Vehicle fire now completely covered under warranty, even when caused by operator error.
"Third, to reinforce how strongly we feel about the low risk of fire in our cars, we will be amending our warranty policy to cover damage due to a fire, even if due to driver error. Unless a Model S owner actively tries to destroy the car, they are covered. Our goal here is to eliminate any concern about the cost of such an event and ensure that over time the Model S has the lowest insurance cost of any car at our price point. Either our belief in the safety of our car is correct and this is a minor cost or we are wrong, in which case the right thing is for Tesla to bear the cost rather than the car buyer."
The sentence -- "First, we have rolled out an over-the-air update to the air suspension that will result in greater ground clearance at highway speeds." -- for some reason deeply amuses me. I thought that it was scary to push out OTAs to phones (I hope everything works like it did in the dev environment); I can't imagine pushing an OTA to a $85,000 car!
A few sentences later, though -- "Another software update expected in January will give the driver direct control of the air suspension ride height transitions." -- concerns me. Tesla's car computer is becoming increasingly complex, and the fact that the infotainment system will have such complete control over the car -- and will still accept data from outside sources -- is very concerning. I hope that at some point soon Tesla will begin talking about the security methodology that they use for the firmware running on the car, and how they prevent unauthorized code from running.
Increasing complexity is not what's concerning here. Being able to adjust the ride height of your car (air suspension) is not that uncommon. My current vehicle has adjustable air ride suspension for city/highway. It automatically drops an entire inch at speeds over 60mph to reduce drag and allow for a lower center of gravity. It's great.
The concerning issue here is someone hacking this vehicle's OTA software update and causing accidents. Or even tapping into the vehicle control system(s) and causing havoc.
Unlikely, but possible vs. current vehicle technology requiring a trip to a dealer by an authorized and authenticated trained tech to make these changes.
I imagine every critical system on the Model S is accessible wirelessly.
This actually bring me back to Michael Hastings accident where theories are floating around that steering, breaking and acceleration systems might have been compromised wirelessly causing the accident.
The bottom line is that there's simply way too much convenience technology in cars today and that might not be such great thing. It's a tough call as safety technology is important and the more the better. However, certain things such as OTA suspension and other critical system updates need to pushed and completed intelligently. I want to assume that any updates to these vehicles are done when they are off (overnight) and redundantly checked for integrity to ensure the update was successful.
Recent "conventional" gasoline-based cars are also full of embedded software, much of it of dubious quality. Consider, for instance, this audit of the software in recent Toyotas, which found bugs that could cause the car to go out of control:
http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer...
What may be unique about Tesla is the explicit provision for over-the-air software updates. But anyone with sufficient technical knowledge and physical access to a conventional car can do very nasty things to the electronics (i.e., deadly to the occupants).
"Very concerning"? For you, maybe. To me, this smacks of concern trolling. You are aware that all modern cars have a lot of software and microcontrollers embedded in their designs, right?
BTW, there is no evidence, at least none you have cited or even referred to, that the Tesla computer is "becoming increasingly complex". All we see in this article is that they are changing one variable in their existing system. That's not increased complexity.
I work with major automotive manufacturers to develop software for their vehicles. Almost all of the major OEM's are planning to have OTA software updates for their vehicles within the next 2-3 years. Security is always considered and there are plenty of audits and limitations placed on it to keep it secure. Tesla is a bit ahead of the game here, but their software methodology will be the norm.
I imagine Tesla's firmware code is leaps and bounds ahead of what passes for code in the mobile world. I don't think we appreciate how well written code can be because in consumer electronics half-assed work for making deadlines are the norm. As much as I like Android, I certainly don't want an android powered car or pacemaker. Its a fast moving ugly project that moves fast enough to keep up with its competitors. Its not an example of carefully written code that typifies most embedded systems.
Note I wrote most. I am aware that some organizations like Toyota engage in poor practices, but there's more the exception than the rule.
