Two high school seniors die when Tesla crashes into wall, bursts into flames

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-sb-engulfed-flames-car-crash-20180508-story.html

by Jerry2 • 8 years ago

25 27 8 years ago

mtgx• 8 years ago

Non-exploding solid state batteries can't come soon enough. Hopefully we won't end-up "compromising" on "hybrid" solid state batteries (which Samsung is currently targeting for manufacturing in the near future) along the way. We need 100% solid state batteries for EVs.

toomuchtodo2• 8 years ago

It is very, very hard to ensure the safety of the energy density required by consumers of any transportation method except perhaps diesel fuel (which is damn near impossible to accidentally ignite outside of the engine). Improvements will continue to be made, but we might never eliminate the problem.

This might simply be the Paul Walker scenario: too much power with an inexperienced driver.

chesimov• 8 years ago

LiFePO4 batteries are significantly safer for a penalty of 14% less energy density

testfoobar2• 8 years ago

Modern fuel tanks have to be protected.

Davertron2• 8 years ago

Why is this news?

jtokoph• 8 years ago

This was my first thought. Would this article have been news if it said teens crash mommy’s Porsche into concrete wall? Maybe this is news because the Porsche may not have burst into flames.

Cshelton• 8 years ago

Exactly. There are thousands of instances where the article is just a local news of "teen crashes parents sports car", where the picture is typically a Ford Mustang. Yet, the make and model of the vehicle is very rarely in the headline.

Also, there are a ton of ICE crashes where the vehicle catches fire, but, it is also not news. Any rupture to the fuel tank has a high probability of catching fire and it happens so much that it never makes a news article.

danso• 8 years ago

This story would not be news on HN for any other carmaker (and shouldn’t be for Tesla, IMO). But generally, local news orgs do cover fatal crashes, especially with multiple young victims.

JCSato• 8 years ago

Because Tesla is topical and outlets want to ride the wave of the self-driving murder car as long as they can?

Davertron2• 8 years ago

Yeah, I guess my real question is "why is this (hacker) news?". But I know why it's really being reported, I guess I just hoped HN wasn't as bad as other news outlets...but here I am, commenting on the story so...

testfoobar2• 8 years ago

Because the car burst into flames and two passengers were incinerated. According to one bystander, one was moving but the car too hot to approach. This (death by fire) is a horrific failure mode that is unique to current gen EVs.

makeramen• 8 years ago

I had the same thought, though it’d be interesting to understand the tradeoffs of better crash test safety + higher flammability, vs gas powered cars.

cabaalis• 8 years ago

It is a tragedy. But the question asked is "Why is this news?" and that's the question I will put my 2 cents worth in.

It's news because it has the word Tesla directly in the headline. It's news because I clicked on it, and therefore the Sun Sentinel made a couple cents from advertisers. It's news because they very consciously decided to report it that way, with the intention of optimizing their incentives. Had it been a Ford Taurus, the make and model of the car might never have been mentioned. Also, had it been a Ford Taurus, the headline would not have been phrased in a way such as "look at what the car did to these poor kids" instead of "look at what happened to these poor kids."

EADGBE2• 8 years ago

Tesla/Fire/crash always makes news.

arcanus• 8 years ago

"Police said the gray 2014 Tesla Motors Model S may have been speeding southbound in the 1300 block of Seabreeze Boulevard when it drove off the roadway and struck a concrete wall about 6:46 p.m. Tuesday."

The car was not operating in autonomous mode.

mozumder• 8 years ago

I think the issue here is the safety of lithium electric batteries?

It's rare for gas tanks to explode.. not sure what lithium battery safety rates, especially given reports of exploding phones/laptops/Boeing 787s

toomuchtodo2• 8 years ago

“In 2003-2007, U.S. fire departments responded to an average of 287,000 vehicle fires per year. These fires caused an average of 480 civilian deaths, 1,525 civilian injuries, and $1.3 billion in direct property damage annually.“

https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-r...

plorkyeran• 8 years ago

Gasoline cars bursting into flames is so commonplace that it doesn't make the news when it happens.

kolbe• 8 years ago

Motor vehicles deaths in 2016: 37,461

Additionally, high school aged men driving insanely powerful sports cars probably have a higher risk of death. I'm not sure why this should be anything more than local news.

kylehotchkiss• 8 years ago

Agreed. Always frustrating how parents will give teenagers such powerful vehicles.

Tharkun• 8 years ago

Tesla has been under scrutiny before over several instances of vehicles catching fire.

Really? This old chestnut again? I thought the statistics were pretty conclusively showing that cars with internal combustion engines are far more fire prone than electric vehicles.

ckdarby• 8 years ago

I feel for the family. I wish our society wasn't so hyper active with media coverage. This would be a very different story potentially with more facts.

"Reckless teenagers text & driving while exceeding speed limit"

Electric cars are fairly easy to show off with their insane acceleration. Sadly they're also insanely easy to lose control because of that acceleration.

nimbius• 8 years ago

Speaking as a former mechanic for a salvage/maintenance shop, wealthy driver + high performance sports car on a long enough timeline is a casket on wheels. After a wreck cars are often sent to repair shops or tow/salvage lots to soak up the sun and wait for a bean counter to cut a check or send them to scrap.

'catastrophic loss' vehicles are a little different in that they are typically bought up by the salvage company, auctioned if assumed functional, or cut up and parted out. The latter is not a fun process as it involves a time consuming breakdown of the vehicles fluids, other consumables, and drivetrain often revealing some very gruesome accessories. Ive had an apprentice run screaming from a Cadillac because she found a crushed terrier inside the lower dash.

As for any electric vehicle, god help you if you're going to cut them up because most insurance carriers will tack on a hazard addendum for working on them. Prius batteries mean electrician tools and an arc-flash suit...and even then you're looking at a losing proposition if cells have been punctured or you have to cut out the armored cradle they sit in.

I worked with a shop tech that tried to drill the batteries out of a car and drain the acid into a pan. 20 minutes later we wound up with a metal fire so ferocious it consumed the jack stands and the parking brake.

tim333• 8 years ago

Wealthy teenage driver + high performance sports car maybe. Us oldies slow down a bit.

stevew20• 8 years ago

If the crash was bad enough to eject someone, then the Tesla catching fire is sad, but probably not why these kids died. Driving their powerful car into a concrete wall is what killed them; the make of the car has little to do with it. This article is written in a overly biased way depicting the Tesla as being at fault for steering off the road and into a concrete barrier and killing these kids; note that every time it references an event leading up to and including the crash, it puts blame on the Tesla...

"when the Tesla they were in crashed into a concrete wall and burst into flames "

"Police said the gray 2014 Tesla Motors Model S may have been speeding southbound"

Damn shoddy journalism here! I'd be ashamed to write such a nasty little article.

I don't want a car that I drive to catch fire in a severe crash, but honestly the possibility of dying in a normal car crash is several orders of magnitude higher than getting into a crash that is not severe enough to kill me instantly, but is capable of breaching the battery housing of the car. I'm more worried about getting bitten by a shark, which has a higher chance of occurring than a Tesla fire...

Two high school seniors die when Tesla crashes into wall, bursts into flames

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