Tesla is updating its battery software following a car fire, claims improve longevity

Several Tesla Model S vehicles have caught on fire seemingly on their own without any accident lately and now Tesla is updating its battery software following the latest incident.

Last month, a Tesla Model S caught on fire while being investigated as the cause of another fire near Pittsburgh.

A few days later, another Tesla Model S was caught on video bursting into flames seemingly on its own when parked in Shanghai.

Media in Hong Kong reported another Tesla fire earlier this week and Tesla said that it was investigating the situation.

“Our team was onsite to offer support to our customer and establish the facts of this incident. We are glad that everyone is safe.

While our investigation with authorities is ongoing, we have found that only a few battery modules were affected and the majority of the battery pack is undamaged. Tesla battery packs are engineered with a state-of-the-art design so that in the very rare instance a fire does occur, it spreads very slowly and vents heat away from the cabin, alerting occupants that there is an issue and giving them enough time to exit the vehicle.

The safety of our customers is our top priority, and if we do identify an issue, we will do whatever is necessary to address it.”

Following the incident, Tesla confirmed they are releasing a BMS software update to revise the “charge and thermal management settings”:

“As we continue our investigation of the root cause, out of an abundance of caution, we are revising charge and thermal management settings on Model S and Model X vehicles via an over-the-air software update that will begin rolling out today, to help further protect the battery and improve battery longevity.”

The automaker says that it is starting to push the software update over-the-air to its entire fleet of Model S and Model X vehicles today.

Tesla reiterated that they believe that their vehicles are “10 times less likely to experience a fire than a gas car”:

“We currently have well over half a million vehicles on the road, which is more than double the number that we had at the beginning of last year, and Tesla’s team of battery experts uses that data to thoroughly investigate incidents that occur and understand the root cause. Although fire incidents involving Tesla vehicles are already extremely rare and our cars are 10 times less likely to experience a fire than a gas car, we believe the right number of incidents to aspire to is zero.

While there have been several instances of fires involving Tesla vehicles lately, the vehicles were all Model S or Model X. No Model 3 fire has been reported to date as far as we know.