Tesla Steps Up Production

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Cars burning

Interesting video!

What causes lithium batteries to spontaneously combust for no apparent reason? It happens with batteries in cellphones, laptops, golf carts...

I'm no electrical engineer guru......but I think it's like when you put a coin across the top of a 9V battery where it gets hot.

I think with lithium batteries is the battery is compromised and the positive/negative electrodes come into contact they generate heat.....and it can cascade across the rest of the battery pack.

Feel free to correct/elaborate if my explanation/understanding is weak.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: and now comes . . . the lawyers

TSLA was a momentum stock. As long as Musk could keep the story exciting then the momentum could be maintained.

He ran out of stories in late Sept. and the stock peaked in early Oct. around 193. Without fresh inputs to instill confidence, such as Musk's promise to personally guarantee resale value, the stock started to drift down. Confidence already faltering, the battery fire stories appeared and these sent the stock into a tail spin. With confidence lost, everything about the company will be called into question.

Can TSLA ever regain momentum to rise above 193 again? It's possible but I've never seen it happen.

Once the cocoon of confidence is broken the tendency is for a momentum stock to fall as TSLA has since Oct. in a series of gradual steps punctuated by sharp corrections on bad news.

TSLA will fall to a level to reflect a rational market cap for a company that depends on high net worth consumers,
to a fraction of the 1/3 of GM's market cap the company once enjoyed.

Fire at Tesla's plant: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-1...mble-live-feed

[flintlock]

Re: Cars burning

Ok what I read about this latest fire was that it was caused by running over a trailer hitch in the road(large chunk of steel protruding from street?) that gouged out the bottom of the car, puncturing the battery. If that report is true then the electric car cannot be any worse than if a gas tank was ruptured. Even fatal gas auto fires dont make the national news and we certainly never hear about the non fatal car fires. I'd take with a grain of salt some of these stories, perhaps encouraged by competitors.

Some of this reminds me of the times nervous people call me to install feeds for electric appliances to replace their gas because they don't want that dangerous natural gas in their homes. Never mind the gasoline bomb that stays parked in their garage right below their bedroom every night. They don't even think about that. Or the gas can for the mower they store right next to the furnace or hot water heater.

[flintlock]

Re: Tesla vs Statistics

Is the Tesla doing worse than other cars? There seem to be enough T's out there to gather statistics on flammability. At least the idea of batteries as an ideal power source is getting its due. Anything that stores energy is a fire hazard.

Yes, like a gas tank! This is typical pack mentality journalism moving in for the kill. How many killed in these tesla fires? How many killed from gasoline fires?

[don]

Re: Tesla vs Statistics

When you oversell a new product, you're vulnerable to these sort of mishaps. That was EJ's point. The Tesla Model S and Roadster are figuratively coming home . . .

[flintlock]

Re: Cars burning

In the mid 1980's I saw a crashed car burning like a torch. But that's the only one I can remember seeing like that. It's actually surprising how few auto collisions result in fire injuries.

I've seen several crashes that burned. More than a few that were just due to mechanical issues, (leaking fuel lines, do it yourself wiring) But its amazing we dont see more. A good friend is a firefighter who won an award for trying to pull a driver out of a burning car.
He failed and its one of the few things he said really bothered him.

Around here it was code in one county that if you had a drive under garage you had to have sprinklers installed. Parked cars catch on fire more often than you would think. Often older ones, but ford F-150s had a nasty habit of doing it at one time.

[flintlock]

Re: Tesla vs Statistics

When you oversell a new product, you're vulnerable to these sort of mishaps. That was EJ's point. The Tesla Model S and Roadster are figuratively coming home . . .

I wasn't addressing EJ but rather the exaggerated reports of fire. Almost any tech stock is vulnerable if based on a single product that is somewhat unproven over time. I still dont think they are any more dangerous than what we've been driving the last 100 years. Probably less so.

[shiny!]

Re: Tesla vs Statistics

Yes, like a gas tank! This is typical pack mentality journalism moving in for the kill. How many killed in these tesla fires? How many killed from gasoline fires?