I seem to remember SpaceX explaining that they used linux everywhere in their company from users desktops to rocket guidance systems and this symmetry help keep all their employees co-ordinate easier. So I don't think it's an outlandish assumption that Tesla might be run a similar way and you'll find a number of linux boxes controlling the car.
Obviously that doesn't mean it's inherently secure or anything but maybe hint that it might be using some more standard security practices than a crazy custom Tesla invented magic box.
So as there have been instances of an OTA update "bricking" phones, there will likely at some point be an OTA to cars which causes mass crashes and casualties. It's just a question of when...
Yet more movement of freedom and power from individuals to corporations.
I wonder if future tesla cars will eventually have some way automatically detecting a possible collision like this and adjusting the suspension accordingly without driver interaction?
Yeah, a lot of those arguments, while true, are not very representative; he's comparing statistics of the 19.000 brand new cars built within the last year with the millions of road cars currently out there.
I do think the Tesla's fires have been blown way out of proportion by the media. And it's odd too; gasoline fires are much more impressive and descriptions of burning children and suchlike will create much more impressive headlines than "electrical car on fire". It's a desensitisation thing though, I think; dozens of cars (rough guess based on nothing) go up in flames every day, which is maybe noted in a local newspaper. Rare high-tech car has a fire and it's world news.
Hate to break this to you, but the internals of most "premium" vehicles when it comes to things like engines are largely unchanged year to year. I test drove a lot of premium vehicles last year and found most of them were using engines/drivetrains that were still based on 15-20 year old designs with only cosmetic (and cabin electronics) changes over the years.
So in that sense, the Model S is a baby in terms of maturity of the vehicle platform.
True, the fires per 1000 vehicle number would be more indicative of the chance of experiencing one in your choice of vehicles. And then he leaves out the fact that gasoline powered cars have caught fire idling in traffic (my sister's MG did that, but its fuel pump was a not exactly the best engineered part of that car) and during non-collision activities. Its about 1/week on the Bay Area highways you have a car fire reported during the commute.
That said, he had to say something. The press was enjoying the chance to bash 'the safest car ever tested' and the stock price was falling from unsustainable highs.
There are so many factors to take into consideration that the argument would be a book to get a full view...
For example, if you want to move past generalizations (such as the author of the blog post made) you would also have to consider things such as the type of people using the cars vs other premium vehicles. Likely Tesla users are going to be more apt to try more things, which in turn makes them at a higher risk to drive erratically or at higher speeds (even perhaps higher than other premium vehicle users).
Further, I would suspect premium vehicles have a higher rate of deaths due to accident than the average population of car. However, that data might not be available to him.
Lets also compare the amount of people that die/injured because their isn't a sufficient crumple zone to absorb impact and that can prevent the doors from jamming, due to having an ICE in the front. Lets compare how many people die/injured from a vehicle rolling over because it has a higher center of gravity. We kind of just put up with these things which are more of a design flaw that has serious consequences. Model S are much safer in these areas yet we are concerned with road debris fires. I wish Tesla would make more safety features standard such as front/back sensors+camera, collision warning, adaptive cruise, blind spot warning, etc. The car of the future should be safe and prevent needless death.
> So the fire rate should be compared to those of premium vehicles about the same age.
While it's fair to want to compare the Tesla to good cars, rather than average ones, arbitrarily selecting criteria like that creates statistical fallacies rather than eliminating them. If we care about safety, we should compare each car's safety to an average replacement, rather than trying to sculpt a population with an ill-defined criterion like 'premium'. So far Tesla has presented the data necessary to compare them to an average car, so all you have to do to see where it stacks up is to find similar data for any particular car you think is comparable.
The fire rate should be compared to those of premium electric vehicles about the same age... which don't exist. Not even Fisker or i3 would qualify if you restrict the criteria far enough. I think they should limit it to the same colour only as well.
