Tesla has been in the news in many negative ways following the crash in May when a man was using the Autopilot system of his Model S and ran into a tractor trailer which ended his life. There have been rumors swirling around this crash and all the facts haven’t even been discussed or released, but some of the rumors have stated the man was watching a movie on a portable DVD player when he crashed. The question around this incident had to do with whether or not the Autopilot system was to blame for the accident and his death.
In other Tesla news, we’ve heard about the Model S catching fire in different locations, which can cause entire supercharging stations to burn down or the car itself to burn to a crisp. Tesla has addressed these issues by adding more protection to the battery pack in the floor of the car to help avoid this happening again. Even though Tesla has added reinforcements in this area of the car, we’ve still seen instances of these cars catching fire with the volatility of the battery pack and what it’s made of being extremely flammable.
Most recently there was an incident reports that showed a Tesla Model S that had a collision in the Netherlands. This Model S collided with a tree and part of the battery pack caught fire, giving us both the collision and the fire to make this an extremely difficult situation for the owner and driver of the vehicle. Immediately the question comes up as to whether or not this incident has to do with the Autopilot system and why the battery pack caught fire. Thankfully, it seems we have the answers to this question to give us the knowledge we want when it comes to this accident.
Tesla has confirmed that the Autopilot system was not engaged at any time while the car was being driven on that particular day. Not only was the Autopilot not engaged, but the car was being driven at speeds that exceeded 96 mph and while I don’t know what the speed limit of that road was, this doesn’t seem to be a safe speed for any car on some of the narrow roads offered in this part of Europe. There’s no doubt this car was travelling at speeds that were in excess of the limits of the area and unfortunately the car was destroyed and those inside were decimated.
This car was destroyed to the point that firefighters had to contact Tesla technicians to the scene of the crash to help ensure the batteries were turned off quickly. The fire brigade informed officials that normally the batteries are easy to turn off on these cars when the car is sitting on its four wheels, but this car wasn’t as it had wrapped around the tree in a manner that lifted it off the wheels. The Tesla technicians were integral in completing the task of getting the battery pack turned off before more devastating damage occurred.
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