On October 6, a car hauler with 6 Tesla Model Ys faced a fire that destroyed all battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in Turkey. On the same day, another blaze destroyed 14 cars at the Chambéry Tesla Service Center in France. Although there is a city with that name, the Tesla shop is ironically located in Chignin. The total number of vehicles burned in two different countries on the same day is 20, but was this all just a nasty coincidence or a sign of something bigger? First of all, the facts.
The first blaze started at around 2:30 AM local time on ArIfat Street in Tuzla, a city in the district of Istanbul. According to the Turkish website DonanImHaber, the truck driver who was transporting the Teslas said the fire broke out in one of the Model Y units, but he had no idea what had happened. As soon as smoke started to emerge from the BEV, he stopped his car hauler and tried to kill the fire with an extinguisher. It did not work as planned. When the firefighters arrived, it took them one hour to end the blaze. The problem is that we have no idea how long it took them to reach the truck, which would give us a proper perspective of how long the fire lasted.
It is also not clear if the blaze will be investigated by the police, even if that is what is supposed to happen. Unfortunately, that should not make much difference, as I will explain in a bit. DonanImHaber considers it could be a defect in that BEV, an issue while loading it, or some problem with the truck. The possibility of foul play is remote in this case. How would anyone set fire to a vehicle in a moving car hauler? We'll have to wait for more news about this fire to discover if anyone is trying to shed light on the possible cause.
At around the same hour in another time zone, a blaze started at the Chambéry Tesla Service Center, 581 kilometers (361 miles) from Paris. According to Le Dauphiné Libéré, the firefighters arrived at the location a while after 3 AM local time. In other words, it may have also started at around 2:30 AM, just like the Turkish blaze. It took 45 men to prevent the fire from spreading to other BEVs. Even so, 16 were destroyed.
Photo: via DonanImHaber
Sadly, we have even more doubts about the French episode than about the Turkish one. Were all cars that burned new vehicles, or were they there just waiting to be repaired? Tesla Service Centers deliver and also fix BEVs. The only extra information that we have is that the AAPPMA Les Pêcheurs Chambériens – a local association of fishermen – complained to the police about pollution in La Crouza Creek. That seems strange because this stream is 30 km (18.6 miles) away from the Tesla Service Center. The closest one to the Chambéry shop is the Bon de Loge Creek, so we suppose Le Dauphiné Libéré was actually talking about this one.
Surveillance camera images were checked, but it seems the police have not reached any conclusion about it so far. The good news is that investigators are involved in discovering what happened. Sadly, that does not mean we will ever know the investigation results.
On August 28, 2021, a Model X caught fire at the Tesla Service Center in Luxembourg. We have not heard anything about what caused that blaze or how old the vehicle was. On September 27 of the same year, a Model S almost burned to the ground in the parking lot of the Marietta Tesla Service Center in Georgia. The pictures that the local fire department took show a fairly recent unit of the electric sedan. As far as I know, that case is also hanging without a cause for what happened.
Photo: Bray Bray/Maribel Abreu
Just to keep these Tesla fires on the company's Service Center, another one happened in Coral Gables on May 22, 2022. Neighbors heard a few explosions and started seeing fire and smoke coming from the TSC parking lot. People living close to the area where the Turkish incident took place also reported hearing an explosion. Back to the fire in Florida, two cars were destroyed, and the firefighters had to come back that night because the vehicle reignited. When I wrote about that, the blaze was also under investigation. I am still waiting to learn what caused it.
Tesla should be the first one interested in disclosing what happened. It would probably have done that if it had anyone other than itself to blame. Rest assured that any criminal attempt to burn these vehicles would be quickly disclosed, as it has been in the recent Frankfurt fire that destroyed ten Model Y units last September 12. Ironically, it was the group that set fire to these vehicles that chose to identify themselves. They were protesting against global warming, mind you.
Although it was a hell of a coincidence that these 20 Teslas burned on the same day and at the same local hours, nobody claimed to have done that. The investigations should have absolved the American BEV maker so that its customers would not rely on Elon Musk's word that electric cars do not catch fire as much as those using gasoline or diesel. The ones that do turn into lithium-ion barbecues should be recalled or fixed before that happens. The deal is that we have no idea what happened, and that should remain like that indefinitely. "Dommage..."
?stanbul, Tuzla'da içlerinde Tesla Model Y'nin de bulundu?u araç yüklü t?r alev ald?. Yang?n, Tesla veya di?er elektrikli araçlar?n birinden ç?kt?. #Teslapic.twitter.com/GewWCJ8Hyz
@savoienews ?? Incendie sur le parking de la concession Tesla à Chignin. Aux alentours de 3 heures du matin, un incendie s'est déclaré sur le parking de la concession Tesla à Chignin. Les pompiers du SDIS 73 sont rapidement intervenus sur place pour tenter de maîtriser le feu. L'intervention a constitué un véritable défi pour la trentaine de pompiers dépêchés sur place, en raison de la nature électrique de l'incendie. Grâce à la rapidité du SDIS 73, le bâtiment principal n'a pas subi de dégâts majeurs. Bilan des dégâts : 14 véhicules Tesla complètement détruits. #tesla#incendie#pompiers#savoie#chambery#fyp? original sound - Savoienews
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