Featured Tesla Catches on Fire After Collision (Speed possibly a factor)

this is in the uber a/v thread. i think the guard rail was damaged, and is believed to have caused the extensive damage to the tesla.

 

Bad luck.

 

oR stupiDity?

 

The Tesla accident happened before the highway department could replace the collision absorbing barrier that was destroyed in a previous accident.

From KPIX (CBS 5 San Francisco):

"Tesla said it in the statement late Tuesday that it was “deeply saddened” by the crash, which it said was made more severe because a crash attenuator, which protects vehicles from hitting the end of concrete lane divider, had either been removed or damaged in a prior accident and was not replaced. “We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash,” the company wrote."

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I found the accident location on Google map:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/US-101,+Mountain+View,+CA/@37.403533,-122.0780766,13.36z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x54c1967810c6a669:0x9bea23ac9a1c2648!8m2!3d37.40864!4d-122.0703799?hl=en

• on the right hand side is a storage locker facility
• the left hand has a large, solar array farm with semi-trailers
• drill down to the barrier for a left side exit
• Model X was driving ESE and had just passed N Shoreline Blvd
• inside lane(s)

I have seen barriers like those before and always wondered why they didn't build the ends with a ramp to roll the car over or have it stay perched on the barrier.

Source: Tesla Model X driver dies in Mountain View crash

Bob Wilson

 

Because it most likely has.

A photo is just one moment in time. What was left of the heavily damaged front end was, most likely, cut away by emergency responders using the "jaws of life" or other similar rescue devices to quickly get to the occupant.

In hard front end crashes, the driver's legs can be trapped/crushed by the dash, firewall and even the front left wheel so freeing those limbs can be the most difficult part of the job. Crash ratings now account for damage to the occupants in these zones.

 

The left bottom barrier is the type of sloped entrance to barrier separated lanes.



Bob Wilson

 

Isn't the crash attenuator sand-filled? Or would something like that cause more damage than it would prevent?

 

The Google map photo of November 2017 shows a crushable, metal structure. Like the sand and water barriers, it absorbs energy once and then has to be replaced or repaired. There is another style, length-wise sloping that I'm trying to get more data.

A wedge shaped, barrier end cap runs the risk of rolling the car into traffic. However, it isn't clear this is less risky than running into a fixed, flat barrier. I've sent some e-mails asking the experts.

Even if a wedge, end cap barrier is used, a sand/water/collapsable structure could still mitigate the vehicle kinetic energy. If it takes a few days for repair, at least the wedge would still be there.

Example: http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/business-industry/partners-suppliers/documents/safety-barriers/sloped-end-concrete-terminal.pdf

Bob Wilson

 

I drive that section of 101/85 regularly. It was originally maybe 4 southbound lanes of 101, with the right lane picking up another lane for the right exit to 85. The right exit is complicated by requiring a weave with the Shoreline entrance. The left exit was added to relieve some of the pressure on the right exit. They both end up on 85 south. Space for the left exit was carved out of the space used for the main 101 lanes. So the lanes are narrowed down at that point. The left lane and the left exit are HOV restricted, although access into/out of them is not.

A left exit on a freeway is not common, so Tesla probably has limited data on how to interpret it. Add in the fact that the divider at the exit was already damaged from an earlier crash and the image would certainly be unusual.

It appears that the Tesla hit the end of the damaged divider, and the front end was torn off. The earliest images of the crash (emergency vehicles not in sight) show a minor fire in the remnants of the front end. Most of the front end is scattered widely. There is a white car several lanes away that appears to have front left crash damage. Perhaps it nudged the Tesla to the left, into the barrier.

My Garmin GPS, set up for my Transit Connect, always selects the left exit at that point. I take the right exit, which is not HOV restricted. The Garmin map database seems rather odd, although legal if the HOV restrictions are met. Tesla's map database probably has a similar source.

Fire was the least of the problems in this crash. Having the front 1/3 of the vehicle torn off was the biggest problem. The exposed batteries were a problem, but similar damage to a gas tank would have been much worse. I'm actually impressed with the level of fire control shown.

As for the left exit, I avoid it. Now I have some data to back up my gut feel that says "there be danger".

 

Warning: the following quote and situation may be uncomfortable for some readers.

A speeding Tesla Model S with a teen driver (sigh....), lost control and had a violent collision with a wall.

"They were still moving, but we couldn't get them out because the fire was too intense," a man who tried to help told Local 10 News. Two men, both 18, were trapped inside the car and died when it became engulfed in flames, Figone said."

2 teens dead after Tesla crashes into wall in Fort Lauderdale

I've used the talking point that battery fires are slow to happen but, well, that's not just not true in all cases.

 

The current electrolytes can burn. The proper term is 'less flammable' relative to gasoline and diesel:
Vehicles

Non-EV cars catch fire too:

Second source: Car fire shuts down Florida Turnpike | WPEC



Third source: Florida mom, 2 kids die after car hits alligator on I-95 | News | postandcourier.com

Bob Wilson

 

why didn't the second post put the model of the vehicle in the headline?

 

People apparently surviving impact but expiring during the post-collision fires of gasoline powered cars is distressingly common, but news reports usually spare us the goriest details.

For quite a while, many motor vehicle injuries and fatalities in my area got no press at all. I discovered this when trying to find coverage of incidents I happened upon in my own neighborhood -- a chalk body outline of a pedestrian in front of a smashed-windshield pizza delivery car being investigated just three blocks from my house, and a gravely injured pedestrian being attended to a mile away. A non-injury accidental gun discharge in a different state got more column inches and higher page placement than a summary paragraph of my whole state's numerous traffic fatalities over the weekend. A double fatality on my street went uncovered, and unknown to me, until it was used as partial justification for upgrading the intersection.

Though this has changed a bit in the past few years, as a couple outlets have boosted their coverage of local traffic casualties.

 

180,000 fires per year from total of 300,000,000+ vehicles (0.06%)
? EV fires per year out of ? EVs on the road

Can anyone fill the gaps?

 

The crash was inexperienced drivers and grossly excessive speed. Bounced off walls on "dead man's curve".

I just contributed to an article in the local small town paper about a dangerous intersection. Light is at bottom of two hills with 2+2+turn lanes. 40 serious accidents in the last 4 years at the intersection, 147 within 1/4 miles. 2 deaths this year. Fire department is a half mile away. It is so bad the life flight helicopters know where to land. I play golf near the intersection and I often hear either the crunch of metal or the panic of an 18 wheeler blowing through on a red light. Distracted driving. I noticed LEO speed enforcement for 3 weeks after the article appeared. Last week I came upon a foot+ high 20 foot long pile of wet concrete a truck had dumped in an attempt to stop. (Wonder if Tesla's or any car's detection system would have seen that.

A young girl who works in a shop I frequent is in the ICU at the big city hospital, her driver and another passenger dead. Life flighted. Massive burns. Single car ran off the rural road. Burst into flames. One ejected. So gas powered cars do it too.

 

But hydrogen cars should be free of such potential danger.

 

Fuel cell cars look fine and run a long time ... all 247 sold in April. Just think, if the Florida teenagers had been in a fuel cell vehicle, they would be perfectly safe today at the same place they'd gotten into the fuel cell car.

Bob Wilson

 

Well we would never know if the group-think expressed here that such things aren't newsworthy was the rule. I, for one, will want to know what happens when a FCV has a high speed crash on public roadways.