Tesla Model X

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GRA said:
The driver died at Stanford med center. First two photos (the rest are just Tesla stock fluff) here show the aftermath, including a front shot of the interior of the car (the rest is melted)...
No, it didn't melt.

The entire front end of the X disintegrated on impact, and the fire flared up later, as shown in the video at the link below:

Tesla Model X after crash fire on highway 101

New video emerged from the scene of Friday's fiery Tesla Model X crash. The witnesses first helped to remove the driver from his Model X then shot this video, shared by NBC.

NBC's Ian Cull shared this new video of Friday's Highway 101 Tesla Crash, which happened in Mountain View, CA. It's fiery. You can see the the flare-ups starting the 14th second.

The witness, who sent NBC this video, says he shot the video right after he and his friend helped pulled the driver from the burning car. The driver later died at the hospital from his injuries...
https://www.torquenews.com/1/video-emerges-highway-101-tesla-model-x-crash

Unfortunately, saving the driver from the battery fire did not save him from the fatal impact.

Sooner or later, you'll see a video of a Tesla crash followed by a battery pack fire where the driver and/or passenger(s) could not be extracted in time, and that's when the question of why only TSLA needs to use flammable battery packs may have to be answered...

sparky said:
...I'm more convinced, based on other TMC posts, that the gore-point barrier hardware was not in place and that is what made this crash so deadly. Based on crash test videos of the sort of barrier at this location, I find it incredible that the Model X would have sustained such damage if a working barrier was present...
Designing and maintaining roads to make them idiot-proof will never be 100% effective.

Primary responsibility will always reside with the pilot, or autopilot, to avoid driving into a fixed barrier.
 
edatoakrun said:
GRA said:
The driver died at Stanford med center. First two photos (the rest are just Tesla stock fluff) here show the aftermath, including a front shot of the interior of the car (the rest is melted)...
No, it didn't melt.

The entire front end of the X disintegrated on impact, and the fire flared up later, as shown in the video at the link below: <snip>
Yup, my mistake.

edatoakrun said:
Unfortunately, saving the driver from the battery fire did not save him from the fatal impact.

Sooner or later, you'll see a video of a Tesla crash followed by a battery pack fire where the driver and/or passenger(s) could not be extracted in time, and that's when the question of why only TSLA needs to use flammable battery packs may have to be answered....
The answer to that is energy density/specific energy. The question is whether Tesla's NCA packs are sufficiently more dangerous than other chemistries to make a significant difference in safety, and how they stack up compared to ICE fire probability. Obviously, the ideal pack would be 100% safe as well as meeting all other requirements (cost, weight, space, reliability, specific energy/power and densities, etc.,) but such a battery or any other power source doesn't exist and never will - all design decisions are compromises.

I did think it odd that the gore point lacked the usual linked water-filled drums upstream from it, but perhaps this site uses a higher tech solution such as sparky linked. I'm not terribly surprised that the driver died given the nature of the crash, and assuming the barrier was hit head on I have my doubts that any car would be likely to do any better at that impact speed (well above the NHTSA barrier tests), so to me the important issue is whether the car was under A/P or not.
 
GRA said:
I did think it odd that the gore point lacked the usual linked water-filled drums upstream from it, but perhaps this site uses a higher tech solution such as sparky linked. I'm not terribly surprised that the driver died given the nature of the crash, and assuming the barrier was hit head on I have my doubts that any car would be likely to do any better at that impact speed (well above the NHTSA barrier tests), so to me the important issue is whether the car was under A/P or not.
For the benefit of others, from the TMC thread, the gore point had some compression device that at least from semi-recent dashcam footage (see https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/model-x-crash-on-us-101-mountain-view-ca.111505/page-15#post-2636752), likely wasn't reset and repaired after a previous collision. So, if any vehicle hit it (like the Model X involved), it wouldn't absorb much of the vehicle's kinetic energy and they'd basically be hitting a concrete barrier.

That thread has really "blown up" and I have no time to follow it any more, nor that much interest.

Besides the scenarios the DaveinOlyWA listed + what lorenfb added, I'd also add vehicle malfunction or stuck accelerator, including possibly entrapment via floor mat. As for careless/bad driver, yep. For all we know, they were driving in the wrong "lane" (point leading up to the barrier at the split) and couldn't change out of it in time, possibly blocked on the left and/or right.

We may never know due to the amount of destruction and given that the driver died.
 
edatoakrun said:
Comment section to article below has a few new photos, including the pack fire at full (?) intensity:

https://electrek.co/2018/03/23/tesla-fire-battery-pack-model-x-crash/#more-64160

electrek said:
It’s a tragic accident, but as previously discussed, nothing indicates that electric vehicles, like Tesla’s vehicles, catch on fire more often than gas-powered cars.
It’s not uncommon for any vehicle to catch on fire after a severe high-speed crash, which seems to be the case here.
But with this said, it’s still important for first responders to have a good understanding of how to approach a lithium battery fire.


