Let’s see - 3 fires in a few weeks in 2013 out of fewer than 15,000 then on the road. (Kent, WA, Mexico, Tennessee).
Burned a garage in Irvine, California (2013)
Burned the garage as well as the car in 2014 (Toronto)
Caught fire while charging in Norway. (2016)
Caught fire while accelerating in France. (2016)
No telling how many others have been covered up by Tesla’s notorious non-disclosure agreements. (The Toronto guy appears to have refused Tesla’s money, and that may be why we know about that one.)
They sold roughly 107,000 through December, 2015, and they sold another 12,420 Model S cars in the first quarter of 2016. If they are able to keep up a rate of 4000 a month, they should be at about 140,000 at this point.
In any event, a used 2015 looks like the best bet.
I’d say that fires are roughly the same between ICE vehicles and electric vehicles based on the following article:
http://insideevs.com/number-of-fire-related-deaths-per-year-caused-by-evs/
Excerpts from article:
According to the U.S Federal Highway Administration data, roughly 2,980 billion miles were driven, on average, per year on U.S. roads during this period. Roughly 90 highway vehicle fires and 0.15 highway vehicle fire deaths were reported per billion miles driven.
The 50,000+ Chevrolet Volts now have over 390,000,000+ electric miles and 625,000,000+ total miles driven, the 100,000+ Nissan LEAFs now have over 420,000,000+ electric miles driven, and the 30,000+ Tesla Model S sedans have over 125,000,000+ miles driven. With the remaining Ford Energi series, Toyota PiP and other combined plug-in models, we are well over one billion electric miles driven.
With these new so-called experimental vehicles, we have nowhere near the 90 vehicle fires per billion miles caused in ICEs, no deaths, and nowhere near the fire related injuries.
As for the five Model S fires in question, the true cause of one is still under investigation, but with well over 125,000,000 Tesla miles, we would still need 11 Tesla fires to equal the fires of the tried and true Internal Combustion Engine.