Mr. Musk seems to have a habit of publicizing his back-of-the-napkin calculations. "Based on the Model S track record so far, you have a zero percent chance of being hurt in an accident resulting in a battery fire."
It seems to have worked well for him. Maybe I should pick it up.
It's just like in the 60-ties the US government calculated that there is a 0% risk of accidental detonation of nuclear bombs[1],because they have not experienced it yet.
I believe that electric cars are safer than gasoline cars,but the sample size for Tesla is way to small to draw such conclusions yet.
He certainly doesn't shy away from questionable use of statistics for his own benefit. That and the quip about the odds of being struck by lightning are quite ridiculous IMO.
Agreed. While I agree with his thesis that the risk with electric cars is much lower, this "analysis" is very infuriating. He speaks in absolutes and compares the entire automotive industry to a single premium luxury car model. Of course he knows this. This is just a PR piece instead of a well articulated rebuttal of the fire risk claims. That said, he presents it as something else altogether (and will defend it quite boldly).
Full disclosure: I'm an electric car owner (leaf) and I want to see tesla succeed, but Elon can be a rather poor spokesman at times.
This just shows how insane the media world is. Great rebuttal. I love this one: "It is literally impossible for another car to have a better safety track record, as it would have to possess mystical powers of healing."
Musk and Tesla are given far more benefit of the doubt than any one else. Criticism is jumped on and scorned very quickly, and is a karma massacre. As such, I normally do not comment on Tesla threads at all. There seems to be little reason applied, its like saying some one's baby is ugly.
If it were a Microsoft car catching fire, or over stating benefits and what not, I suspect the reaction would be very, very different. Im beginning to see Tesla as the automotive Linux. Wont be long until we have people claiming Tesla cars cure cancer.
This fawning attitude, and unwillingness to allow debate and criticism seriously puts me off Tesla. I mean, even you have tried to suggest that any criticism is not reasoned debate, but oil and automotive negative PR. The criticism cant possibly be reasonable, it simply must be a conspiracy of the oil industry. You even say that the opinion should not be written at all. So much for open society.
All this, IMHO, is a big problem for Tesla. When people are being unrealistically positive and rejecting criticism like its some sort of heresy, Tesla becomes an easy target to shoot at. Especially for its enemies.
Too much "one of us" vibe here as far a Musk is concerned. He is a great bloke, and Im am very much in the positive camp, I've been advocating and keenly following electric cars for years before Musk ever got involved and I am 100% glad that a man like Musk has invested loads of his own money and time in to it, but fans need to be realistic and not so silly about criticism.
Tesla and Musk are not the problem, the fans however are.
Personally, I just find delicious irony in Musk scrambling to spin fires in his battery-powered vehicles after all the condescending snark he heaped on Boeing...
I think electric cars are great technology as well, but some of us are tired of reading about how a what is essentially a heavily-subsidized, California rich-person's "toy" is the greatest thing to happen to the automotive industry ever.
To me it isn't so much about wanting to see them fail, it's bringing expectations in line. I don't see many articles around here about the work the other car companies are doing in the space.
Musk personally rubs some people the wrong way, and he puts himself out there as the only public face of Tesla. Part of it is a perception of arrogance, part of it is how he comes out guns blazing for any perceived slight of his company.
People aren't desperate to see Tesla fail. It's just that stories about something new are much more interesting than stories about something that everyone's familiar with, and stories about danger tend to be more interesting than stories about safety. These add up to a story about the three Teslas catching on fire, as opposed to stories about all of the gasoline cars catching on fire or stories on Tesla's safety record.
For decades Americans have been told to fear change and the unknown. They've been told things that are different are bad, and the status quo is the way forward. Many decisions are now made out of fear.
Whatever you think of the blog post and Musk's spin - he puts his money where his mouth is. He's put into writing that if a 3rd party investigation into the fires finds anything they can do to improve safety - everyone gets a free retrofit. And short of an owner actively trying to destroy their car, Tesla's warranty will cover fire damage.
