Tesla autopilot burns passenger to death!

[MT]

According to various media previous crash who killed the driver and its investigation showed Autopilot was cause of death some say the autopilot was the cause for this one to. S3 model for sale in Europe is not fitted with autopilot. Media continues to label the function autopilot instead of driver assistance etc. But the odd thing is why didnt the firemen knock in the door glas'es and filled the car with water/foam and that way try to save the dude?

[Berni]

Well lithium battery fires can be risky to go against even with foam as the foam has water in it that can make the lithium burn even faster and produce hydrogen gas. Tho im sure if the window was broken and the driver doused with enugh water to make his clothes wet that would help significantly.

Also what sort of excuse is that the door does not open? This happens all the time in car crashes if the bodywork bends in a way that the door gets wedged in the cars frame. For this very reason firefighters are equipped with big ass angle grinders to cut the hinges of doors and hydraulic jaws that can pry a door open of be used to cut the pillars in seconds to remove the entire roof if needed. Its a standard procedure for dealing with a serious crash.

[helius]

It's a widespread myth that Lithium-Ion battery fires involve burning lithium. They do not contain any metallic lithium at all, the whole point is that they use lithium ions. What is burning is the electrolyte. One common electrolyte used, DEC, has a flash point of 33 °C, which explains its tendency to burn in accidents.

[SiliconWizard]

That was apparently hopeless. A bit more details here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6744013/Tesla-burst-flames-fatal-Florida-crash-catches-fire-THREE-TIMES-tow-yard.html

"An officer was nearby and tried to break the car’s window, but because of the intensity of the flames could not save Awan, who was burned beyond recognition and was pronounced dead at the scene."

[Siwastaja]

Well lithium battery fires can be risky to go against even with foam as the foam has water in it that can make the lithium burn even faster and produce hydrogen gas.

Nooooo!

The only way to fight lithium ion battery fire is by using water, and lots of it. Only water is capable of providing sufficient cooling. Nothing else works as the heat comes internally (by having internal oxidizer in the NCA (LiNiCoAlO2) cathode; secondarily, the electrolyte is also flammable), so the only way is to cool it down, and for that you need the physical heat transfer properties of water. OTOH, realistically, I guess the Tesla battery does not have water inlet ports for the firefighters (to pump water through the battery), so the chances you could stop the chain reaction internally are slim. So just cool it externally to keep it from spreading, and let it burn.

Lithium ion chemistry does not have lithium metal*, and does not react with water violently. Keep cooling it. Don't spread stupid myths. These myths can be dangerous. Spread the information. You or someone else may need it some day!

(*) Old or abused cells may have tiny amounts, but it's almost meaningless in the big picture.

[Gyro]

For once I think that news story is concentrating far too much on the "Autopilot" and too little on the fire that results from relatively minor distortion or damage to a high energy Lithium battery pack (note the bit about where the car kept re-combusting as it was being removed).

We all know it is a problem. Yes, I know the story of how much potential energy there is in a petrol (gas) tank but in reality, if the tough plastic fuel tank does get compromised, most of that potential energy flows onto the road and down the nearest flood drain, or stays in the tank. It's relatively hard to ignite petrol - I remember seeing a demonstration where petrol was sprayed onto a hot exhaust manifold - it hissed and smoked but didn't burn, it needs a naked flame. Brake fluid in the same test however, spontaneously combusted and burned freely. I don't remember how diesel fared.

I don't know how we are going to better protect and build Lithium battery packs, but in a world where everything is supposed to be going electric, we desperately need to!

[nctnico]

It's a widespread myth that Lithium-Ion battery fires involve burning lithium. They do not contain any metallic lithium at all, the whole point is that they use lithium ions. What is burning is the electrolyte. One common electrolyte used, DEC, has a flash point of 33 °C, which explains its tendency to burn in accidents.

The only way to fight lithium ion battery fire is by using water, and lots of it. Only water is capable of providing sufficient cooling. Nothing else works as the heat comes internally ...

Spot on! BTW there is an instruction video somewhere which shows how to deal with a burning laptop in an airplane: keep pouring water over it is the only solution to stop the chain reaction.

[wraper]

DiFerdinando explained that the car's battery pack ruptured after the Tesla smashed into a palm tree and went up in flames

Witnesses said at the time of the collision, the Tesla was traveling at speeds ranging from 75 to 90mph.

What a surprise that driver is dead. In any car you have barely any chance to survive at this speed even if there was no fire.

[james_s]

It's a widespread myth that Lithium-Ion battery fires involve burning lithium. They do not contain any metallic lithium at all, the whole point is that they use lithium ions. What is burning is the electrolyte. One common electrolyte used, DEC, has a flash point of 33 °C, which explains its tendency to burn in accidents.

