Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive...
Discussion
gangzoom said:
How does that compare to any other car?
Compared to other EV's its hard to tell, I don't remember reading about Leaf, Zoe etc going up in flames but there isn't the same interest in those as in Tesla. Compared to ICE, you'd be comparing Apples and Oranges.Edited by gangzoom on Monday 22 April 10:51
Tesla's problem is a little self inflicted. They have a fanatical fanbase such that every little thing they do and say is scrutinised and reported on. Unfortunately for them that means some stuff like this also makes the news when it wouldn't for other makes. They have to take the rough with the smooth, sounds like they've sent a team out to check it out and find out what happened.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48009163
The suggestion above that some grumpy short seller has emerged from his basement to torch a car is a great example of the kind of odd following Tesla have.
It'll be interesting to see if it's a battery that has been damaged or some charger issue that's caused this one to go up.
It isn’t so much that the car set on fire, but the reaction to it.
Here, for example, is a laptop setting on fire from 2017. The article refers 100’s of incidents, but not much is said about this in comparison.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/I-Tea...
Here is a piece about Ferrari 458s setting on fire
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motoring/ferrar...
Here, for example, is a laptop setting on fire from 2017. The article refers 100’s of incidents, but not much is said about this in comparison.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/I-Tea...
Here is a piece about Ferrari 458s setting on fire
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motoring/ferrar...
There is no meaningful data with which to work with as there are so few EVs in existence and over such a short period of time from which to draw any viable conclusions from.
Absolutely no one can state whether they are more or less safe than an ICE. It will be decades before there will be enough data unless there is a catastrophic flaw in the concept of EV.
This data imbalance is best highlighted by the simple fact that a 100%, one off, unique incident among ICE data collection will be lost in the set and how no meaningful value but in the EV data set it can end up being defining and yet completely wrong.
Musk cannot legitimately say his EVs are ten times safer than ICE and no one can say they are less safe at this point in time.
It’s also worth noting that the US culture is still very fixated on the Ford Pinto scenario which will be giving their media a potentially different perspective than others.
At this moment in time it is just a car that caught fire and the media are wailing about explosions and end of days and some idiots on Twitter are doing what some idiots do which is running around hysterically screaming that everyone is going to die. And there will probably be tinfoil loons coming along next with fruitloop conspiracies about Chinese competitors or stock market Sith Lords that Musk and friends keep lending stock to.
It’s best to wait for the third party report and more information at this stage.
Absolutely no one can state whether they are more or less safe than an ICE. It will be decades before there will be enough data unless there is a catastrophic flaw in the concept of EV.
This data imbalance is best highlighted by the simple fact that a 100%, one off, unique incident among ICE data collection will be lost in the set and how no meaningful value but in the EV data set it can end up being defining and yet completely wrong.
Musk cannot legitimately say his EVs are ten times safer than ICE and no one can say they are less safe at this point in time.
It’s also worth noting that the US culture is still very fixated on the Ford Pinto scenario which will be giving their media a potentially different perspective than others.
At this moment in time it is just a car that caught fire and the media are wailing about explosions and end of days and some idiots on Twitter are doing what some idiots do which is running around hysterically screaming that everyone is going to die. And there will probably be tinfoil loons coming along next with fruitloop conspiracies about Chinese competitors or stock market Sith Lords that Musk and friends keep lending stock to.
It’s best to wait for the third party report and more information at this stage.
DonkeyApple said:
There is no meaningful data with which to work with as there are so few EVs in existence and over such a short period of time from which to draw any viable conclusions from.
Apart from Tesla, I find it hard to believe any Tesla fire isn't reported. The current crop of EV have been sold to consumers since 2011, the fact individual fires are been reported from a fleet of 500K cars suggest the fire rate is tiny - as my very crude maths shows. The latest fire is even reported by the BBC, how many other individual car fires do the BBC report on?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48009163
Edited by gangzoom on Monday 22 April 11:21
JPJPJP said:
Here is a piece about Ferrari 458s setting on fire
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motoring/ferrar...
