Elon Musk, CEO Tesla Motors, defended a Tesla car fire incident by saying the potential damage in a conventional gas-powered car could have been far worse.
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk took to his blog to defend the controversial fire accident in the Model S electric car that occurred outside Seattle, Tuesday. Word spread like fire when a video showing a Tesla Model S in flames went viral. In the company's defense, Musk wrote that the impact of a similar fire incident would have been far worse had it occurred in a conventional gas-powered car. As Tesla models are packed with safety kits, the fire was quickly suppressed and resulted in no physical damage to the driver.
Musk assured in his blog post that electric-powered cars are far safer than conventional gas-powered cars. "For consumers concerned about fire risk, there should be absolutely zero doubt that it is safer to power a car with a battery than a large tank of highly flammable liquid," Musk wrote.
Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX, said that a curved metal object on the road led to the accident, earlier this week. The object hit the underside of the vehicle, leaving a 3-inch hole through an armor plate, which protects the base of the vehicle.
The vehicle's safety skit responded efficiently and alerted the driver to stop and exit the vehicle. The fire was contained within the battery pack and the vents in the pack directed the flames downwards and away from the vehicle.
A fire response team controlled the fire by punching holes in the battery's protective plate and flushing water in to the pack.
"... the combustion energy of our battery pack is only about 10% of the energy contained in a gasoline tank and is divided into 16 modules with firewalls in between. As a consequence, the effective combustion potential is only about 1% that of the fuel in a comparable gasoline sedan," Musk added.
He further said that a Tesla car is five times less likely to catch fire in an accident than a conventional gasoline car.
Following the fire catching incident, Tesla shares fell sharply during the week from $190 to $168. However, the shares slowly recovered and closed at $180.98, Friday. Although it is a loss of $9.92 or a 5.2 percent decline from before the accident, yet the shares saw nearly a 400 percent rise this year.
