Tesla Model S Battery Ignited Twice After Crash Despite Firefighters' Best Efforts

A preliminary report on a Model S crash in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, suggests the car's batteries reignited twice despite firefighters covering it with water and foam. The report indicates the car reignited when it was being moved from the crash scene and that flames were seen again when the vehicle arrived at the storage yard. 

The report details that the crash occurred when the Model S was traveling at 116 MPH before smashing into a residential wall. Tesla has responded to the crash by adding a speed limiting feature to its cars. 

Tesla cars catching fire days after impact

It’s not the first time that Tesla cars have been accused of igniting for no apparent reason. The car involved in the fatal accident in Mountain View in March when a Model X smashed into a highway barrier killing its sole occupant was observed to catch on fire five days after it had been pulled from the scene. 

Even more recently actress Mary McCormack recorded a video of her husbands Model S catching fire while parked in a suburban LA street. Tesla hasn’t commented on the preliminary report though and it is unfair to jump to conclusions about the quality of Tesla’s product. 

@Tesla This is what happened to my husband and his car today. No accident,out of the blue, in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd. Thank you to the kind couple who flagged him down and told him to pull over. And thank god my three little girls weren’t in the car with him pic.twitter.com/O4tPs5ftVo

— Mary McCormack (@marycmccormack) June 16, 2018

Musk fires up against former employee

Tesla has enough problems at the moment without any more controversy. Elon Musk was recently involved in an email war with a former employee over an apparent act of sabotage. The former employee leaked information about the conditions inside Tesla factories, drawing attention to the massive amount of waste being generated as well as potentially serious claims of punctured battery packs. 

Tesla filed a lawsuit against the former employee Martin Tripp on June 20 accusing Tripp of hacking and sabotage. Tripp says he is not sabotaging but rather is a whistleblower, drawing attention to issues that are in the best interest of shareholders and the public alike. 

Following Tripp's revelations, Elon Musk and Tripp engaged in an email. Musk also accused Tripp of threatening to come back to the factory and shoot the place up. 

Musk now admits it probably wasn’t the best idea to insult a potential whistleblower before any investigation could be done. Tripp who worked as a technician at the Nevada Gigafactory site has made claims that damaged battery packs were still installed into vehicles and that Tesla is lying about its production numbers to ease investor tensions. 

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He also says that huge amounts of scrap are being produced and that the scrap is being stored in unsafe conditions. Tesla spokesperson dismissed the claims saying the allegations were “easily disprovable” and that Tripp was definitely not a whistleblower. 

"He is nothing of the sort," the company wrote. "He is someone who stole Tesla data through highly pernicious means and transferred that data to unknown amounts of third parties, all while making easily disprovable claims about the company in order to try to harm it."