Model S caught fire again. Can electric cars be used safely?

According to The Drive website, a Tesla Model S caught fire in a private garage in San Francisco, USA, at around 2 a.m. local time on May 3. The same model caught fire in Shanghai on April 21.

According to local media reports in the United States, firefighters controlled the fire after arriving at the scene. The fire did not spread to the building and no casualties were caused. After extinguishing the fire, they moved the car out of the garage and cut off the circuit in the car. Firefighters saw a lot of smoke coming out from the right rear of the car at the scene. The parts close to the right rear wheel included brakes, suspension, motor and battery pack. It is not certain whether the spontaneous combustion was caused by the battery. This Model S was not charged when it caught fire. The local police said that nothing suspicious was found, so this may not be an arson case.

Tesla said in a statement that while Tesla cars are about 10 times more likely to catch fire than fuel vehicles, the company has not received any information indicating that the fire was caused by any problem with the car itself. Tesla has not yet disclosed the cause of the sudden fire in the Model S, and the cause of the fire in a parking lot in Shanghai is still under investigation.

Who is having double standards?

Interestingly, on April 25, Mr. Dong, the owner of the "Shanghai Tesla spontaneous combustion incident", spoke out for the first time on Weibo, describing the on-site investigation of the accident. Prior to this, the owner had also been interviewed by many media outlets, describing the approximate time point from when the vehicle was parked in the basement to when it exploded.

Later, Musk made an excuse on Twitter: "More than 1 million internal combustion engine cars catch fire every year, killing thousands of people. But only one Tesla caught fire and no one was injured, but it became the biggest headline. Why is (the media) so hypocritical? This is the real problem."

Elon Musk's original tweet

"No matter how low the total spontaneous combustion rate of Tesla is, to me it is 100%. Can you use percentages to explain away the lives of consumers?" On April 30, Mr. Dong, the owner of the car in the "Shanghai Tesla spontaneous combustion incident", spoke out again through Weibo, questioning the so-called "media double standards" remarks previously made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Twitter.

Just a few days after he made the statement, the Tesla spontaneous combustion case in the United States in early May really gave Musk a slap in the face.

Frequent electric vehicle accidents

In fact, it is not the first time that a Tesla has caught fire while parked completely still. And globally, it is not the only Tesla that has caught fire, nor has it never caused death. In February this year, a Tesla owner was involved in a car accident in Florida, USA, causing the vehicle to be surrounded by fire and the owner died on the spot. And the battery of this Tesla caught fire several times in the police parking lot one day after the accident.

Unexpectedly, right after Tesla caught fire, a Weilai ES8 electric car caught fire while being repaired in Xi'an; a BYD e5 caught fire near a middle school in Wuhan... According to incomplete statistics, in 2018, electric cars of multiple brands including Tesla, Zotye, Mustang, Jiangling, and Lifan caught fire. So, can car owners still use electric cars with confidence?

The Tesla spontaneous combustion incident has brought some psychological pressure to many car owners, even potential car owners. One electric car owner said in an interview with the media: "I chose to buy an electric car for the convenience of traveling. At that time, I only considered the battery degradation problem, but did not think about the hidden danger of spontaneous combustion. After watching the Tesla combustion video, I am a little 'scared' when driving."

After the incident, many car owners also expressed their opinions on social platforms.

The best way at the moment seems to be to either stay away from electric vehicles when parking, or not buy one in the first place.