Zafira's catch fire too. Short GM, Ferrari and all other ICE manufacturers.https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motoring/ferrar...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43987134
Or maybe not. Car fires happen in both ICEs and EVs. I await to see figures that demonstrate it is statistically greater risk for EVs.
gangzoom said:
Apart from Tesla, I find it hard to believe any Tesla fire isn't reported. The current crop of EV have been sold to consumers since 2011, the fact individual fires are been reported from a fleet of 500K cars suggest the fire rate is tiny - as my very crude maths shows.
The latest fire is even reported by the BBC, how many other individual car fires do the BBC report on?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48009163
Tesla has s a news driven stock as created by Musk. That’s why it gets in the news and firms like Nissan generally don’t. There’s no conspiracy theory it is merely the natures of the companies in question with the former being a highly leveraged growth play that utilises heavy media exposure while the latter is a staid, yielding stock. The latest fire is even reported by the BBC, how many other individual car fires do the BBC report on?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48009163
Edited by gangzoom on Monday 22 April 11:21
As for the data on EVs, it is tiny. There are very few EVs in the market place and even then they are not being utilised in the same wide range of ways by a very wide range of users. Both those elements combined make the data really unstable.
Going back to say Nissan v Tesla there is another huge structural difference between the two types of firm that creates a media disparity and that is that if Nissan discover a design or product flaw that requires a recall or even results in a class action then it has the financial means to handle this type of event. A firmnin Tesla’s financial position does not and that alone generates a meaningful difference in the news worthiness of two stories.
Indeed, one of the bear arguments is that the Tesla cars are being rolled out with build short cuts which can be seen on the outside of the products and are well discussed but that at the same time it seems very likely that the same issues exist under the skin of the products and that this has significant ramifications for the bear cause.
DonkeyApple said:
There is no meaningful data with which to work with as there are so few EVs in existence and over such a short period of time from which to draw any viable conclusions from.
Absolutely no one can state whether they are more or less safe than an ICE. It will be decades before there will be enough data unless there is a catastrophic flaw in the concept of EV.
This data imbalance is best highlighted by the simple fact that a 100%, one off, unique incident among ICE data collection will be lost in the set and how no meaningful value but in the EV data set it can end up being defining and yet completely wrong.
Musk cannot legitimately say his EVs are ten times safer than ICE and no one can say they are less safe at this point in time.
Really? I think it's generally accepted Tesla's have covered over 5 billion miles globally, it's a small fraction of ICE vehicles but still enough data to start drawing conclusions.Absolutely no one can state whether they are more or less safe than an ICE. It will be decades before there will be enough data unless there is a catastrophic flaw in the concept of EV.
This data imbalance is best highlighted by the simple fact that a 100%, one off, unique incident among ICE data collection will be lost in the set and how no meaningful value but in the EV data set it can end up being defining and yet completely wrong.
Musk cannot legitimately say his EVs are ten times safer than ICE and no one can say they are less safe at this point in time.
Tesla data also becomes more meaningful if it's compared against similar class ICE vehicles over a similar period of history.
WestyCarl said:
Really? I think it's generally accepted Tesla's have covered over 5 billion miles globally, it's a small fraction of ICE vehicles but still enough data to start drawing conclusions.
Tesla data also becomes more meaningful if it's compared against similar class ICE vehicles over a similar period of history.
It really isn’t. As a data set it is still so small that outliers can have an erroneously defining impact on conclusions. And that is further compounded when trying to attempt to draw comparisons with vastly larger data sets where such anomalies get clearly treated as such. Tesla data also becomes more meaningful if it's compared against similar class ICE vehicles over a similar period of history.
Just to give a minor example, in Tesla’s short life their product has almost completely been in the hands of educated and intelligent consumers. Even now the 3 might be being rolled out to a larger demographic that contains a larger number of subpar intellects but at its price point it still isn’t anywhere near finding a large number of genuine morons. From that alone we can infer that the product has not been truly tested by a true cross section of humanity. Nor has it been tested in a wide range of environments for similar reasons.
It’s the same with the crash statistics. These are also skewed due to how the cars are used and the brains of people who are able to fund $100k purchases.
Its way more complex - not all fires are equal and an EV fire could well be seen as a higher risk event that a petrol fire, although petrol fires aren't great.