How many CEO's have that level of confidence in their product? Can you imagine Honda, Audi, BMW or any of the others reacting that way to something like this? And they've been around for much longer.
This whole fiasco reminds me of Ryan Holiday's book "Trust me I'm lying". I can't help but wonder if some "media manipulator" was involved in the possible manufacture of some negative PR for Tesla.
This assumption is not unreasonable since Ralph Nader was attacked by hired gun media (hired by the big three) when he dared challenge the status quo. I'm not that the big three are involved, but the stink caused by the car fires seems a bit "manipulated".
My friend rolled his truck this weekend. He's looking for the new car and when I suggested a Tesla, he gave me a Resounding no, due to fire hazard. While this a heuristic observation, he is a pretty innovative guy and I'm confident he would a picked or even considered a tesla had it not been for the negative press.
Lastly, I wonder if Elon's doing the right thing by repeating this. Maybe he should talk to Ryan Holiday type. I genuinely hope that this blows over and that Tesla & Elon can get back to building awesome cars & changing the world rather than playing PR.
I did not see Elon complaining when a car launch got so much attention from the press. This just seems to be the other side of the same coin.
This happens to every runaway success. Remember the "death grip" nonsense for iPhone4 and how it was blown out of proportion?
Media loves the story of a man who worked against all adds to build/create something amazing. Unfortunately, they love "the fall of the guy" even more.
In general, I'm not a big fan of linking directly to PR put out by self-interested parties. It's very hard for the average reader to de-spin the propaganda put out in these missives. They're being manipulated and don't know it. I'd much prefer a link to a well written analysis of events from an unbiased industry expert.
Reading the headlines, it is therefore easy to assume that the Tesla Model S and perhaps electric cars in general have a greater propensity to catch fire than gasoline cars when nothing could be further from the truth.
Actually, the Data do not support Him. He is starting to tread on shallow ground, and perhaps should re-evaluate and stratify his data analysis to fires 'on public highways'.[1,2] That is where all of the Tesla Fires are happening. Unfortunately, those data do not support him.
By this metric, you are more than four and a half times more likely to experience a fire in a gasoline car than a Model S! Considering the odds in the absolute, you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than experience even a non-injurious fire in a Tesla.
And, Bayesian statistics might give you a different analysis.
From a PR perspective, I wonder if this is really doing him any favours? The note he wrote after the october crash was flawed, but perhaps excusable. This is too pre-meditated and now must just be considered somewhere on the spectrum of 'wrong' to 'misguided' to 'misleading'.
[1] In data terms, it excludes intentional fires like vandalism, and parked cars being struck, and accidents in motor repair facilities, etc.
Yes, but the Model S's on the road are less than a couple of years old. How many gasoline fires are caused by cars that are a couple of years old? I would guess this comparison would put the gasoline fires more in line with Tesla car rates. I would assume that most of the gasoline engines that catch fire are from older cars which haven't been maintained well.
I find their statistics to be somewhat misleading. Can we see fire statistics on cars produced from the same time as Model S? Because I am not surprised a lot of the older cars are catching on fire.
I still believe Tesla will be safer then gasoline cars, but gap definitely would not be orders of magnitude.
What I want to know is what Elon Musk is working on next. He's not 100% on Tesla 24x7, because now he has people to optimize the factories and work out the next models. What else is he doodling about on his notepad.
This is the Elon Musk I want to see, not the harried auto executive making PR stunts.
I don't know what's going on but I sometimes wish someone would tell Elon to cool it and really think things through before making public statements. I realize there's a lot of emotion involved. His competitors are loving every minute of him flying off the handle and making dumb statements.
> Based on the Model S track record so far, you have a zero percent chance of being hurt in an accident resulting in a battery fire
This is right up there with Bush's "Mission Accomplished", his Dad's "Read my lips. No new taxes.", Obama's red line and "You can keep your plan. Period".