Wouldn't the correct questions be: what percentage of teslas on the road have caught fire -vs- what percentage of gasoline-powered passenger vehicles have caught fire? And comparing battery -vs- gasoline vehicles, how many miles were they driven, on average, before catching fire?

[rtchoke]

Re: Tesla vs Statistics

Wouldn't the correct questions be: what percentage of teslas on the road have caught fire -vs- what percentage of gasoline-powered passenger vehicles have caught fire? And comparing battery -vs- gasoline vehicles, how many miles were they driven, on average, before catching fire?

http://m.green.autoblog.com/2013/11/...ire-trap-nope/

Automotive News editor Dave Guilford did a "little back-of-the-envelope math" to put the latest Tesla fire into perspective. The state of the battery chemistry and vehicle structure should be left to experts to figure out and Wall Street will determine the stock's value, he said. For now, we can calculate that, since Telsa Motors stated that it has "over 19,000" Model S owners in its third-quarter earnings letter, if you divide that number by the three fires, that comes out to one fire per 6,333 Model S units that have been delivered to owners.

If you compare that to the number of car fires on American roads, it puts things into perspective. The US Department of Transportation reported that there were 253,108,389 registered vehicles on US roads in 2011 (yes, that it is a lot – nearly one per person in the US). The National Fire Protection Association says that there were about 187,500 car fires in 2011, and that 270 people died from it. That ratio comes out to one fire per 1,350 vehicles on the roads that year – much higher than what the Model S has experienced.

[flintlock]

Re: Tesla vs Statistics

Wouldn't the correct questions be: what percentage of teslas on the road have caught fire -vs- what percentage of gasoline-powered passenger vehicles have caught fire? And comparing battery -vs- gasoline vehicles, how many miles were they driven, on average, before catching fire?

Not necessarily. The question might better be, "what percentage of Teslas that have had steel plunging through their underside have caught fire vs gasoline powered cars that also have very low ground clearance. These are not spontaneous combustion cases. Some headlines seem to try and imply they are. Some are not even involved in crashes, but rather are hitting objects in the road. And so what if they burn? Gasoline has as much or more potential to kill the driver and passengers than electrical fires which, while still violent, don't seem to spray burning fluid all over people. Is dying trapped in a burning car any better if its only gas that started it? There are two issues here. Survivability and property damage. I understand the Tesla rated very high in crash tests. I'm not aware of any fatal Tesla fires. Can the same be said for Gas powered vehicles. Short out your standard 12 volt car battery and it can burn the car to ashes. Often the gas car fires are ignited by electrical shorts in a crash. Leaking fuel lines are not that uncommon and have burned homes to the ground with people in them. I'm sure these huge batteries have the same potential if something goes wrong. I'm no fan of electric cars for a lot of reasons. I just realize the media is bought and paid for by other interests and are not particularly interested in public safety.

Also, Hybrids have large battery packs as well. Where are the stories about Hybrid fires. There has to have been some. But then GM, Ford, Toyota, etc are not upstart brands like Tesla.

[flintlock]

Re: Tesla vs Statistics

http://m.green.autoblog.com/2013/11/...ire-trap-nope/

Excellent. My point exactly. The fact is there is probably nothing else that adds more danger to our lives than an automobile. Both on the road and sitting in our garage. It is the price we pay for the convenience. Any time you store that much potential energy in a nice tight package like a gas tank or a battery pack, you have at least some potential for harm. I remember looking in the rear view mirror of a work van and seeing smoke coming out of the back. Some knucklehead had tossed a cordless drill battery pack into a bucket full of screws and other hardware, shorting it out and causing a fire. Imagine if that had happened a few minutes later when the van was parked inside the shop and everyone had gone home. And that was just a little 12v ni-cad battery. Where are the stories about the dangers of cordless tools?

[flintlock]

Re: Cars burning

I'm no electrical engineer guru......but I think it's like when you put a coin across the top of a 9V battery where it gets hot.

