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."
That will be interesting to see a manufacturer warranty stuck in the middle of normal insurance disputes. Like what if someone is at fault and hits a Tesla and causes a fire, would that be covered under the Tesla warranty, or the other party's insurance?
Tesla will pay for that and will have to use its channels to get its money from the one who is at fault (either his/her insurance company or him directly). I'm pretty sure that's more or less standard insurance stuff and Tesla is not inventing anything new - they just invest some of their money into that. It might be more interesting how they solve international problems regarding that but I'm sure other car manufacturers should have something similar to that.
An insurer has to pay the manufacturer the full price of the vehicle. Tesla's margins are approaching 25%. Tesla is betting its cheaper for them to replace the car at cost than the PR hassle because people suck at math. In the event another few cars go up in fire, Tesla eats the vehicle manufacturing cost in return for goodwill and people continuing to purchase their vehicles.
You have to admit, Elon stands behind his vehicles, literally with his personal wealth. Compare that to other luxury brands. It's brilliant.
>Vehicle fire now completely covered under warranty,
Have you considered that the reason they are doing this is that insurance companies may look at the fires and begin to increase premiums on the Tesla cars, or refuse fire coverage altogether?
This isn't altruism; it's damage control (literally).
Don't insurance companies have highly trained and highly paid actuaries? My understanding is they look at numbers, not headlines. I'm sure there is some sort of professional ethical standard they are expected to uphold.
You aren't looking at the whole picture. In fault states, the insurance company would have to pay out to the other party in the case of an accident. That money needs to come from somewhere, namely the premiums, which is why they go up after there is reason to believe it could happen again. This isn't about emotions or ethics but rather cold logic
Yeah, but I find it hard to believe they hadn't already included some amount of fire probability in their calculations. Isn't it possible their assumed probability is higher than the actual, since it was perhaps based on the track record of internal combustion cars? I'm out of my depth here. IANAAA - not an actuarial analyst, nor an automotive engineer.
It's about future likelihood, not prior probability, and the fact that an issue was discovered means that the likelihood is much higher than if it were some isolated incidents.
To put it differently, if it were entirely random, the premiums would not change, but if there were a systemic problem (which appears to be the case here) the premiums should change to reflect the risk
His point is that insurance cost for an 85k car with a potential design flaw is (1) likely to go up; and (2) likely to be perceived as a red flag by potential buyers. Insurance companies are often accused of over-reacting to recent data (eg, a recent hurricane will jump up insurance next year). That being said, the insurance companies are also likely to actually look at the data and dis-regard pr spin when they are on the hook for the damages. By removing the insurance co's scrutiny from the data as well, it kills two birds with a single stone.
> "Insurance companies are often accused of over-reacting to recent data (eg, a recent hurricane will jump up insurance next year). That being said, the insurance companies are also likely to actually look at the data and dis-regard pr spin when they are on the hook for the damages."
Could the surge in prices after a recent hurricane be the insurance company 'cashing in on'/exploiting the irrational reaction of the public, rather than the insurance company itself having an irrational reaction?
Insurance companies can only survive long term if they are data-driven, so it seems likely to me that they are reacting rationally (although perhaps coldly) to an irrational market reaction.
That logic makes sense if you assume the only incidents are single-car. When this happens near other cars and is deemed to be the factor behind a multi-car accident, the insurance company still has to pay out for the other participants (unless you are in a no-fault state). I would argue that, regardless of the PR spin and warranties, unless Tesla takes liability for entire accidents I would expect insurance rates to skyrocket
Or at minimum an excuse for insurance companies to charge more. And Tesla keeping this insurance, at minimum, allows them to manage the costs for owners - and if there are 'profits' to the 'paid' insurance (embedded in cost of car, and the ecosystem as a whole), then it is Tesla that gains the benefits either as profit or can re-invest it into their ecosystem. Insurance overall is a scam, however government and politicians prefer to not be responsible or accountable by allowing private for-profit companies take advantage of everyone.