It's not true. Or put in better terms, the data is not statistically significant. And he knows it.
These are the kinds of statements you really regret making when reality catches up with you.
> There are now substantially more than the 19,000 Model S vehicles on the road that were reported in our Q3 shareholder letter for an average of one fire per at least 6,333 cars, compared to the rate for gasoline vehicles of one fire per 1,350 cars. By this metric, you are more than four and a half times more likely to experience a fire in a gasoline car than a Model S!
Again, he knows this math is wrong. To make this comparison stick you'd have to aggregate data going back to the very introduction of gasoline powered vehicles. You'd also have to include every kind of vehicle --trucks, vans, busses, not just cars. And then you'd have to remove the percentage of fires that were caused intentionally which, from what I was able to garner, could represent a massive 20% to 30% of fires. Fires due to collisions represent a smaller fraction of all automobile fires.
Further to that, you'd have to also consider vehicle age, maintenance and environment. Is it fair to compare a fire on a a 15 year old truck in a rural setting on substandard roads against a brand new Tesla in the city on great roads? How are Tesla's going to perform (in terms of safety) when they are five, ten, fifteen or twenty years old?
Perhaps the comparison should be restricted to fires caused by collisions (not intentional or other non-collision causes) on new cars operating in the same urban centers where Tesla's are found.
In other words, he is grabbing numbers without any though given to applicability.
Again, these are statements that obviously come from anger and frustration and you could end-up regretting them.
> you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than experience even a non-injurious fire in a Tesla.
From [1]:
"The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000. The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000."
So we are comparing the odds of something happening over someone's lifetime (50 to 90 years?) with a fire in a car that's been in the market for ONE YEAR? Really? How about we compare it to the 1 in 700,000 yearly case? It's still a bullshit comparison. But, hey, since we are slinging bullshit.
Again. Please. Think before saying such things. All you need is one fire where someone gets hurt or killed and this statement could be thrown back as an utter joke. With only 20,000 cars on the road every incident has the potential to change numbers in a radical way. If that happens you now have a 1 in 20,000 chance of being killed in a Tesla in any one year. See how stupid it is to make such statements?
> The far more deadly nature of a gasoline car fire deserves to be re-emphasized.
Who do you think you are talking to? Who's your audience? Children? There are a BILLION cars in the world[0]. A BILLION. That number might not include motorcycles, trucks and other variants. I would suggest gasoline powered vehicles are pretty damn safe, particularly when you consider markets where they might not have pristine roads, regular maintenance and where cars are used for ten, twenty and thirty years rather than flipping them every few years as is often the case in affluent communities in the US and elsewhere.
Anyhow, the point is that sometimes you have to lead by not reacting to things with emotion and by not saying things you know you will have to regret. The strongest statement he could make right now is to crash several Model-S's (as painful as that might be) into concrete walls, into each other and into gasoline cars and show --in a very public way-- just how safe they might be. If they are not. Fix it and then show the public. Release the videos and let people sort it out.
Why are comments here focussing on Tesla so much. Isn't it time to acknowledge that the media are actively damaging society with misinformation and fear mongering, often in support of entrenched corporate interests?
[+] [-] cloudwalking|12 years ago|reply
Vehicle fire now completely covered under warranty, even when caused by operator error.
"Third, to reinforce how strongly we feel about the low risk of fire in our cars, we will be amending our warranty policy to cover damage due to a fire, even if due to driver error. Unless a Model S owner actively tries to destroy the car, they are covered. Our goal here is to eliminate any concern about the cost of such an event and ensure that over time the Model S has the lowest insurance cost of any car at our price point. Either our belief in the safety of our car is correct and this is a minor cost or we are wrong, in which case the right thing is for Tesla to bear the cost rather than the car buyer."
