[jackson1way]

Despite the autopilot failure, I find the battery failure quite remarkable too:

> The car was towed to an impound lot, but the vehicle's batteries weren't finished burning. A few hours after the crash, "the Tesla battery emanated smoke and audible venting." Five days later, the smoldering battery reignited, requiring another visit from the fire department.

Where is your LiPo god now? Batteries have more energy density than 20 years ago, ok. But they are also much more dangerous. Now imagine the same situation with Tesla's huge semi batteries. They'll have to bury them 6ft under, like Chernobyl's smoldering fuel rods. Minus the radiation.

[outworlder]

So, basically they need to improve handling of damaged batteries. There are procedures in place for ICE cars too. No one is going to be storing a car with fuel and a damaged fuel tank anywhere. The main advantage is that it is usually obvious when a fuel tank is damaged and is leaking.

Some Tesla batteries have caught on fire after collisions. None caused injury to car occupants. In one of the first publicized cases, the car even told the driver to pull over safely, and the fire only started afterwards. There are vanes to direct flames.

I've seen my fair share of ICE fires. They are not pretty either. We have grown accustomed to them, firefighters know how to handle them, and the car industry has fixed most of the early issues that caused fires. It can still happen.

The same will be done for car batteries.

I agree with the energy density argument. My Leaf stores about 1 liter worth of gasoline as energy. When we reach energy densities comparable to current fuel tanks, we'd better be much more advanced in this aspect.

[dragontamer]

> Now imagine the same situation with Tesla's huge semi batteries.

I'm bearish on Tesla (not financially, but I'm mostly a pessimist in regards to their news).

But to be perfectly fair: I'm not sure if 400 gallons of diesel fuel (typical in a 18-wheeler) could be put out by a typical fire-department.

There was a tractor-truck spill due to an accident in my area once. The fire-department closed down BOTH sides of a 2x2 lane highway (55 MPH zone, very few traffic lights, a grassy median). You don't mess with 400-gallons of inflammable diesel.

The good thing about diesel is that you can just, burn it out. Burn all of it. Close down the highway of course, but once it stops burning, its safe to cross. It may take 30 minutes to an hour (all the people stuck in traffic can get out of their car, talk with each other, play on cell phones or something...), but a controlled burn is better than an explosion.

I'm not sure if Lithium Ion has a good procedure yet.

[blevin]

A decade ago a fuel-tanker truck crashed on a freeway overpass in Oakland, and the ensuing fire softened enough steel for the overpass to collapse:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/30collapse.html

The overpass was reconstructed and I-580 highway reopened after 26 days:

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/A-MAZE-ING-His-reputa...

[curiousgal]

Battery failure?

You're expecting their engineers to design a battery that remains safe after a 70mph crash into a barrier?

[jedberg]

ICE makers have to design gas tanks that are safe after a 70mph collision, so yeah, it's kind of expected that the battery is safe too.

[jumelles]

Yes? Welcome to the automotive industry. Lives are at stake.

[thatswrong0]

Is there an equivalent safety standard for ICE vehicles? I don't think a gas task would do particularly well in the exact same circumstance either

[ars]

Yes, of course there is. That's why the gas tanks are in the back, and they most certainly do survive such crashes.

[Alupis]

ICE vehicles don't typically spontaneously combust after a crash...

[cfadvan]

If the combustion occurs as the result of a crash, can that really be said to be “spontaneous?”

[acct1771]

No, just during, when you're unconscious, and not safe in your new car miles away.

[outworlder]

Right. They sometimes spontaneously combust even without crashes.

[mmusson]

Five days after the crash doesn’t seem unreasonable. I wonder if some kind of inerting compound can be developed for lithium batteries for use by firefighters and the like.

[NickNameNick]

To 'inert' it properly, you'd have to extract all the energy, which is going to look pretty much the same as burning it.