My car insurance in Canada is not public and it is not affordable ($250/month with five years clean driving record) so you should perhaps qualify your statement as well. :)
You're right, I glanced over that part of the statement, and thought he was just trying to assure owners that they "are covered" in case their car bursts into flames.
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.
Do you think Tesla has hired the best tiger/red teams in the world to break their systems? I would certainly hope so, but your comment does make me wonder.
I know they're two separate companies, but Elon likes to move technology from one company to another: I would hope that some of the same software QC procedures apply between Tesla and SpaceX.
Yes, that is correct. There are actually two APIs: A REST-ish car state and control API (a Rails app), and a streaming telemtry service (a Node.JS app). The car talks to Tesla's telemetry servers, which their API servers talk to as well.
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).
I've no idea about what actually happened to Mr. Hastings, however, the GP raises a valid point that such things definitely can be used to kill people like him.
Accroding to some HN readers you should look this incident in Wikipedia. If there is no mention of this being a 'murder' within Wikipedia, than you sir are a fringe 'conspiracy theorist' ...
Don't know when Wikipedia became the bearer of all truths ...
"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.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think many cars on the market are able to receive over-the-air updates to their systems. I think that's what the parent was talking about specifically.
All of the cars I've driven have been accessible by ODB2 or something similar, which is a physical connection under the hood and/or steering column.
In addition to OnStar already mentioned, some Audi can over wifi/cell. Also the OEMs that use Tegra have this capability though I know of none that have enabled any OTA updates over wifi. Hyundai/Kia had beta hardware that did it over BT a year ago.
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 too have worked with major automotive OEMs, and all the 'security' I've seen is nothing but lip service. The quality of embedded software in the automotive world is laughable. Forget anything advanced, they're just getting into the what-do-you-mean-bounds-checking stage of computer security.
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.
I'd be surprised. Linux is great, but it's not the best choice for something like the control system for a self-adjusting automobile suspension. Much more likely they're using VXWorks or some other embedded RTOS.
From what I can tell it's active only in that it changes ride height, not actually adjusting the suspension through a corner so the timing is not critical at all.
You don't need anything approaching realtime for controlling an air-based suspension. If we were talking about the magneto-hydraulic suspensions that adjust constantly to road conditions like potholes and corners, then I would agree 100%. But the response rate of the pneumatic system will be far slower than the computer.
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.
Tesla is a very low run product compared to even the least successful phone.
Something that happens once in a million will happen on an iPhone, not on a Tesla.
If / When they produce a mainstream car that will be another story.
All cars in Tesla premium category have quirks that require trip to the dealer. I have had colleague with bricked Series 5 BMW that requires full rewiring, ... Except for Tesla being overhyped with people that will not buy it, the actual clients of that kind of car seems generally happy to go through the "pain". (see, not an opinion I share, but then I don't buy 85K car either)
I don't agree. There would be no OTA bricked phones if enough thought and cost were put into the verification and installation process. Critical components could e.g. be duplicated, such that critical software like the bootloader can be restored in case the new version cannot start up.
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?
Needs high resolution radars with good range (very expensive on its own) and good software in order to detect something and then find an evasive action.
As these events are already unlikely (i assume), doing something about it seem unnecessary. Even this OTA update seem like it is more for the press rather than protecting the driver.
And there have been a couple newer cars on the market that will automatically brake if it detects a possible collision, not to mention radar cruise control that adapts to the driver in front of you.
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.
>>> 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.
I'd love to know which cars you're referring to. I've been a huge BMW guy for years and they generally go on 5 year cycle with their engines and drivetrains.
For instance, on the M5 the E60 M5 used the same drivetrain and engine (with minor tweaks) from 2005-2010. Whereas the new F10 M5 engine and drivetrain was redesigned in 2011 and has yet to see any major changes in its current iteration.
I saw it across manufacturers the German manufacturers: BMW, Mercedes, and Audi.
On the Japanese side, Nissan/Infiniti abused the hell out of their 3.5L V6 in every car they made for more than a decade.