[+] [-] jwise0|12 years ago|reply
A few sentences later, though -- "Another software update expected in January will give the driver direct control of the air suspension ride height transitions." -- concerns me. Tesla's car computer is becoming increasingly complex, and the fact that the infotainment system will have such complete control over the car -- and will still accept data from outside sources -- is very concerning. I hope that at some point soon Tesla will begin talking about the security methodology that they use for the firmware running on the car, and how they prevent unauthorized code from running.
[+] [-] dakrisht|12 years ago|reply
The concerning issue here is someone hacking this vehicle's OTA software update and causing accidents. Or even tapping into the vehicle control system(s) and causing havoc.
Unlikely, but possible vs. current vehicle technology requiring a trip to a dealer by an authorized and authenticated trained tech to make these changes.
I imagine every critical system on the Model S is accessible wirelessly.
This actually bring me back to Michael Hastings accident where theories are floating around that steering, breaking and acceleration systems might have been compromised wirelessly causing the accident.
The bottom line is that there's simply way too much convenience technology in cars today and that might not be such great thing. It's a tough call as safety technology is important and the more the better. However, certain things such as OTA suspension and other critical system updates need to pushed and completed intelligently. I want to assume that any updates to these vehicles are done when they are off (overnight) and redundantly checked for integrity to ensure the update was successful.
[+] [-] rst|12 years ago|reply
What may be unique about Tesla is the explicit provision for over-the-air software updates. But anyone with sufficient technical knowledge and physical access to a conventional car can do very nasty things to the electronics (i.e., deadly to the occupants).
[+] [-] Bud|12 years ago|reply
BTW, there is no evidence, at least none you have cited or even referred to, that the Tesla computer is "becoming increasingly complex". All we see in this article is that they are changing one variable in their existing system. That's not increased complexity.
[+] [-] mdorazio|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|12 years ago|reply
Note I wrote most. I am aware that some organizations like Toyota engage in poor practices, but there's more the exception than the rule.
[+] [-] Already__Taken|12 years ago|reply
Obviously that doesn't mean it's inherently secure or anything but maybe hint that it might be using some more standard security practices than a crazy custom Tesla invented magic box.
[+] [-] cma|12 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6704338
[+] [-] booyaa00|12 years ago|reply
Yet more movement of freedom and power from individuals to corporations.
[+] [-] blktiger|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salimmadjd|12 years ago|reply
Model S is only 1 year old and it's a premium vehicle. So the fire rate should be compared to those of premium vehicles about the same age.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|12 years ago|reply
I do think the Tesla's fires have been blown way out of proportion by the media. And it's odd too; gasoline fires are much more impressive and descriptions of burning children and suchlike will create much more impressive headlines than "electrical car on fire". It's a desensitisation thing though, I think; dozens of cars (rough guess based on nothing) go up in flames every day, which is maybe noted in a local newspaper. Rare high-tech car has a fire and it's world news.
[+] [-] hkarthik|12 years ago|reply
So in that sense, the Model S is a baby in terms of maturity of the vehicle platform.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
That said, he had to say something. The press was enjoying the chance to bash 'the safest car ever tested' and the stock price was falling from unsustainable highs.
[+] [-] lettergram|12 years ago|reply
For example, if you want to move past generalizations (such as the author of the blog post made) you would also have to consider things such as the type of people using the cars vs other premium vehicles. Likely Tesla users are going to be more apt to try more things, which in turn makes them at a higher risk to drive erratically or at higher speeds (even perhaps higher than other premium vehicle users).
Further, I would suspect premium vehicles have a higher rate of deaths due to accident than the average population of car. However, that data might not be available to him.
[+] [-] scragg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Natsu|12 years ago|reply
While it's fair to want to compare the Tesla to good cars, rather than average ones, arbitrarily selecting criteria like that creates statistical fallacies rather than eliminating them. If we care about safety, we should compare each car's safety to an average replacement, rather than trying to sculpt a population with an ill-defined criterion like 'premium'. So far Tesla has presented the data necessary to compare them to an average car, so all you have to do to see where it stacks up is to find similar data for any particular car you think is comparable.