But given the heat intensity of a Li battery fire vs a ICEV gas fire, is the injury/damage outcome equal?
Most ICEV gas fires I've seen, mostly damage wiring, plastics, and rubber. Rarely does the heat intensity
melt Al (intake manifolds). Note that fire burned thru the vehicle’s firewall into the cabin area,
i.e. there was no dashboard remaining. Yes, a majority of damage resulted from the impact,
but the Li fire compounded the damage. It is possible that the MX was perpendicular to the barrier
at impact shearing the front-end off, i.e. the MX was sliding sideways at impact. Having batteries in the
front seems questionable and very dangerous after this accident.
 
lorenfb said:
edatoakrun said:
Comment section to article below has a few new photos, including the pack fire at full (?) intensity:

https://electrek.co/2018/03/23/tesla-fire-battery-pack-model-x-crash/#more-64160

electrek said:
It’s a tragic accident, but as previously discussed, nothing indicates that electric vehicles, like Tesla’s vehicles, catch on fire more often than gas-powered cars.
It’s not uncommon for any vehicle to catch on fire after a severe high-speed crash, which seems to be the case here.
But with this said, it’s still important for first responders to have a good understanding of how to approach a lithium battery fire.


But given the heat intensity of a Li battery fire vs a ICEV gas fire, is the injury/damage outcome equal?
Most ICEV gas fires I've seen, mostly damage wiring, plastics, and rubber. Rarely does the heat intensity
melt Al (intake manifolds). Note that fire burned thru the vehicle’s firewall into the cabin area,
i.e. there was no dashboard remaining. Yes, a majority of damage resulted from the impact,
but the Li fire compounded the damage. It is possible that the MX was perpendicular to the barrier
at impact shearing the front-end off, i.e. the MX was sliding sideways at impact. Having batteries in the
front seems questionable and very dangerous after this accident.

I have "seen" a handful of car fire aftermaths where it was not only impossible to tell what kind of car it was. It was impossible to tell what "style" of car it was...

Fire will destroy if you let it. Gas, Li, etc. it doesn't matter. The car fuels itself.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
I have "seen" a handful of car fire aftermaths where it was not only impossible to tell what kind of car it was. It was impossible to tell what "style" of car it was...

Fire will destroy if you let it. Gas, Li, etc. it doesn't matter. The car fuels itself.

Yes, but it's very rare to see a ICEV gas fire where there's a full melt-down of the body and/or frame. There have been MS fires
where all that was left was melted Al.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
...Fire will destroy if you let it. Gas, Li, etc. it doesn't matter. The car fuels itself.
No, only hydrocarbon fueled ICEV vehicles, FCVs and TSLAs carry highly-flammable fuel.

Virtually all BEVs except TSLA use fire-resistant battery packs, which are much safer for occupants in a crash.
 
Lot's of assumptions on what melted and what was simply crushed. The car is also made of aluminum not steel and ow many gas fueled fires are there in all aluminum cars? Over all, that car is safer than anything on the road, If that guy hit that wall in an ICE I'm confident they would not be pulling him out without heavy equipment. That was a worse case accident and the fact that they could even pull him from the car says quite a bit for the safety of a Tesla.
 
NTSB Probing Tesla That Caught Fire After Crash in California
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ntsb-probing-tesla-caught-fire-162212608.html
 
cwerdna said:
NTSB Probing Tesla That Caught Fire After Crash in California
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ntsb-probing-tesla-caught-fire-162212608.html


I wonder if they would do this if any other EV was involved. Perhaps they are looking at that barrier that was not set.
 
EVDRIVER said:
...Perhaps they are looking at that barrier that was not set.
Doesn't seem to be a major question:

2 NTSB investigators conducting Field Investigation for fatal March 23, 2018, crash of a Tesla near Mountain View, CA. Unclear if automated control system was active at time of crash. Issues examined include: post-crash fire, steps to make vehicle safe for removal from scene.
https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/978651644417265664
 
edatoakrun said:
EVDRIVER said:
...Perhaps they are looking at that barrier that was not set.
Doesn't seem to be a major question:
That's pretty bad if it is not addressed. That was a deathtrap waiting for a victim literally for YEARS.

I doubt anyone would have died if the barrier had been reset following that long-ago accident.
 
RegGuheert said:
edatoakrun said:
EVDRIVER said:
...Perhaps they are looking at that barrier that was not set.
Doesn't seem to be a major question:
That's pretty bad if it is not addressed. That was a deathtrap waiting for a victim literally for YEARS.

I doubt anyone would have died if the barrier had been reset following that long-ago accident.

Sadly I would agree with that assessment, it was an incredible hazard.
 
https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-we-know-about-last-weeks-accident

kH5JAQa.jpg

C3vq8xR.jpg
 
I don't think there's any doubt that the severity of the damage was due to the out-of-action barrier. The far more important question as far as the investigation goes is did hitting the barrier result from human or A/P error?
 
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