A petrol car burnt out down a country lane will burn itself out in an hour or so, if the fire service turn up they'll poor a bit of water on it and once its a shell leave it to be recovered (gross simplification and not meaning to underplay the risk still involved) - but go to a EV and its firing batteries around the place and can keep relighting several days later. That does have a material affect on how you see these. I'd have some sympathy here if the bar is made higher because a car is an EV and 1 in 100k catching fire is seen as worse than 1 in 50k petrol cars, but on the flip side, we're constantly told they've a stupidly small number of moving parts, they no longer need any real servicing and its all simple
But Tesla like to do do car park analysis - 10 million cars - tesla are better than them, how about just comparing themselves to BMW 7 series, Merc S classes put on the road in the last 4 -5 years? Same with the safety - AP compared to all miles driven by all cars and all driver types - why not try and compare to premium luxury cars on motorways?
I personally feel its disingenuous for them to even hint at the crass comparisons made - its as if they don't understand them themselves. It feels like they deliberately dripping information into the market they know lots of people will jump to the wrong conclusion. "AP is twice as safe as not using AP" erm.. there is no evidence to support that and if anything its the contrary taking into account Motorways are 4x safer than any other road type.
A petrol car burnt out down a country lane will burn itself out in an hour or so, if the fire service turn up they'll poor a bit of water on it and once its a shell leave it to be recovered (gross simplification and not meaning to underplay the risk still involved) - but go to a EV and its firing batteries around the place and can keep relighting several days later. That does have a material affect on how you see these. I'd have some sympathy here if the bar is made higher because a car is an EV and 1 in 100k catching fire is seen as worse than 1 in 50k petrol cars, but on the flip side, we're constantly told they've a stupidly small number of moving parts, they no longer need any real servicing and its all simple
But Tesla like to do do car park analysis - 10 million cars - tesla are better than them, how about just comparing themselves to BMW 7 series, Merc S classes put on the road in the last 4 -5 years? Same with the safety - AP compared to all miles driven by all cars and all driver types - why not try and compare to premium luxury cars on motorways?
I personally feel its disingenuous for them to even hint at the crass comparisons made - its as if they don't understand them themselves. It feels like they deliberately dripping information into the market they know lots of people will jump to the wrong conclusion. "AP is twice as safe as not using AP" erm.. there is no evidence to support that and if anything its the contrary taking into account Motorways are 4x safer than any other road type.
JPJPJP said:
I think we may find out in time that all is not quite what it seems in this case.FurtiveFreddy said:
JPJPJP said:
I think we may find out in time that all is not quite what it seems in this case.
Heres Johnny said:
Its way more complex - not all fires are equal and an EV fire could well be seen as a higher risk event that a petrol fire, although petrol fires aren't great.
Fire Services in some countries have already come to a very simple solution for smouldering EV fires.It involves a grabber arm and a hook-loader skip full of water.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/uk.motor1.com/news/31...
Burwood said:
FurtiveFreddy said:
JPJPJP said:
I think we may find out in time that all is not quite what it seems in this case.I'd be less jumpy about the fire and a lot more nervy about the dodgy suspension that makes wheels collapse / fall off.
That's a known thing and obvious recall territory for any other car company. Bizarre that Tesla just class it as a "non safety.relsted" bulletin. What is safe about catastrophic wheel failure at speed?
That's a known thing and obvious recall territory for any other car company. Bizarre that Tesla just class it as a "non safety.relsted" bulletin. What is safe about catastrophic wheel failure at speed?
Some Gump said:
I'd be less jumpy about the fire and a lot more nervy about the dodgy suspension that makes wheels collapse / fall off.
That's a known thing and obvious recall territory for any other car company. Bizarre that Tesla just class it as a "non safety.relsted" bulletin. What is safe about catastrophic wheel failure at speed?
Ah the suspension 'issue'... That's a known thing and obvious recall territory for any other car company. Bizarre that Tesla just class it as a "non safety.relsted" bulletin. What is safe about catastrophic wheel failure at speed?
https://insideevs.com/nhtsa-closes-tesla-model-s-i...
The livestream of autonomy day....
The sec will be twitching
Robotaxi
Rebuttal of the miraculous processor etc. https://twitter.com/jebkinnison/status/11204021257...
The sec will be twitching
Robotaxi
Rebuttal of the miraculous processor etc. https://twitter.com/jebkinnison/status/11204021257...
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 22 April 22:04
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