Tesla car caught on fire while being investigated for another fire - Electrek

A Tesla vehicle that was already being investigated as the potential cause of a garage fire two months ago has caught on fire again and completely burned down after being transported to a new location.

On the morning of February 8, 2019, a Tesla owner and resident of Fox Chapel, a suburb of Pittsburgh, woke up to his garage in flames.

The firefighters came and were able to control the fire, but the two vehicles inside the garage, including a Tesla, were damaged.

The Tesla vehicle was reportedly being investigated as a potential cause of the fire and yesterday, it was transported to a shop in Monroeville to be inspected, but it caught on fire a few hours after it got there.

David Bizzak, a forensic engineer involved in the investigation, said:

“We removed the car from the garage. A Tesla engineer removed the fuse from the battery pack prior to transport, indicating that would make the car safe for transport. We brought it here to Monroeville, arrived around 3:30 in the afternoon, and about 6:20, the car spontaneously caught fire,”

We contacted Tesla about the situation and the company says that it is looking into it. We will update if they report back with a comment.

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Electrek’s Take

When it comes to Tesla fires, we are quick to say that there’s no statistical evidence that shows electric cars catch on fire at a higher rate than gasoline vehicles.

That’s true and especially when they catch on fire following a severe impact.

But I think it’s important to look into instances of electric vehicles catching on fire seemingly on their own – without a crash.

Those instances certainly need to be investigated in order to find the cause of the fire.

Last year, the battery pack of a Tesla Model S caught on fire in Los Angeles seemingly on its own without any accident and Tesla said that it was an ‘extraordinarily unusual occurrence’. They are still investigating the cause.

Tesla is not the only electric automaker to deal with this issue. A few months later, a Jaguar I-PACE electric SUV caught on fire while parked in a driveway.

It’s important to understand the causes of these fires.

In 2016, a Tesla Model S caught on fire during a test drive event in France without any impact.

The automaker eventually determined that the fire was due to ‘electrical connection improperly tightened’ by a human instead of robots.

In this latest case, the Tesla car could still not be the cause of the fire and the second fire could be the result of damages from the original fire, but that’s only speculation.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.

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