Tesla Supercharger Fire: Authorities are shutting down the investigation and report indications that the fire originated in the car

A Tesla Model S caught fire while charging at a Supercharger in Norway on New Year’s day. No one was in the car when the fire started and fortunately nobody was harmed, but the car almost completely burned down.

The authorities and Tesla launched investigations to determine the cause of the fire. Last week, the police released the scene of the Supercharger for the ‘crime technical examination’. Today we learn that the ‘Accident Investigation Board’ (AIBN) is shutting down the investigation, but not before disclosing that they found indications that the fire “originated in the car”.

Accident Investigation Board Director Rolf Mellum said to DN that his organisation was investigating the incident at the request of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. Mellum said that they were ending the investigation in part due to the lack of resources.

The AIBN didn’t specify if the indications that the fire originated “in the car” pointed toward any particular components or if it started in the passenger compartment.

It might be difficult to determine the cause of the fire due to the vehicle being almost completely burned down with little remains. Local fire department reported that they couldn’t do much since they are told not to use water to try to extinguish a battery fire and therefore they pretty much let the car burned down while mainly trying to keep the fire from spreading to the building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWXN7ni4FTc

The Model S in question was reportedly a 1-year old pre-owned car, which the new owner only had for 2 days.

After the incident, a Tesla spokesperson sent us a statement saying they are undergoing a full investigation and will share their findings as soon as possible. We reached out to Tesla for comments following the AIBN’s findings and we will update the article if a representative gets back to us.