G'day, Police chase ends in flames with $200k BMW highway patrol car igniting in long grass - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Perhaps they need Teslas - but how hot do their batteries get after a high-speed chase? And nothing to do with climate change, of course (pity about our record drought thereabouts). David S.
This is a potential issue for any ICE car, including hybrids. I recall some owner's manuals having warnings about parking over dry grass.
""I don't know if cars explode these days, but it didn't. It just went up in flames," he said." Is this an advantage of diesel over gasoline? A lower propensity to explode?
Gasoline does have a much lower flash point than diesel. You can light a puddle of it outside, during an Alaskan winter, and Death Valley may not be hot enough during the summer to make a puddle of diesel ignitable. Flash point - Wikipedia "The flash point is a descriptive characteristic that is used to distinguish between flammable fuels, such as petrol (gasoline in the US), and combustible fuels, such as diesel."
Hot tailpipe + dry grass = Roasting ICE over an open flame. Now, let's direct our attention back to that one Tesla that caught fire instead....
