According to recent news, a high-end Tesla Model S Plaid has caught fire on Tuesday night in Haverford, Pennsylvania. According to the local fire department the driver was briefly trapped inside the car. the lawyer of the vehicle owner said that the vehicle “spontaneously combusted.”
It’s reported that the firefighter from both the Gladwyne and Lower Merion Fire Departments arrived on the scene shortly before 9 PM ET on Tuesday. All those firefighters are trained on how to respond to battery fires involving Tesla vehicles said that they, “laid a 5 inch supply line into the scene so that we could keep a continual water stream on the fire to extinguish the fire and cool the batteries down to ensure complete extinguishment.”
Mark Geragos, the attorney representing the owner stated that “This is a harrowing and frightening situation and an obvious major problem. Our preliminary investigation is ongoing, but we call on Tesla to sideline these cars until a full investigation can occur.”
However, for now, there is no evidence that electric vehicles catch fire at a rate that’s different from internal combustion cars. But this matter is increasing in discussion as the EVs on the road are rapidly increasing. The safety department has also started training the first responders to handle EV battery fires since they can’t be extinguished via some traditional methods.
With the recent incidents of Tesla’s vehicle catching fires, the negative attention achieved attracted by the company has made Elon Musk publicly push back on the coverage of those incidents. On the other hand companies, like Chevrolet, Hyundai, Audi, and NIO, have started recalling EVs which have the possibility of fires.
The incidents involving Tesla and other EV’s catching fire tend to draw more media attention than other vehicles because the companies push the limits on technology. Hopefully, the company’s come up with more sophisticated technology to prevent the possibility of future fires.
