Another Tesla Model S has burst into flames and was completely burned down, this time in Antwerp, Belgium. The said Model S is at one of Tesla's Superchargers and is plugged before it was caught on fire. This shows that Tesla's fire problem goes on.
In the past few weeks, Tesla fires have been invading the auto world as three Tesla Model S ignited inexplicably and in just days apart. The three cases have been presented in different countries: Pittsburg, Shanghai, and Hong Kong but all has the same scenario with the Model S bursting into flames while being parked or doing nothing.
This time, another Tesla fire was reported as a Tesla Model S burned completely on Saturday night while it was connected to a charging station in Antwerp, Belgium. The flames were quite intense. Fortunately, no one was injured as the owner of the car has left to buy food, and when he returned, the vehicle is already on fire.
Because it is an electric vehicle and not an internal combustion engine car, firefighters needed to do an added level of safety and extinguished the fire by immersing it in a pool of water. The Tesla Model S, or whatever was left of it remained there throughout the night to prevent the fire from reappearing.
One of the firefighter said that it takes a really long time to cool the battery of an electric car. And based on the experience of the Antwerp fire brigade, it shows that submerging the car in water is the most effective method to turn it off.
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The recent Tesla fire put on the table again the concern about the safety of electric vehicles that use high-density lithium batteries, which give more autonomy to the car but are less stable. Tesla fires incidents are getting more often, in fact, this is not the first time that a Tesla Model S was caught on fire while filling up at a Tesla Supercharger station. Back in 2016, a similar incident happened in Norway but is short-circuit has been ruled out as the reason for the Tesla fire and not the batteries. So are the electric vehicles really more prone to fire?
According to experts, the answer is no. The National Association of Highway Traffic revealed that the results of an investigation carried out last year showed that the explosions of lithium-ion batteries in vehicles are slightly less than those that occur in vehicles that operate on gasoline. Data from the National Fire Protection Association supports this. In 2015, for example, about 174,000 vehicle accidents were reported in the United States; of these, almost all involved cars driven by gasoline or diesel.
The company, Tesla itself, ensures that gasoline cars are 11 times more likely to catch fire than one of their models.
Elon Musk is yet to comment on this most recent Tesla fire, but the company had been rolling updates to strengthen the safety of their car batteries. The new software aims to make the thermal management of the battery of the car better, thus preventing overheating unexpectedly.
