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Police believed Tesla fire was due to battery, turns out it was arson

A Tesla Model S was found on fire parked on the street in Spokane, Washington. The police first believed that it caught on fire by itself due to its battery, but it turns out it was arson.

Electric vehicles have an unwarranted reputation for catching on fire even though there’s no evidence that they catch on fire at any higher rate than gasoline-powered cars.

Despite the lack of evidence, the reputation has spread, and that’s the first thing that the Spokane Police Department thought when they found Harrold Harriston’s Tesla Model S on fire.

Harriston said the police told him electric vehicles “tend to” catch on fire. He voiced his disagreement, but they didn’t believe him until he was able to pull the Sentry Cam video from his car.

Sentry Cam is Tesla’s integrated dashcam system that records video of what is happening around a vehicle. It has been used before to catch criminals – especially vandals damaging Tesla vehicles.

The car was able to record an individual walking up to the Tesla and dousing it in gasoline before lighting on fire. Harriston shared the video with local media:

That convinced the police that it was arson rather than the Tesla vehicle catching on fire spontaneously. They are now looking for the individual responsible, and hopefully, it will lead to learning the motive behind the action.

Top comment by D. Ferri

Liked by 27 people

TBH this makes me angry. I am a strong supporter of police but certainly at the moment they have much less margin for error that they have had in the past. What angers me most is that certainly ignorance and possibly bias (toward EVs, not people) almost allowed a real crime to be initially classified as not a crime. And but for the advocacy of the owner, it would have stayed that way.

And has been pointed out, any investigator just out of crime lab school should have detected the traces of gasoline and quickly concluded that it was arson or at least suspicious enough that it merited further investigation. Not to mention that the fire looks like it didn't even go near the batteries. Sure, a truly clueless investigator might have seen the hood damage and assumed it came from "the engine" but do they really think the batteries are there instead? Many years ago firefighters started training on how to put out battery fires, have police investigators been skipped on similar training as it relates to crimes? And speaking of firefighters, where were they in all this? Presumably they would have known better. A failure on multiple fronts.

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Harriston says that he doesn’t even live in Spokane and that he was in town to visit a friend. There was no clear reason for someone to want to light his car on fire.

It’s not clear if the vehicle was targeted because it’s a Tesla or an electric. In the past, Tesla vehicles and charging stations have been targeted by those opposed to electric vehicles.

This could be one of those cases, or it could be a random act of vandalism.

If you know something, you should contact the Spokane PD.

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