[+] [-] nonchalance|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kozhevnikov|12 years ago|reply
The fire rate should be compared to those of premium electric vehicles about the same age... which don't exist. Not even Fisker or i3 would qualify if you restrict the criteria far enough. I think they should limit it to the same colour only as well.
[+] [-] MrMeker|12 years ago|reply
It seems to have worked well for him. Maybe I should pick it up.
[+] [-] gambiting|12 years ago|reply
I believe that electric cars are safer than gasoline cars,but the sample size for Tesla is way to small to draw such conclusions yet.
[1] Eric Schlosser, "Command And Control"
[+] [-] svantana|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omegant|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgb|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deelowe|12 years ago|reply
Full disclosure: I'm an electric car owner (leaf) and I want to see tesla succeed, but Elon can be a rather poor spokesman at times.
[+] [-] bachback|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nfm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alan_cx|12 years ago|reply
Musk and Tesla are given far more benefit of the doubt than any one else. Criticism is jumped on and scorned very quickly, and is a karma massacre. As such, I normally do not comment on Tesla threads at all. There seems to be little reason applied, its like saying some one's baby is ugly.
If it were a Microsoft car catching fire, or over stating benefits and what not, I suspect the reaction would be very, very different. Im beginning to see Tesla as the automotive Linux. Wont be long until we have people claiming Tesla cars cure cancer.
This fawning attitude, and unwillingness to allow debate and criticism seriously puts me off Tesla. I mean, even you have tried to suggest that any criticism is not reasoned debate, but oil and automotive negative PR. The criticism cant possibly be reasonable, it simply must be a conspiracy of the oil industry. You even say that the opinion should not be written at all. So much for open society.
All this, IMHO, is a big problem for Tesla. When people are being unrealistically positive and rejecting criticism like its some sort of heresy, Tesla becomes an easy target to shoot at. Especially for its enemies.
Too much "one of us" vibe here as far a Musk is concerned. He is a great bloke, and Im am very much in the positive camp, I've been advocating and keenly following electric cars for years before Musk ever got involved and I am 100% glad that a man like Musk has invested loads of his own money and time in to it, but fans need to be realistic and not so silly about criticism.
Tesla and Musk are not the problem, the fans however are.
[+] [-] ubernostrum|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onebaddude|12 years ago|reply
To me it isn't so much about wanting to see them fail, it's bringing expectations in line. I don't see many articles around here about the work the other car companies are doing in the space.
[+] [-] smackfu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threeseed|12 years ago|reply
And so I question Musk's motives when he acts so aggressively against anyone who claims otherwise.
[+] [-] lambda|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|12 years ago|reply
This has all accelerated since 9/11.
[+] [-] felix|12 years ago|reply
How many CEO's have that level of confidence in their product? Can you imagine Honda, Audi, BMW or any of the others reacting that way to something like this? And they've been around for much longer.
[+] [-] Killah911|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] san86|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thom|12 years ago|reply
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.
[+] [-] damon_c|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codex|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 001sky|12 years ago|reply
Actually, the Data do not support Him. He is starting to tread on shallow ground, and perhaps should re-evaluate and stratify his data analysis to fires 'on public highways'.[1,2] That is where all of the Tesla Fires are happening. Unfortunately, those data do not support him.
By this metric, you are more than four and a half times more likely to experience a fire in a gasoline car than a Model S! Considering the odds in the absolute, you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than experience even a non-injurious fire in a Tesla.
And, Bayesian statistics might give you a different analysis.
From a PR perspective, I wonder if this is really doing him any favours? The note he wrote after the october crash was flawed, but perhaps excusable. This is too pre-meditated and now must just be considered somewhere on the spectrum of 'wrong' to 'misguided' to 'misleading'.
