TX-Self driving Tesla with no one in driver's seat, crashes, incinerates both passengers

[phill4paul]

I'd be looking at a Halon 1211 (yeah yeah yeah I know...or a suitable "green" equivalent) foam system combined with a liquefied refrigerant.

Cooling is essential and absolutely key to knocking one of these battery fires down. That's why they keep re-igniting. You think you got it knocked down, overhauled and out, meanwhile the shorted plates are still there, still discharging rapidly and creating fresh heat.

Maybe a portable fire tent as well.

Cover the vehicle with the tarp or tent, secure it as best as possible and flood the now enclosed space with 1211 Halon foam and liquid R426 or something similar.

You design it, I'll pitch it on Shark Tank.

 

[enhanced_deficit]

Hopefully it was some rare malfunction that can be quickly fixed.

In theory, there can be other nefarious possibilities that appear very improbable based on reporting in this case.

On a side note, good Anti-Virus software should also be made available with such sophisticated devices at the start of mass production.

Tesla Model S car hacked from 19km away using 'malicious' wi-fi hotspot
21 Sep 2016

The FBI Warns That Car Hacking Is a Real Risk
Mar 17, 2016

A Deep Flaw in Your Car Lets Hackers Shut Down Safety Features
Since two security researchers showed they could hijack a moving Jeep on a highway three years ago, both automakers and the cybersecurity industry have accepted that connected cars are as vulnerable to hacking as anything else linked to the internet. But one new car-hacking trick illustrates that while awareness helps, protection can be extremely complex.

TESLA goes down in massive network outage...

Fears of major hack...

• Tesla has been hit by complete network outage starting around 11am ET
• Internal systems are down, making it impossible for staff to process orders
• On the customer side, some users cannot connect to their car in the app
• The US and Europe are experiencing issues with what appears to be the app
• The outage follows Tesla's Battery Day that many investors deemed a failure

By Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com
Published: 23 September 2020

 

[pcosmar]

In my reading and personal experience with these things (had a 20 foot TEU container with a bunch of them in it catch fire about 15 years ago, had a deuce of a time with it) the analogy is very similar to a runaway nuclear reaction.

The batteries used today did not exist 15 years ago..
Not the same batteries.. and also NO PLATES.. These batteries are smaller than D cells..and similar configuration. and hold 3.6 volts each.

Only problem with these ones is over heating when Over Charging.. and most Fires had been caused by that.. improper Charging.
Tesla Batteries are in a liquid Water Jacket that both Warms or Cools batteries as necessary..

Hi voltage Arcs are lighting other materials on fire,,, not the batteries themselves..

Overcharging enough to cause a fire takes some pretty deliberate Stupidity.

 

[Dr.3D]

The massive power output from 300v battery Pack Shorted by mangled metal will not be extinguished by water.

Type of battery being irrelevant.

Lithium metal, sodium metal and potassium metal all react violently with water, forming hydrogen gas in the process.

Water only increases the fire.

 

[Anti Federalist]

The batteries used today did not exist 15 years ago.

The first commercially viable Lithium ion batteries were introduced by Sony in 1991.

I had a half a pallet of the damn things fall off another pallet inside a half size shipping container. They were adopted early by the oilfield industry for remote and emergency backups for all manner of system controls. This was back in 2006 or 2007, I'd have to look at my logs to know for sure, happened right around new year's day...so "give or take" 15 years. One of them fell onto a sharp pipework guard of other piece of cargo, pierced the case and started a thermal runaway fire that was contained ultimately by snagging the container sling and having the crane operator pick it off the deck and submerge it into the ocean until cooled.

Not the same batteries. These batteries are smaller than D cells..and similar configuration. and hold 3.6 volts each.

No, of course not, Tesla...all EVs in fact, have much larger batteries with thousands of cells.

Here is a small cross section of a Tesla battery pack.

and also NO PLATES..

We're picking engineering nits here brother.

Yes, they are not flat "plates" as in a lead acid battery, they are wrapped coils, sandwiches, of electrolyte and anode and cathode and insulator materials.

But they still call transistor anodes "plates" from vacuum tube technology, same as battery cel "plates" in that they are chemical receivers and pitchers of electron flow across an electrolytic or semi conductor membrane.

Only problem with these ones is over heating when Over Charging.. and most Fires had been caused by that.. improper Charging.

You can't over charge them as far as I can tell.

The charging process is completely automated and out of the operator's control.

Tesla Batteries are in a liquid Water Jacket that both Warms or Cools batteries as necessary.

Yes and that seems to be part of the problem with the ones that have spontaneously combusted while charging...they seemed to suffer some failure of the cooling system.

Hi voltage Arcs are lighting other materials on fire,,, not the batteries themselves..

Overcharging enough to cause a fire takes some pretty deliberate Stupidity.

Failure of the cooling system and external shorting would not account for the repeated instances of re-ignition of the battery pack.

That amount of heat is caused by one thing only: the runaway chemical/electrical reaction going in inside the battery and it's individual cells.

And it will continue to go on, until the fuel is exhausted, the cells all discharged or the whole thing swamped with enough water to cool and stop the runaway reaction.

 

[acptulsa]

Lithium metal, sodium metal and potassium metal all react violently with water, forming hydrogen gas in the process.

Water only increases the fire.

Very true. We used to have a Kaiser plant in town which worked with potassium, and it had huge red letter signs all over the outside of the building warning the fire department not to use water.

Not the same batteries.. and also NO PLATES...

Different sizes, configuration and chemical, and probably different names for the components, but batteries work the way batteries work. There are parts of each cell that do exactly what the old school lead plates do.