I think with lithium batteries is the battery is compromised and the positive/negative electrodes come into contact they generate heat.....and it can cascade across the rest of the battery pack.

Feel free to correct/elaborate if my explanation/understanding is weak.

Its called a short circuit and without any sort of fuse to open the circuit, you get heat and sometimes fire if there is anything nearby that is combustible. I'm not aware of any 9 volt fires but I still always dispose of them so they won't short out just in case. The way both terminals are side by side makes them much easier to short than say a D cell. I have a soldering iron that uses household batteries so if they have enough power to melt solder they may have enough energy to burn.

[shiny!]

Re: Tesla vs Statistics

http://m.green.autoblog.com/2013/11/...ire-trap-nope/

Automotive News editor Dave Guilford did a "little back-of-the-envelope math" to put the latest Tesla fire into perspective. The state of the battery chemistry and vehicle structure should be left to experts to figure out and Wall Street will determine the stock's value, he said. For now, we can calculate that, since Telsa Motors stated that it has "over 19,000" Model S owners in its third-quarter earnings letter, if you divide that number by the three fires, that comes out to one fire per 6,333 Model S units that have been delivered to owners.

If you compare that to the number of car fires on American roads, it puts things into perspective. The US Department of Transportation reported that there were 253,108,389 registered vehicles on US roads in 2011 (yes, that it is a lot – nearly one per person in the US). The National Fire Protection Association says that there were about 187,500 car fires in 2011, and that 270 people died from it. That ratio comes out to one fire per 1,350 vehicles on the roads that year – much higher than what the Model S has experienced.

Thanks for the data. I don't have a horse in this race; I just want the issue in full context. It's hard to get context if reporters are pushing someone's agenda... which they seem to do more and more often.

[Fox]

Re: Cars burning

Just to throw in the technical side.

It's more than just heat from the short. It's the fact that lithium-ion batteries (LiCoO2) contain a lot of oxygen. When shorted the oxygen becomes free from the molecule. This creates an oxygen rich environment inside the battery. Oxygen makes almost anything flammable. Non combustible items, steel being a good example, will burn in pure oxygen, and combustible items become explosive.

This makes the Li-ion battery a particularly dangerous form of energy storage. There are safer versions though. We were looking in to LiFe batteries ( LiFePO4) for our products. They are a bit less power than Li-ion but the Oxygen bond is stronger and doesn't disassociate easily. The only problem is the LiFe batteries are only sourced from a China company right now and manufacturing reliability is so poor we won't touch them until someone else starts making them.

Vie la Revolution!

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Cars burning

Just to throw in the technical side.

It's more than just heat from the short. It's the fact that lithium-ion batteries (LiCoO2) contain a lot of oxygen. When shorted the oxygen becomes free from the molecule. This creates an oxygen rich environment inside the battery. Oxygen makes almost anything flammable. Non combustible items, steel being a good example, will burn in pure oxygen, and combustible items become explosive.

This makes the Li-ion battery a particularly dangerous form of energy storage. There are safer versions though. We were looking in to LiFe batteries ( LiFePO4) for our products. They are a bit less power than Li-ion but the Oxygen bond is stronger and doesn't disassociate easily. The only problem is the LiFe batteries are only sourced from a China company right now and manufacturing reliability is so poor we won't touch them until someone else starts making them.

Vie la Revolution!

Thanks for that insight, Fox.
Classic lead acid batteries also suffer from a chemistry problem that aggravates fire safety -they produce quite a bit of hydrogen, which is a fire safety problem.

We've all heard the old warnings about being careful to stay clear of exploding car batteries when we jump start a car.
I had a battery explode during normal use years ago.

When I started my pickup, it cranked for about a second, then I heard a funny "thump", the system went dead, and a little puff of steam came from the engine compartment.
When I lifted the hood the top of the battery case was shattered and electrolyte (battery acid) was splashed all over everything.
I presume the battery suffered an internal short that ignited the hydrogen rich gas above the liquid, blowing the top off the battery, just as my old driver's ed teacher had warned us could happen.