More so than the low flash point is the large amount of stored energy. If a lithium battery is damaged and becomes shorted, that energy is going to very quickly turn into a great deal of heat.

Gasoline is highly flammable too though and I've personally witnessed at least three conventional cars fully engulfed in flames on the side of the road. It stands to reason that the incidents I've been in the right place at the right time to witness are a very small portion of the actual number that occur. Dozens of people die every single day in car accidents.

[nctnico]

Gasoline is highly flammable too though and I've personally witnessed at least three conventional cars fully engulfed in flames on the side of the road. It stands to reason that the incidents I've been in the right place at the right time to witness are a very small portion of the actual number that occur. Dozens of people die every single day in car accidents.

That is another myth. It is not the gasoline which is burning but the interior of the car. The gasoline is stored outside the passenger compartment.

[wraper]

Gasoline is highly flammable too though and I've personally witnessed at least three conventional cars fully engulfed in flames on the side of the road. It stands to reason that the incidents I've been in the right place at the right time to witness are a very small portion of the actual number that occur. Dozens of people die every single day in car accidents.

That is another myth. It is not the gasoline which is burning but the interior of the car. The gasoline is stored outside the passenger compartment.

Fire often starts at engine, and it's gasoline that burns.

[Berni]

Ah alright, i seen non rechargeable lithium cells taken apart to extract a sizable piece of lithium, didn't realize the lithium ion ones are that different.

For diesel id imagine its that much harder to ignite. Its almost impossible to set fire to diesel using a regular cigarette lighter, you tend to need to take a blow torch to it or ignite a small wood splinter soaked in diesel to start it directly. A squirt bottle full of diesel is often found near wood furnaces as a fire starter, you tend to light a ball of paper on fire and then squirt it on the already hot burning paper. Because of how hard it is to get it to burn the fire will never follow the liquid back to the bottle or the squirt turning into a huge ball of fire, doing the same thing with a bottle of gasoline however is a bad idea, since exactly that can happen. Farms often have barrels of diesel around for fueling tractors and machinery so diesel has found a lot of other uses other than putting it into a fuel tank just because its always at hand.

But yeah it is quite scary how quickly a lithium ion battery can turn into a massive fire. It only takes one cell to go and start the chain reaction. Hopefully we invent a better and safer battery technology sometime soon before electric cars take over. Tho a higher energy capacity battery inherently has more oomph ready to go boom when things go wrong.

[james_s]

Gasoline is highly flammable too though and I've personally witnessed at least three conventional cars fully engulfed in flames on the side of the road. It stands to reason that the incidents I've been in the right place at the right time to witness are a very small portion of the actual number that occur. Dozens of people die every single day in car accidents.

That is another myth. It is not the gasoline which is burning but the interior of the car. The gasoline is stored outside the passenger compartment.

Perhaps you overlooked the fact that the gasoline is pumped to the engine under pressure, passing over many potential ignition sources? The fuel tank in most modern cars is also made of plastic, so it lights off eventually. I had a very near disaster once where a fuel leak caused by someone fitting the wrong copper washer to a banjo bolt resulted in a stream of high pressure gasoline spraying inches away from a hot exhaust manifold and turbocharger. A friend of mine in the 80s had an engine fire caused by fuel leaking from the carburetor, fortunately he saw the smoke and had the sense to grab the fire extinguisher he had in the car and immediately got out and caught it just in time. Many car fires start with a fuel leak which then quickly spreads to other flammable materials and if not put out very quickly the fuel in the tank burns too.


https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2018/06/27/lexus-recalls-cars-fix-fuel-leaks-can-cause-fires/737316002/

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/some-kia-car-fires-may-be-caused-by-work-done-during-engine-recall-replacements

https://gazette.com/business/mazda-issues-car-recall-fuel-leaks-may-cause-fire/article_17421ca9-a780-542a-9989-fd3a15e1b270.html

https://www.mlive.com/news/2019/02/honda-recalls-106k-trucks-due-to-risk-car-wash-soap-could-cause-fuel-leak-fire.html

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/accidents-hazardous-conditions/10-causes-of-car-fires10.htm


So you're saying these are all caused by the interior burning and have nothing to do with the fact that fuel is flammable? 

[Gyro]

Gasoline is highly flammable too though and I've personally witnessed at least three conventional cars fully engulfed in flames on the side of the road. It stands to reason that the incidents I've been in the right place at the right time to witness are a very small portion of the actual number that occur. Dozens of people die every single day in car accidents.

That is another myth. It is not the gasoline which is burning but the interior of the car. The gasoline is stored outside the passenger compartment.

Fire often starts at engine, and it's gasoline that burns.

Or quite likely triggered by the contents of the brake fluid reservoir, as I mentioned above.... and plastic/rubber engine compartment components. Fuel pump cut-off will activate immediately on impact leaving very little fuel in the engine bay.