[1] In data terms, it excludes intentional fires like vandalism, and parked cars being struck, and accidents in motor repair facilities, etc.
[2] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Public+highway
[+] [-] codex|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ececconi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanj|12 years ago|reply
Wow. Now I live in the future.
[+] [-] TrainedMonkey|12 years ago|reply
I still believe Tesla will be safer then gasoline cars, but gap definitely would not be orders of magnitude.
[+] [-] chris_mahan|12 years ago|reply
This is the Elon Musk I want to see, not the harried auto executive making PR stunts.
[+] [-] robomartin|12 years ago|reply
> Based on the Model S track record so far, you have a zero percent chance of being hurt in an accident resulting in a battery fire
This is right up there with Bush's "Mission Accomplished", his Dad's "Read my lips. No new taxes.", Obama's red line and "You can keep your plan. Period".
It's not true. Or put in better terms, the data is not statistically significant. And he knows it.
These are the kinds of statements you really regret making when reality catches up with you.
> There are now substantially more than the 19,000 Model S vehicles on the road that were reported in our Q3 shareholder letter for an average of one fire per at least 6,333 cars, compared to the rate for gasoline vehicles of one fire per 1,350 cars. By this metric, you are more than four and a half times more likely to experience a fire in a gasoline car than a Model S!
Again, he knows this math is wrong. To make this comparison stick you'd have to aggregate data going back to the very introduction of gasoline powered vehicles. You'd also have to include every kind of vehicle --trucks, vans, busses, not just cars. And then you'd have to remove the percentage of fires that were caused intentionally which, from what I was able to garner, could represent a massive 20% to 30% of fires. Fires due to collisions represent a smaller fraction of all automobile fires.
Further to that, you'd have to also consider vehicle age, maintenance and environment. Is it fair to compare a fire on a a 15 year old truck in a rural setting on substandard roads against a brand new Tesla in the city on great roads? How are Tesla's going to perform (in terms of safety) when they are five, ten, fifteen or twenty years old?
Perhaps the comparison should be restricted to fires caused by collisions (not intentional or other non-collision causes) on new cars operating in the same urban centers where Tesla's are found.
In other words, he is grabbing numbers without any though given to applicability.
Again, these are statements that obviously come from anger and frustration and you could end-up regretting them.
> you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than experience even a non-injurious fire in a Tesla.
From [1]:
"The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000. The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000."
So we are comparing the odds of something happening over someone's lifetime (50 to 90 years?) with a fire in a car that's been in the market for ONE YEAR? Really? How about we compare it to the 1 in 700,000 yearly case? It's still a bullshit comparison. But, hey, since we are slinging bullshit.
Again. Please. Think before saying such things. All you need is one fire where someone gets hurt or killed and this statement could be thrown back as an utter joke. With only 20,000 cars on the road every incident has the potential to change numbers in a radical way. If that happens you now have a 1 in 20,000 chance of being killed in a Tesla in any one year. See how stupid it is to make such statements?
> The far more deadly nature of a gasoline car fire deserves to be re-emphasized.
Who do you think you are talking to? Who's your audience? Children? There are a BILLION cars in the world[0]. A BILLION. That number might not include motorcycles, trucks and other variants. I would suggest gasoline powered vehicles are pretty damn safe, particularly when you consider markets where they might not have pristine roads, regular maintenance and where cars are used for ten, twenty and thirty years rather than flipping them every few years as is often the case in affluent communities in the US and elsewhere.
Anyhow, the point is that sometimes you have to lead by not reacting to things with emotion and by not saying things you know you will have to regret. The strongest statement he could make right now is to crash several Model-S's (as painful as that might be) into concrete walls, into each other and into gasoline cars and show --in a very public way-- just how safe they might be. If they are not. Fix it and then show the public. Release the videos and let people sort it out.
[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/23/car-population_n_934...
[1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_...
[+] [-] gress|12 years ago|reply