Regarding the BMW M5, the F10 is actually very similar to the F01 which came on the previous 7 series in 2008. Even the E60 was considered an upsized 3 series engine.[1]
Regardless, the point I'm trying to make is that Tesla is really trying to break new ground and needs about a decade for their vehicle platforms to mature before comparisons can be made with any of the current luxury brand. The other brands have a pedigree which goes back multiple decades so even their newer vehicles have a few decades of maturity baked into them.
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.
I ran the numbers in a previous thread and got numbers that contradict their claim. There's a car fire roughly every 3 minutes (rounding down; it's actually a bit over 3 minutes). In the 500-something days since the Tesla has been released, there have been a total of 3 fires.
If you want more fun, run the traffic fatality rates since June 22, 2012. Tesla is currently sitting at zero (it would be highly unrealistic to expect that to last).
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.
Read that book I mentioned in the original post. It mentions plenty of nuclear-related accidents. The one you probably think about happened when an armed thermonuclear bomb fell out of a bomber, yanking the arming wire out, arming every subsystem as it fell - barometric switches activated,thermal batteries ignited , and upon hitting the ground the piezoelectric crystals in the nose cone crushed activating the high explosives surrounding the core.
It would have detonated, except that the "fire-safe" switch in the cockpit was not switch to "fire". That switch was just two very low voltage wires running close together, and it was found later that pretty much anything in that bomber could have triggered it. It was extremely lucky that that bomb has not detonated that day.
There were also a few bombs which were lost in fire on the ground, couple of those had their high explosives ignite without producing a nuclear yield but spreading plutonium around, contaminating ground.
There were bombers which fell apart in the air, which crashed, most of the time the nuclear bombs they were carrying survived intact,but a few times those crashes resulted in a widespread contamination with plutonium - a famous one in Spain and another near an American Polar station that the bomber was monitoring from Soviet attack - that one is particularly interesting,because had the bombs aboard that bomber detonated and destroyed that station, it would be extremely likely that the US government would assume that it was destroyed by a Soviet nuclear strike,and not by their own machinery - and that would probably cause them to retaliate starting a nuclear war.
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.
Yeah, seriously. Why even mention that lightning stat?
The absolute odds of me dying from falling from the top of a building are pretty darn small too, but they go up quite significantly when I am walking near the edge of the building's roof without a harness.
Obviously your risk of being in a Tesla that is on fire is much greater than being struck by lightning when you are a Tesla driver!
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.
I take the opposite viewpoint. 99.9% of startups, tech companies, and subjects on Hacker News can go hang themselves. People comparing Steve Jobs to Elon Musk are, frankly, completely missing the point.
Seriously, this is what baffles me most about Tesla hate. Did everyone forget that our world has had a massive, unsustainable energy crisis for 50 years? Forget climate change for a second, our entire foreign policy since 1973 has been based around securing cheap oil. Every person in our country should be unified in heaping as much praise as humanly possible on Musk because Tesla is literally saving the goddamn world.
Tesla cars do not sure solve the energy problem at all. They don't use significantly less energy than a modern diesel BMW, they just use batteries not oil. The energy crisis we have is more related to how can we produce the energy for the batteries.
70% of oil use is directed for use in transportation. If we can cut down oil use by 70% by switching to fully electric cars, we have no "oil" crisis. I agree that the "energy crisis" is broader in that it also involves climate change, but specifically I find our numerous wars in the middle east more of an immediate concern for US welfare and much more easily addressable (all you have to do is buy a Tesla).
They're around 20%. Increasing that to 50-60% (as you need t consider the inefficiencies of batteries, transportation of electricity, not just the efficiency of the motor itself) won't save the planet. It helps, but what we need is fusion or something like that.
Reducing automotive energy use by a half or two thirds would have an extremely large impact, especially if you consider all of the new autos that will be coming online in India+China. Sure, we still need to switch power generation to cleaner tech as well, but this simplifies the solutions greatly, as power generation will then be concentrated. If we can stop focusing our national attention on trying to secure our oil supplies, we have a better chance at solving the problem as well.