[Gyro]

Gasoline is highly flammable too though and I've personally witnessed at least three conventional cars fully engulfed in flames on the side of the road. It stands to reason that the incidents I've been in the right place at the right time to witness are a very small portion of the actual number that occur. Dozens of people die every single day in car accidents.

That is another myth. It is not the gasoline which is burning but the interior of the car. The gasoline is stored outside the passenger compartment.

Perhaps you overlooked the fact that the gasoline is pumped to the engine under pressure, passing over many potential ignition sources? The fuel tank in most modern cars is also made of plastic, so it lights off eventually. I had a very near disaster once where a fuel leak caused by someone fitting the wrong copper washer to a banjo bolt resulted in a stream of high pressure gasoline spraying inches away from a hot exhaust manifold and turbocharger. A friend of mine in the 80s had an engine fire caused by fuel leaking from the carburetor, fortunately he saw the smoke and had the sense to grab the fire extinguisher he had in the car and immediately got out and caught it just in time. Many car fires start with a fuel leak which then quickly spreads to other flammable materials and if not put out very quickly the fuel in the tank burns too.


https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2018/06/27/lexus-recalls-cars-fix-fuel-leaks-can-cause-fires/737316002/

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/some-kia-car-fires-may-be-caused-by-work-done-during-engine-recall-replacements

https://gazette.com/business/mazda-issues-car-recall-fuel-leaks-may-cause-fire/article_17421ca9-a780-542a-9989-fd3a15e1b270.html

https://www.mlive.com/news/2019/02/honda-recalls-106k-trucks-due-to-risk-car-wash-soap-could-cause-fuel-leak-fire.html

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/accidents-hazardous-conditions/10-causes-of-car-fires10.htm


So you're saying these are all caused by the interior burning and have nothing to do with the fact that fuel is flammable? 

Electrical wiring burning in the passenger compartment often causes interior fires - see the spate of Vauxhall heater fan triggered ones. https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/motoring/motoring-news/vauxhall-zafira-fire-risk-everything-11570497

The difference with these sort of fuel leak and electrical fires is that the occupants are awake and alert. They can normally safely bring the car to a halt and get the hell out. Spontaneous ignition on impact is an entirely different matter!

[m98]

If that guy really crashed at over 80 mph, there wouldn't be much to help anyways

[nctnico]

Gasoline is highly flammable too though and I've personally witnessed at least three conventional cars fully engulfed in flames on the side of the road. It stands to reason that the incidents I've been in the right place at the right time to witness are a very small portion of the actual number that occur. Dozens of people die every single day in car accidents.

That is another myth. It is not the gasoline which is burning but the interior of the car. The gasoline is stored outside the passenger compartment.

Perhaps you overlooked the fact that the gasoline is pumped to the engine under pressure, passing over many potential ignition sources?

So you're saying these are all caused by the interior burning and have nothing to do with the fact that fuel is flammable? 

You focus way too much on the gasoline. Once the ignition is off (and I assume people do that when leaving a car or when a car is parked) the fuel is no longer under pressure. Even if a fire is started by a fuel leak, the majority of the stuff that burns are the interior and other liquid like brake fluid and maybe some engine oil but not the fuel. It is not like fuel is spread everywhere!

[ajb]

You focus way too much on the gasoline. Once the ignition is off (and I assume people do that when leaving a car or when a car is parked) the fuel is no longer under pressure. Even if a fire is started by a fuel leak, the majority of the stuff that burns are the interior and other liquid like brake fluid and maybe some engine oil but not the fuel. It is not like fuel is spread everywhere!

This came up in another thread, where people were gawping at pictures of an electrical car that had burned to the ground and  over burning batteries.  If you actually do the math on the available energy in all of the plastics, synthetic fabrics, and plastic foams in a modern car interior of any drivetrain type, that's a LOT of energy in a relatively small space.  Whatever the initial cause of the fire, the fuel or battery becomes largely moot once the interior catches.

[Berni]

Well some of it indeed is fuel but modern cars have so many other flammable things under the hood. Not only are there plenty of flammable liquids such as engine oil and brake fluid but there is plenty of plastic parts everywhere that will eventually burn just fine when hot enough. Then there is also fabric like filters inside those plastic parts and sometimes there is fabric on the underside of the for sound dampening. Lots of rubber hoses will eventually burn too. Once a fire is going the plastic bumper is sure to join in as are the front tires.

Plastic parts are cheaper to make so manufacturers will replace a metal part with plastic whenever possible.

Tho what is worrying is that door locking systems on car doors are becoming too electronic. Cars used to always have a physical thing on the inside of the door that is mechanically connected to the locking mechanism, that way any electrical failure would still let you unlock the door and open it. Now its becoming popular to have a little push button for locking. Not even a mechanical switch that directly switches power to the door lock solenoid, but actually putting a little computer between your button and the solenoid.

