electronic devices have now spontaneously combusted while just sitting or being charged. These batteries can short internally and overheat over nothing. I have a friend that was charging a portable car starter on their counter top when it burst into flames. It would have burned their house down if they wouldn't have had granite counter tops.

Electrics ARE NOT less dangerous than liquid gasoline. Even a nat gas vehicle would have to "puddle" a leak to be explosive. Most just drift into the atmosphere without ignition.

As these batteries become more common, there will be more fires.

[bwest]

And it didn’t melt the ice?

[Red Badger]

Yeah, it caught fire.....................

[Red Badger]

Internal

Combustion

Engine..............................

[Red Badger]

Frying...............................

[sparklite2]

I see Tesla has solved the problem of using battery power to keep warm.

[woodbutcher1963]

No, even a bon fire on the ice will not melt through when the ice is a foot thick. It might melt the top couple inches. Most of the heat goes straight up. Heat rises, etc.

[wally_bert]

Ironside got a villain zapped by one.

I’ve might have discharged a few at most.

[Revel]

You do liberal math. That is not how it works since electric cars make up so little of the population. You need to put things in proportion

So lets see:

“There are 276.1 million registered vehicles in the US in 2018”

As of 2018 1 Million electric cars had been sold(all time). I can’t find how many are registered. But you can bet that a significant portion are already dead.

But just to make it easy we will say the ratio of Gas cars to Electric cars is 275 to 1.

So every time an electric car catches fire then you must have 3636 Gas powered cars to catch fire in order to be equivalent.

There are many other things wrong with electric cars. So they represent insanity by fools.

[sparklite2]

Hah. Thanks for my next tagline.