It's only saving the world in that it's a step in the right direction. However, it's not the destination; it's not even the thing that'll get us halfway to the destination.
I think nfm was referring to the media, the established car industry and the financial news industry, rather than a few contributors on Hacker News. I have been asking the same question. Hopefully it won't matter.
Tesla : Model S : Elon Musk :: Apple : iPhone : Steve Jobs
It's arguable that Apple doesn't deserve some of the loyalty that it has obtained, but that rabid fanbase is good for the bottom line. I'm high on Tesla until there is a real quality control crisis or the competitors catch up.
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...
Correct. They simply caught fire, and there were two potential design flaws in the system. The first was no fire suppression in the compartment with the batteries, only smoke detectors. The second was fire containment, concerns that it would be insufficient (especially paired with the lack of fire suppression systems) to contain a fire.
Compare to the Tesla fires: still no fire suppression baked in; deliberate effort in containing and directing the fire away from passengers; ample notice (so far) to drivers that something is wrong! and that they should pull over.
Also, I'd take a fire in a car over a fire on a plane any day. The car is: cheaper to repair/replace; already on the ground. If a plane has a fire, sure it'll end up on the ground, but depending on where on the aircraft and the effectiveness of detection and suppression systems it may not be a state where people can simply walk away from it.
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.
I think your complaints are pretty well addressed in first few paragraphs of Elon's blog post. The goal of the company from the outset has always been to create an affordable mass-market car, but until they have economies of scale and such, the vehicles are going to be expensive. People aren't excited because Tesla is making ~20k luxury cars a year, they're excited because the Model S is just the beginning.
And if you're upset because the cars are government subsidized, I'd like to point out that the conventional auto industries and oil industries have received more than their fair share of subsidies as well over the years.
>I think your complaints are pretty well addressed in first few paragraphs of Elon's blog post.
Not really. I take everything that Musk says with a grain of salt.
Tesla's goal of making a mass-market car is all well and good, but they are a long way from that. They can't seem to make money on high-margin luxury vehicles, so obtaining the scale to build a lower-margin vehicle isn't exactly a cake-walk. I'd like to see them do it, but how does it happen, financially? I'm not sure.
Again, my point is that this is always framed as Tesla v. the Auto Industry, when in fact the auto industry is also trying to accomplish the same things that Tesla is. And, at least in my opinion, they have a better chance of actually doing it; they have the scale and profits. Yet places like HN (see some other comments) can't imagine these large companies pulling it off. It's absurd.
>I'd like to point out that the conventional auto industries and oil industries have received more than their fair share of subsidies as well over the years.
I don't necessarily agree with those subsidies either. But if you think those subsidies and bailouts are equivalent to giving extremely wealthy people a discount on a luxury vehicle, then I guess we have different ideas about what's "fair".
They can't seem to make money on high-margin luxury vehicles
This is incorrect. They've been profitable since Q1 of this year and their profit margins are continuing to rise, even discounting the ZEV regulatory credits (which have been steadily decreasing for a number of quarters now).
in fact the auto industry is also trying to accomplish the same things that Tesla is
This is debatable. Mainstream auto manufacturers have released plenty of electric cars, but they're all "compromise cars" that seem to shy away from cannibalizing their mainstream car sales. None of them come close to having the range, comfort, or storage space of the Model S.
This is a huge deal. Some people might be happy buying a Nissan Leaf as a secondary commuter car, and they might be willing to put up with the ugly styling, small size, low range, and poor performance. But, unless someone is making a compelling electric car that's actually better than a gasoline car, EVs aren't really going to take off. Right now, Tesla is the only manufacturer that seems to be even trying to pursue this goal, and that's what makes them so unique, interesting, and important.
But if you think those subsidies and bailouts are equivalent to giving extremely wealthy people a discount on a luxury vehicle...
