Earlier this month, a Tesla Model S car suddenly burst into flames as it was replenishing its batteries via a Supercharger in Norway. Had it been a Lamborghini, nobody would have even noticed, but Teslas haven’t been known to combust spontaneously, so an investigation was launched.
The Norwegian Accident Investigation Board had its work cut out for it by the fact that the firefighters who showed up on the scene couldn’t do anything about the fire due to the possible electric hazard presented by the high voltage Li-ion battery. So what they did was watch the car being consumed by the flames - together with the charging station - and prevent the fire from spreading to any of the surrounding buildings.
That being the case, the Board didn’t have a lot of evidence left to work with. However, they were able at least to determine the fact that the fire had originated from inside the vehicle, as opposed to the charging station. Apart from that, though, we’re still in as much dark as we were before.
What’s more, the Norwegian Accident Investigation Board announced the press that it was calling off the investigation partly because of a lack of resources. What that basically means is that, until Tesla issues a statement on the matter, we won’t really know what happened. And the fact that an independent organization is now out of the loop isn’t exactly good news either. Especially for the conspiracy theorists who think Elon Musk is out to destroy the world and enslave the human race.
Green cars-dedicated website ecomento says that the burned-down Model S was a one-year-old vehicle that had just swapped owners two days prior to the incident. The Tesla cars have been enjoying a relatively long spell of... well, normality, after a series of fiery incidents - caused by crashes this time - back in 2013 that led to some hardware changes on future models.
Tesla Motors hasn’t commented in any way on the situation thus far, and is probably waiting on its own findings before issuing a release, while also trying to make as few ripples as possible in the meantime. That’s a bit tricky when you’re the hottest trending automotive brand of the moment, and one of your cars has just disappeared in a big ball of fire.
Here is the video of the car burning again, as reported by a Norwegian television station:
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