Breaking these packs down into a bunch of small cells instead of having one huge cell may slow down the disaster when they get damaged, but if they were truly protected from each other with real firewalls the car would be even more grossly overweight than it is. The separate cells certainly don't function like watertight compartments on a ship. And Tesla clearly hasn't thought of making parts of the battery pack easy to jettison, so the damaged and undamaged cells can be separated to minimize the fire.

As for putting your lives in the hands of a three cent grain of sand programmed by a techie nerd who very likely can't merge properly himself, well. Hate to speak ill of the dead, but their fate is just what I expected would happen. Human brains are still the most adaptable and discerning computer yet devised, and half of humans can't drive. I know for a fact Google's efforts to devise self-drive AI picked personnel exclusively for their programming skill, and whether they even had driver's licenses or not was not considered relevant. They were housed near public transit they could use to go to work "teaching" inanimate objects to "drive". It isn't just that the technology isn't ready, it's that these corporations have nothing but contempt for the skill they're trying to impart on these machines.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Lithium metal, sodium metal and potassium metal all react violently with water, forming hydrogen gas in the process.

Water only increases the fire.

The lithium in a lithium ion rechargeable battery is not in it's metallic form, and a fire can be fought with water.

 

[Anti Federalist]

And Tesla clearly hasn't thought of making parts of the battery pack easy to jettison, so the damaged and undamaged cells can be separated to minimize the fire.

Be nice if they mounted an easily accessible shut off switch to at least disconnect the car from the battery, like semis, heavy equipment and boats have.

 

[pcosmar]

Be nice if they mounted an easily accessible shut off switch to at least disconnect the car from the battery, like semis, heavy equipment and boats have.

And I agree with that..
as well as a disconnect upon impact,, which would be easy to do..
and I would do such on my own build.. Airbag sensors coupled to the contractors should do the trick.

also a disconnect between modules could cut the High Voltage risk..

But I am not building these.

I am seeing more on the road.

I want to repower a 59 Caddie. but a 2 door this time.

 

[Anti Federalist]

And I agree with that..
as well as a disconnect upon impact,, which would be easy to do..
and I would do such on my own build.. Airbag sensors coupled to the contractors should do the trick.

also a disconnect between modules could cut the High Voltage risk..

Yeah, an auto disconnect wired up to the crash sensors would be a leap forward, like you said, battery to vehicle and then from module to module in the battery.

But I am not building these.

I am seeing more on the road.

I want to repower a 59 Caddie. but a 2 door this time.

Well, you ought to.

I'm not trying to "harsh" your enthusiasm of what is most likely the future.

Gotta hand it to the high end EV guys, their shit is fast.

But I'll be an old school heat engine guy until I die I guess:

Give me pistons and steam and fire and fuel and turbines and Stirlings and diesels and boilers and, well, you name it...

 

[acptulsa]

Who knew a vehicle with no fuel on board would someday outshine the Pinto?

 

[luctor-et-emergo]

In one fire, more smoke, soot, particulate matter and toxic gases were emitted than 100,000 standard ICE Honda Civics driving 100,000 miles each.

Not entirely sure about the facts there but the general point of electrical cars not being environmentally friendly in many ways is valid.

a Better Question is what kind of Idiot pours water on an Electrical Fire?

an 800 Volt.. 80KW arc furnace and you want to dump water on it..

Does anyone else realize how abjectly stupid that is?

I would not call it an electrical fire really. It's a redox, it's a chemical fire. Water in this case can act like oxygen on lithium and burn it that way. However, the idea of lots of water quickly, will cool down the individual cells, and even though shorted a bit it may still cool them down so worse is prevented.

Powder or CO2 would be better options. Foam is for Fuel fires.

File a patent on this but if you will, a fireproof blanket of sorts to throw or otherwise mount over a burning electric vehicle which then can be pumped full of CO2 automatically would be a good thing for every fire department in the world to have. Thank me later.

 

[ammodotcom]

I'll accept that a self-driving car may drive more safely than I do, but I'll never bring myself to trust one.

It will be funny to see cars driving around with just dogs inside of them, though.

 

[Anti Globalist]

This illustrates perfectly why people should not use self driving cars.

 

[Anti Federalist]

My aunt had one of those Pinto hatchbacks.

My little brother and younger cousin would get the two tiny back seats, I had to climb in the back and have the hatchback closed on me.

 

[acptulsa]

My aunt had one of those Pinto hatchbacks.

My little brother and younger cousin would get the two tiny back seats, I had to climb in the back and have the hatchback closed on me.

Riding in a solar oven on top of a napalm bomb. Probably while wearing polyester.

I miss the 'seventies.

The children wonder how anyone survived the decade. But that was safer than the back seat of a self-driving Tesla. Even with Auntie driving.

 

[pcosmar]

This illustrates perfectly why people should not use self driving cars.

Been saying that.
I Like electric.. I am pleased that Energy Storage has improved enough to make it viable..

I am not fond of AI... and they are being sold together.

AI is as stupid as the guy that climbed in the back seat.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

...

In my reading and personal experience with these things (had a 20 foot TEU container with a bunch of them in it catch fire about 15 years ago, had a deuce of a time with it) the analogy is very similar to a runaway nuclear reaction.

That's what I was thinking. Sounds like Fukushima.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

"Data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled & this car did not purchase FSD.

Moreover, standard Autopilot would require lane lines to turn on, which this street did not have."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1384254194975010826

 

[acptulsa]

Ha.

So, someone was back seat driving? Or did Scotty beam the driver up?