The existing tax credits apply equally to all electric cars, not just luxury vehicles. You get $7,500 back from the federal government regardless of whether you buy a Tesla Model S for 70k or a GM Spark EV for 27k. As a percentage of purchase price, cheaper cars are actually being subsidized more than expensive luxury cars.
Any electric car is a compromise. It's a compromise on range, on refuling time, on flexibility. That's not to say they don't have certain advantages too.
I don't understand your "cannibalizing their mainstream car" argument. Either way they are selling a car.. what's being cannibalized?
There's a lot of good information on this particular phenomenon in the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car". It's a bit dated by now, but still relevant in my opinion.
Car companies make a lot of their profits off of spare part sales for maintenance and repairs. Electric cars have far fewer moving parts, and are generally more reliable, so the traditional profit model breaks down somewhat.
Some have also speculated that the auto companies have historically resisted electric cars because they're in bed with the oil industry, but it's hard to really verify how true that is.
Finally, any corporation with a long established history will generally be resistant to big changes. See, for example, Kodak: it was obvious that the world was going digital, but we had this big established business that was good at making conventional film, and they didn't want to shift away from their strength. They dabbled in digital technologies, but never truly accepted the shift in technology. Of course, years later they went bankrupt, but it took a long time to reach that point, and meanwhile all the executives left with golden parachutes.
A compromise car is one that is worse, on the whole. The Model S is clearly not one of those for people who drive the normal amount in normal sized bursts.
Would you call a BMW 335i hardtop convertible a compromise car because it's not suited to snowy conditions? Cars that are aren't as much fun to drive, are they compromises?
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.
This is the first of his posts that I would describe as clearly aggressive. I found his tone very off-putting and defensive, as if the next paragraph could be "You IDIOTS! You're far more likely to be eaten to death by feral hogs than injured in a Tesla car!"
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.
>Can you imagine Honda, Audi, BMW or any of the others reacting that way to something like this?
Yes, I can.
Do you really think he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart?
These fires are both a legal and PR nightmare. Nobody, at this point, knows how big of a problem this is. Despite the yarn that Musk is spinning, ICE cars don't combust when they hit road debris. Personally, I think the problem is exaggerated, but let's not dismiss the fact that there's a battery across the whole bottom of these cars. Go to the Tesla forums; there are owners there that are legitimately concerned for their safety.
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.
There has been some absolutely ridiculous media coverage from the usual suspects like Fox[1], but it doesn't really have the smell of a organised campaign to me (yet). It's just the usual right wing talking heads taking a skewed view of things because of their preexisting biases.
I think a lot of Tesla fans are getting into the conspiracy theory zone with this and they are starting to sound fairly cult-like. HN and the Tesla users forums had quite a few people seriously suggesting that some agent of 'big auto' was out on the highway looking for teslas to throw debris under (no doubt the 'big auto' spies inside Tesla had alerted them to the vulnerability of the underside of the battery pack).
The personality cult surrounding Musk turns a lot of people off. Also the Boeing incident is coming back to bite him now, and rightly so.
I don't think there's a conspiracy. The Tesla has been hyped to the the 9s by its founder and enthusiasts in the tech press. When you seek the spotlight, don't be surprised to find yourself in it.
Lots of other rare automobile faults have made big headlines, because the press likes drama. See: uncontrolled acceleration problems in Audi and Toyota vehicles.
The media have been driven by the stock price, for the most part. It shot up to 180 and then dropped into 120's. It seems much of the odd behaviour around any discussion is attributable to that. Its not clear why people seem so 'invested' in the story, on either side.
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.
> Unfortunately, they love "the fall of the guy" even more.
Tesla went out of their way to flaunt the safety features of the car, alleging a 5.4 NHTSA score when the agency explicitly said that they don't issue scores that high. Tesla said they had the safest cars on the road, and this is the eventual result (people actually expect it to be safer).
