A Tesla Semi electric truck has caught on fire on a highway near the California-Nevada border, according to the CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit.
Despite frequent media reports, there’s no statistical evidence that electric vehicles catch on fire at a higher rate than fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
However, they are a relatively new technology, and they sometimes catch on fire for different reasons than gasoline-powered vehicles, like a battery defect in the Bolt EV’s case. Those instances should obviously be investigated and reported.
Now, we learn that a Tesla Semi, Tesla’s class 8 electric truck, has caught on fire in California near the Nevada border.
The CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit first reported the fire:
Tesla electric commercial vehicle fire, hazardous materials incident due to the Lithium-Ion batteries involved. Minimal spread to the vegetation with aircraft utilization to confine fire until it is safe to build control lines.
Top comment by Doug T
This fire response likely cost over $200k in state and local resources. But, it was a good move to have an airdrop to mitigate ~1 Mwh of burning cells. I'm glad they were able to prevent a wide spread forest fire that could have cost millions.
Some may correctly point out that the energy in a gas tank is typically 3x that in the battery of an equiv range EV, but battery fires are significantly harder to extinguish than gas/diesel fires and the fumes often more toxic
At some point, I am guessing that regulators will start limiting battery chemistry types or certification based on EV vehicle class and total kwh or mass.
Battery safety testing & certification is still an evolving field in both tech & regulations. But clearly needs to be ironed out soon as EV adoption increases and battery tech matures.
There’s no word about how the fire started, but no crash was reported. It’s not even clear if the truck caught on fire first or the cargo, as the firefighter mentioned a “li-ion battery fire”, but Tesla’s trucks are known to carry battery packs from Tesla’s Nevada factory to its Fremont, California factory.
The fire lasted hours and later, a hazardous material crew was spotted recovering what was left of the truck for Tesla:
If it’s the actual truck that caught fire on its own, it will likely be investigated by the authorities as there are only a few dozen Tesla Semi trucks on the road right now, most of them used in Tesla’s own operations for testing.
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