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

Car companies now days are pretty quick to recall ... & don't dare wait if there's even a possibility of fire - much less an inherent fire risk. Take for example the XTS Caddy:
Cadillac XTS recalled over fire risk | Autoweek
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So, built in fuses.

The only bait is in your head.

I had quoted the line from your posted source that got me thinking about the Uber fatality, but here it is again, "The increase has been mostly in urban or suburban areas, at nonintersections, on arterials — busy roads designed mainly to funnel vehicle traffic toward freeways — and in the dark, a new IIHS study shows."

Now, I can't say if the road the accident was on qualifies as an arterial, but it wasn't residential, and appeared remote from businesses. It is undisputed that it did happen at night and away from the intersection. Pointing that out, and saying those conditions played a part, is not claiming the pedestrian was at fault.

In addition, I was making no claim about actual car vs. SUV in my post. This specific incident can't tell us anything on the topic because of all the variables. Maybe she would have lived if it had been a car. Maybe she would have lived if Volvo's pedestrian safety system wasn't turned off. Maybe if the human copilot had noticed her in time, which would have been easier in daylight, or if she saw the car, which, again is easier during the day.

Regardless, the only thing about fault that could be taken from my point is that there are parties beyond the pedestrian, driver, and vehicle to look to when addressing pedestrian injuries and deaths. The median where that poor woman crossed had a sidewalk section there. A paved section crossing the median away from the intersection. That is going to entice people to cross the road there when such means a shorter route. And this was known to the city since they had put up "do not cross" signs(that likely weren't visible in the dark) there. If a wall, fence, hedge, etc. had been there instead of open ground, the woman likely would have crossed at the intersection.

Blaming pedestrians or car type is easy scapegoating that won't fix the problem if the issue is actually poor street and city planning that has pedestrians going onto the road where they have no right to be, and drivers aren't expecting to see them.

As for SUVs, you could probably find anti posts on them from me back when I joined, but on the topic of pedestrian deaths, it should fairly easy to determine if more of them on the roads is the cause of this increase in fatalities. Need to compare the number of pedestrian deaths to total number of pedestrian vs car collisions to other periods with less SUVs. If the ratio of deaths to collisions has increased, then we can say it's likely because of the SUV's design.

 

melting a whisker has become much more high tech. Apparently, it was determined fuses designed to simply melt meant metallurgical characteristics were not sufficiently reliable, if/when the fuse(s) approached failure - but didn't. It was determined there's a better method to fuse. Now they make a MUCH heartier / robust failure point above the tolerable melting point so the fuse suffers no change in characteristics. Tesla now employs numerous pyrotechnic disconects - each w/ their own ecu, constantly measuring (per millisecond) amounts of current. Too much, & boom - no more circuit as it pertains to the cells in question;

This tech goes back at least a year. I'd LOVE to watch 'em light one up.

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Regarding the fatal Model X crash in Mountain View, CA near the 101/85 junction:

NTSB preliminary report describes events of Tesla Model X crash - Autoblog
https://ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/HWY18FH011-preliminary.aspx

 

Tesla S crashes at very high speed, takes out a utility pole and two trees, flying debris damages apartments (one battery cell lands on a resident's lap, another cell lands on a bed and starts fire, a wheel hits second story wall hard enough to break water pipe inside and cause flood damage) ...

... and the stoned driver runs away. That takes some really good passenger crash protection.

Tesla crashes at 100 mph in Corvallis, sends batteries shooting through apartment windows

 

Let's see if the dude's Insurance Co cancels his policy now, after paying off fire damage. That's the kind of driver you hope is driving a Gasser, so when he does a couple dozen or so 100mph flips it just explodes in flames & saves the taxpayers a lot of nonsense follow up. Glad to hear he didn't kill or harm anyone but his self.
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tesla fires:

42071025

 

and they are not even necessarily battery fires. what's this world coming to when you can't trust your gasser
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