IMHO the reaction is entirely appropriate given Musk's and Tesla's behavior up to this point. If Musk and Tesla weren't flaunting their safety claims, this wouldn't be a significant issue
Look at the bang made by that "fraggucino". Look at the effects of the same coffee flask if used as a Molotov cocktail. These two things are not in the same league.
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.
So where are the data for gasoline car fires on public highways? You're accusing someone of not being supported by their data, and offering absolutely no data in counterpoint.
You have pointed to another HN comment in which you make assertions about car fires without providing any actual evidence.
I've had a look and entirely failed to find any evidence supporting your claim that 80% of car fires occur while the car is not being driven on roads.
It does appear that most car fires are not the result of crashes or collisions. I don't see that that's relevant. If I were deciding between two cars on the basis of fire risk, the question I'd care about is "how likely is this car to catch fire and injure me?", not "how likely is this car to catch fire and injure me as a result of a collision?".
What does look fishy to me about Musk's argument here is that most vehicle fires seem to be the result of mechanical or electrical faults, which become more likely with age as things wear out and break and corrode. All Tesla cars currently on the roads are rather new, so comparing them against the population of cars at large could be quite misleading.
[EDITED to add: aha, following a longer chain of links from your earlier comment I found some statistics. The terms used in the NFPA report in question are ambiguous, but what's clear is that the statistics you yourself cited plainly refute your 80% figure. Here are the figures: 22% "residential street, road, or residential driveway"; 18% "vehicle parking area"; 17% "highway or divided highway"; 8% "unclassified street"; 6% "street or road in commercial area"; 5% "mercantile or office"; 4% "open land, beach or campsite". So, at a bare minimum, the lowest fraction of fires that could be on roads would be 17% + 8% +% 6% = 31%, and that assumes that none of the "residential street, road, or residential highway" and "mercantile or office" figures are for cars being driven on the road -- which seems monstrously improbable.]
The data comes from Figure 1 of the Report that Tesla cited in October. I provided the above merely as an example of another way to read the report, but feel free to do your own analysis. Clearly, Telsa fires were 100% on public highways (by any definition). To which the report reads:
Where do automobile fires occur? Roughly three-quarters (71%) of automobile fires and associated deaths (76%) occurred on highways, streets or parking areas. While only 17% of the fires occurred on highways or divided highways...
So, taken strictly the analyis seems apples to apples. In any event there is clearly some adjustment that needs to occur rather than a blind-usage, IMHO. Whether the haircut is 33% at a minimum or a higher amount.
The loss he cannot recoup is this, the average person out there would never have associated CAR FIRE with an electric car. Hence, you take a propulsion technology which people know even less about than they think they know about their gasoline car and their fears can take flight.
Look, they made a compromise on pack layout to facilitate swappable packs.
Lastly, Must should not be comparing his car to gasoline only cars, how many Leaf or Volts have caught fire after a collision? I do recall a Volt doing it once, days after in a junk yard. So Elon, why doesn't the Volt or Leaf have this issue? Is there battery chemistry less volatile? How about their pack designs?
I don't understand why people can be so hypocritical and do the electric car cause a huge disservice by this blind fanaticism. Gasoline cars have had decades of experience with countless recalls to perfect certain processes and implementations. Why are people expecting electric cars to not go through the same ? Are people really expecting Tesla to be the pinnacle of perfection on their first few tries ?
People are far more accommodating when you say "hey we aren't perfect but it IS safer than gasoline cars" rather than this "we are perfect and if you disagree with us you are wrong" attitude.
If you're going to claim the numbers don't support the author's thesis, it would be helpful to provide accurate figures (or at least link to an article that does so).
Also: (from the NFPA data) "Highway vehicles include any vehicle designed to operate normally on highways, such as automobiles, motorcycles, buses, trucks, and trailers"
So in fact this could include electric cars as well.
I looked at your prior posts and was unconvinced. From figure 1, 17% occur on highway or divided highways. However, most of the remaining categories are also types of roads.