[Gary350z]

It's a widespread myth that Lithium-Ion battery fires involve burning lithium. They do not contain any metallic lithium at all, the whole point is that they use lithium ions.

I tend to agree with you.
Do lithium-ion batteries contain lithium metal? I am not an expert, so I do not know the correct answer. I fly quadcopters which use lithium-ion batteries, so I am interested and have researched this subject extensively, and have not found a definitive answer.

Here is an example of conflicting information from Battery University:

BU-704: How to Transport Batteries ( https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_transport_batteries )

"Transported lithium-based batteries are divided into two types: The rechargeable lithium-ion is primarily found in mobile phones and laptops; the non-rechargeable lithium-metal with added restrictions because of its high lithium content is used in sensing devices as well as in some consumer grade AA, AAA and 9V formats. Airlines allow both types as carry-on, either installed in devices or carried as spare packs as long as they don’t exceed the following limitation of lithium or equivalent content:

2 grams per battery for non-rechargeable lithium batteries, also known as lithium-metal.
8 grams per battery for a rechargeable lithium-ion. This amounts to a 100Wh battery.
25 grams total per passenger for all Li-ion combined, amounting to 300Wh.

The lithium content of a lithium-metal battery is printed on the label. Li-ion, on the other hand, uses equivalent lithium content (ELC) that is calculated by multiplying the rated capacity (Ah) times 0.3. For example, a 1Ah cell has 0.3 grams of lithium. A modern 18650 cell with a capacity of 3.3Ah contains about 1 gram. The 8-gram limit permits a 26Ah battery, or 95Wh (Ah multiplied by the Li-ion cell voltage of 3.6V equals Wh). The 18650 is a standardized Li-ion cell of 18mm in diameter and 65mm in length, and is used in laptops, power tools and other devices. Most laptop batteries are in the 60Wh range."

This says an 18650 cell with a capacity of 3.3Ah contains about 1 gram.

I would really like to know the correct answer to this question from someone who knows what their talking about, such as a lithium-ion battery design engineer.

[coppercone2]

i like the doors in humvees you can pick them up and throw em out of the car if you want.

diesel is very hard to ignite by comparison to gasoline.

[BFX]

First of all should by said that much more cars was burned with passengers, but nobody cares about that only tesla is interesting 
And of course Rusia Today
Only in my city was 30 accidents last week and one death and six seriously injured, nobody cares about that but when tesla crashed it's worst car in the world
By whom, we know.

[MT]

Id like to mention Autopilot again as the cause of the crash, in this video one can se that a barrier gap seams to cause Autopilot software to malfunction at the very same place an previous Autopiloted death crash happen.
Arent the software supposed to detect varying barrier distances?

[Mr. Scram]

With anything regarding Tesla, we should be aware that a lot of people have huge amounts of money invested in Tesla either succeeding or failing. Combined with the propensity of many news agencies to bring factoids in the most dramatic fashion they can to stir interest it means we should be very wary of these kinds of stories. There are a lot of people and groups out there who stand to gain literal billions if Tesla sinks, and there's a strong incentive for them to help this happening in any way they can.

When you peel back the layers of nonsense it seems there's a couple of things going on. There's the so called autopilot feature, which is experimental and imperfect. It's inevitable preventable accidents will happen due to it as it's still under development, but it's also likely it will at least eventually help prevent accidents few human drivers would have avoided. The unfortunate truth seems that even if these cars are already safer than any more traditional counterpart, every accident attracts a lot of attention and reignites the discussion whether these cars are actually safe. The public at large and statistics aren't a great match. People seem to resist change quite vehemently, even when statistics are favourable. We've had the handful of Tesla crashes covered in incredible detail, while many more people die in horrific ways daily without anyone but their personal social circle batting an eye. Tesla having their own interests on the other end is obviously not helping either.

A completely separate issue is the way batteries in electric cars behave after a crash. They do seem to have a propensity to sometimes keep burning, although it's entirely unclear whether this is more likely to happen than it is with conventional ICE cars. A bad wreck will create a huge mess regardless of whether a vehicle is battery or fuel powered. Whatever the case, it's obvious battery powered vehicles will be on our roads for a while to come so instead of plain reactive fear and outrage, we'd better figure out how to deal with the situation more effectively.

[Mr. Scram]

Id like to mention Autopilot again as the cause of the crash, in this video one can se that a barrier gap seams to cause Autopilot software to malfunction at the very same place an previous Autopiloted death crash happen.
Arent the software supposed to detect varying barrier distances?

Regular drivers don't seem to have much issue with the situation so it seems unfair to blame the accident on the road marking and maintenance level, but it does seem the road there isn't marked or maintained very appropriately. It'd be interesting to see whether these kinds of accident happen more in certain countries, with a potential correlation to maintenance levels.