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Full Version: Tesla Model S Plaid caught fire while driver was at the wheel, says fire chief
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A 2021 Tesla Model S Plaid sedan caught fire Tuesday night in Haverford, Pennsylvania, while the owner was at the wheel, according to Charles McGarvey, chief fire officer for the Lower Merion Township Fire Department.

Tesla began deliveries of the Model S Plaid, a new high-performance version of its flagship electric sedan, in June, after CEO Elon Musk had said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that they would begin in February.

Musk explained in April that development involved “more challenges than expected” and added, “it took quite a bit of development to ensure that the battery of the new S and X is safe.”



https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/01/tesla-mo...chief.html
Wow, that does look pretty nasty Sad . I hope the insurance covers this!

I also hope Tesla can figure out what went wrong here...
Tesla's concerns about China continue


Around 300,000 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in China have to get an update due to software problems. For the US electric car maker, concerns in China had recently increased. The e-car manufacturer Tesla is having problems with almost 300,000 vehicles in China due to software problems. A function in assisted driving could be activated by the driver inadvertently, which could result in sudden acceleration, said the Chinese authorities State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR). A free online software update should be made for the vehicles it further. That means that most of the cars probably don't need to be brought to the workshop. The majority of the vehicles that receive the software update were built in China.
My guess? the new Tesla's needed higher performance batteries and some of the power regulation wasn't fully up to par since we're already pushing the limits of Lithium Ion Battery Technology as far as energy density and charge/discharge rates.

otoh there are some breakthroughs on the horizon that could fix this.

as far as the software update.

it's surprising that people are inadvertently activating the autopilot...

I've not heard of that problem stateside.
Autopilot worries me a bit. It's not that I don't believe the technology could succeed. It's very likely that it will evolve to be safer and less dangerous than an actual human driver.

But in the event of any sort of error, the lawsuits will be so immense that it could crush any hopes that the technology might have.

Tesla is very ambitious and they succeed at many of the things they attempt, but there are a lot of things they will need some sort of legal waiver for in order to really be able to push themselves to their limits. The battery technologies, however, are very important. Right now, lithium ion batteries are potentially dangerous, prone to degredation, and are extremely expensive for the kind of capacity required for electric cars.
There is another strange accident with Tesla's autopilot, this time from China. A Model 3 comes off the road in a curve and hits a tree. Why is unclear, there was no obstacle. The 23-second video was uploaded to the Twitter counterpart Weibo at the beginning of July 2021, so it is apparently quite up-to-date. One should know in advance that Tesla advises to "actively monitor" the autopilot on public roads. The driver should therefore intervene when danger threatens. This is exactly what didn't seem to happen in this video.

https://www.autobild.de/artikel/tesla-mo...51725.html
This is almost as bad as that adult video featuring the autopilot when it was first introduced that made the news.