Happy for peer review. The important point is for people to read the data and use that estimate what they perceive as the risk. At a minimum, the 33% look to be easily excluded (parking 18, residential property 6, mercantile/office property 5, open land 4). Unlcasified street is also 8%, which if it were housing association or forest roads, would be an exclusion bringing you up to 41%. Alternatively, one could just simply tighten the comps to "55mph highway", and use the 17% number as the most relevant subset. However one wants to do it, the increase in fires form (1) to (3) and the reduction of the comparison space by 1/3 to 4/5 has a pretty material change in the implied probability of a fire/event.
These would be the changes vs how they appeared in October after the first PR:
Why do you want to limit by location when the the data is already separated by cause? All of the Tesla fires were caused by collision.
If you compare (Fires caused by collision)/Vehicles on the road, then I agree Tesla does not compare favorably. In principle, you should compare Fires/collision in case Tesla drivers have an abnormally high collision rate. And statistically speaking, it's pretty hard to draw a conclusion when your sample size is 3 fires.
But the fact is there are still no fires attributed to electrical or mechanical problems.
And the points on both sides about injuries/deaths from fires are pretty much red herrings since the numbers are already extremely low. There are only 2 deaths per 100 fires caused by collisions.
I'm also not convinced that selecting the data based on where Tesla's three fires occurred is the right why to analyze the statistics. Nor is it clear that the fires occuring in parking lots and similar areas involved solely stationary and unoccupied vehicles. In fact, all categories caused deaths at a rate similar to or greater than the fire rate except for one category, parking lots (which still caused 6% of deaths). Perhaps these fires involve someone driving too fast through a parking lot?
The fact that Tesla was not willing to trust the Insurance companies to price insurace going forward on the same basis should be a clue that there are people revisiting their priors. And I doubt they are reading PR pieces, they may even have less ambiguous data than what we looked at here. In any event its clear tha the range from the 'rosy' projection to the 'strict' comparison is an order of magnitude in variation. It seems implausible to argue that there is 'no material change' in risk from these new data. Regardless if the issue is just a design one (and nothing really inherent with EV vs ICE).
Your ideas are interesting. Unfortunately you've exhausted my interest in the topic. But, I still think you overstate the absolute certainty of your interpretation. I do agree that Elon is presenting the rosier interpretation of the data.
People need to give Tesla and Musk a break. It's big auto and big oil that want to see him fail, and they've got enough politicians and media in their pockets to have a fake world's fair with them. They want a slow, controlled transition to the next world energy source, and they're not ready for today's Henry Ford to come along and screw up their plan.
Also, when have safety issues not been a part of disruptive transport technology? For example:
We need to be less influenced by this sort of FUD if we are going to have a company that can actually compete with big auto and big oil. If Musk gave my family 4 Model S's, I'd feel safe letting each of my family members drive them, once a few were old enough.
That the "armor plate" they are using to protect the battery pack isn't strong enough to deal with some road debris. They seem to have underestimated exactly how much energy they were dealing with. And they could have made that metal thicker but it would have negative affected the range.
It's already much stronger than the typical protection of gasoline tanks -- and it was claimed that it was a very exceptional circumstance that allowed that armor plate to be penetrated.
That the rate of "fires from a collision" in a Tesla is 25x that of the average US car. The OTA update reduces the number of undercarriage collisions and thus the number of fires.
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'm actually curious on that statement as to how it affects the rated MPGe. My understanding is that the car is low to the ground for better handling and better aerodynamics. Even if this change doesn't result in lower MPGe, what would happen if a OTA update to a future car resulted in lower-than-rated MPG? I wonder what the EPA would have to say about that.
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?
For marketing purposes, Teslas must be perceived to as safe, if not safer in every respect than gasoline cars. So if they're more likely to catch fire when they hit road debris, that's a problem.
Hope it's not superfluous to point out, but it's kind of funny: "By By Elon Musk" is seen under the title. That sounds hostile :) (the duplicate By isn't seen in other posts on the blog)
We should discuss whether the situation changes over time. As gasoline cars age, their likelihood of catching fire increases. As electric cars age, does their chance also increase?
The flammable elements of a gas-powered car also have wear and tear issues, and poor service risks. A do-it-yourself mechanic replacing a fuel filter is a worry, for example.
Or, an old engine with a compromised head gasket, coated in leaked oil and then overheating.
No time to do the analysis myself, but I am guessing that the failure modes of a gas car that cause fire are many and the failure modes of a Tesla are few. Moreover, the likelihood of a particular failure mode in a Tesla may not increase at the same rate as gas as the cars age.
I've said this before and now I'll generalize my statement to say that the most important issue in the electric vehicle segment is and will be that of high power and high voltage system safety, of which the battery is one component. If the public becomes spooked by problems and accidents in this area it could set the electric vehicle market back a decade or more.
The real test for electrics will come when one or two million electric vehicles of all types are sharing the road. That's when this issue of battery and power system safety will be hugely important. I can imagine semi's with a million Wh battery systems rolling down the highway. What I cannot imagine are chain reaction collisions involving a variety of electric and liquid fuel vehicles.
Tesla is at the forefront of this movement, which means all eyes are on them, the arrows are on their backs and they have the burden of proof.
One of the most expensive types of businesses to get into are those where you have to educate your customer base before a sales pitch can even begin. Having to educating the market before you can sell to them can seriously derail one's focus and cost bundles of money that could be put to better use elsewhere. I've been in markets like that. It's a horrible slog.
Up until now, for the most part, electrics have avoided this territory. I fear that period is ending. Up until now the conversations about electrics were about range and relative cost when compared to gasoline vehicles. It feels like we are now entering the domain of having to potentially prove to the market that the technology is safe as well as to remove (or stop the potential of the development of) fears of fire and electrocution.
Tesla, due to their position in the market, has the honor of having all microscopes aimed at everything they do. Every mishap is amplified. Now that the NTSB has officially opened an investigation every afternoon news show is jumping on the issues. It will soon be everywhere. And Tesla now has to defend, educate and prove to the market that what they are doing is safe.
Competitors are now going to pull back and let Tesla take the hits. In markets where a huge investment is required in order to educate the customer base it is often a good idea to not be a pioneer. They will let Tesla burn reputation, bleed cash and resources to deal with the challenge of getting people to be comfortable with the technology. In these markets letting someone else slot through this phase is often the most intelligent strategy.
Once things settle, competitors will come in and enjoy a market segment that has been paved flat by the pioneer/s. It is far less costly --at all levels-- to enter at that point. The mentality of a typical potential customer --after massive investments in educating them-- is now very different. Now customers look at the available products and think about which one to buy rather than whether or not to take a risk with this new technology. That's a massively different mind-set. That's a mind set primed for well executed product, marketing and sales strategies with wide distribution, solid sales channels and a solid post-sales support infrastructure --all of which the established players either know how to do or already have in place.
Manufacturers entering the market after the education phase can focus on pricing, marketing and, in general, execution rather than educating or evangelizing the audience. There's a huge difference in cost of sales in "nicely paved markets".
When that happens, when the market is "flat" and competitors enter in force, they could run right over Tesla, push them right off the edge of the market or they could be swallowed-up by a larger organization. Let's not forget Tesla sold somewhere in the order of twenty thousand cars --total. There are companies that probably sell that many cars per day. The difference in scale is huge.
It is possible that Tesla is at the start of an existential threat. It is hard to predict which way this will go. It's all on them now and they are all-in. They can't afford many more fires. And they certainly can't afford to have the market turn on them. They need to be way ahead of this and spend lots of money to show people this technology is safe. And, if it isn't, they need to move quickly to make it safe and then show the market. Quickly.
Volvo used to run commercials featuring cars being rolled and crashed in order to show how well they protected occupants. Tesla might have to crash a few cars into concrete walls or into each other to demonstrate how survivable their high voltage and high current systems might be. If they don't get ahead of this and more accidents are reported the cost to regain market trust will grow exponentially. And that could be very difficult to survive.
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."