Are Teslas death traps? Failing brakes and violent fires raise fears

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Telsa faces another barrage of exams on her safety.

Tesla and the media scandal go hand in hand these days. It's usually because of something that Elon Musk has tweeted about the SEC, but sometimes it's because a Tesla vehicle is involved in an accident. As reported by Zero Hedge, another of Musk's luxury electric car lineup has had a serious accident. With a history of major fires and "autopilot" failure charges, Tesla's fatal accidents benefit from obscene coverage by the media. Is it fair for Tesla to rake up embers every time this happens? Are these batteries as safe as Tesla claims and are the NHTSA tests on lithium battery electric cars sufficient?

US roads are dangerous, Florida is particularly dangerous

First, it is important to look at the number of accidents on US roads each year. It is absolutely certain that the media are quite likely to report when a Tesla crash occurs and in particular to a death. In the United States, there were 37,133 road deaths in 2017, so why is it so important when one of these accidents is a Tesla? Florida is not a utopia when it comes to driving as it has been reported as the 3rd most adverse state for fatal road accidents the same year.

While Elon Musk disrupts the auto industry, boomers are pushing back

autonomous car elon musk tesla

Musk has battled relentlessly with regulators while he was Tesla's leader | Source: REUTERS / Lucy Nicholson

Tesla autopilot is safer than human driving (according to Tesla statistics)

There is no doubt that an important cause of fury comes from the fact that Tesla is a pioneering company. The world is filled with petrol cars and those who rely on their sale for a living. Tesla is disrupting some of the oldest and most powerful industries in the United States, from the massive petroleum sector to car dealerships. Elon Musk has found a way to irritate a considerable number of people. Add to that that baby boomers have an inherent distrust of computers and new technologies, and that you have a perfect storm.

Let's eliminate that feeling and look at the facts starting with the autopilot. The incredible talent of marketing Elon Musk would certainly make you believe that this is the case. Tesla's statement in an article by Electrek certainly suggests that the use of their service is an undeniable progress for the human alternative,

For those driving without an autopilot, we recorded an accident or an accident for every 1.92 million miles driven. In comparison, the most recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that in the United States, a car accident occurs every 492 000 km. Although the NHTSA data includes accidents that occurred, our records include accidents as well as near misses (what we call accident-like events).

He has since improved this statement in a tweet,

If this is true, the media coverage of autopilot deaths is excessive. Tesla seems to make his statistics even more cautious than simple accidents, because they are also almost absent! It's there that my alarm clock rings. Everyone knows that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. If you can arbitrarily insert data that masks real collisions with near-collisions, you have subjective data.

In general safer might not mean safer in practice

There is also a major problem: avoiding a collision is one thing: avoiding death is another. Tesla assumes that you did not go to law school with this one. Anyone who has passed the LSAT (Test of Admission to the Law School) knows that one must look for false assumptions. "Is a Tesla safer just because it crashes less," absolutely not if every time I crash, someone dies. It does not seem that I'm the only one in this respect, because an excellent media article has actually refuted any claim that Tesla is significantly safer than other luxury car brands. Here is perhaps the most overwhelming quote from the excellent piece,

Tesla Mortality Rate (41 deaths per million vehicle years) is so much higher than the average luxury car (13 deaths per million vehicle-years) that, by comparing the two, the difference is extremely significant statistically. The difference is 28 additional deaths per million vehicle years, with a confidence interval of 11 to 63 years and a p-value of 0.0001.

If this is true, it would mean that even if you avoid accidents better, in case of problems, be careful.

Lithium is explosive, that's its nature

After autopilot problems come concerns about fires. Batteries are essentially energy reserves. Anyone who has seen a Tesla go from 0 to 60 in "Insane" mode knows how powerful it is. The batteries are made of lithium which is a pretty reactive substance. As this report shows, making lithium useful makes it dangerous. If you do not know anything at all, apart from these facts, it would seem that placing a giant version of this information in a car can have repercussions. We know that they explode in phones, so much shock that we have tragedies in which people are burned without any recognition. Many examples of the dangerousness of these fires at Tesla are available here.

Despite this basic concept, NHTSA has consistently assured us that Musk is truthful. Tesla cars get shockingly high safety ratings. Model 3 was given the title as having "the lowest probability of injury of any vehicle ever tested". If this is not a headline to prove that enemies of hate are wrong, I do not know what is happening. Here's another article citing another national security investigator stating that a Tesla is no more likely to ignite.

NHTSA should test the likelihood of a Tesla computer malfunction

But are they missing the point? Both of these claims by regulators assume that they reduce the likelihood of injury, but they refuse to address the enormous risk associated with the situation in the event of a problem. If your doctor could cure you of a new injury, with the exception of a statistically significant risk of death guaranteed, you probably would not take it. The word game is in bad taste, but there is no smoke without fire. The reputation of NHTSA is at stake, and that's why they opened the investigation.

A brake bug almost costs a Norwegian man

If you think that a Tesla is safer, you have plenty of information to back it up. But what about when something goes deep with his brain. In this story from Norway, you can see how a bug was impossible to diagnose. An almost fatal accident occurred with failing brakes. Yes, Tesla's excellent body strength saved him, but his fault tried to kill him. Mr. Sarelo is not a rookie of Tesla. What I found most alarming was his comments on Tesla who was trying to diagnose the problem,

Tesla called me three days after the collision and they found that I had braked twice just before the accident. On the first attempt, they found that the brakes were not working, but during other braking attempts, they thought I had walked on both the gas brakes and the brakes at the same time .

There is always a chance to die, but it can be higher in a Tesla, even if you are generally safer

This goes to the root of the problem. NHTSA tests cars to determine what makes them safer the vast majority of the time. But what if they do not effectively test low-probability disasters, a big hit. It seems extremely possible that statistics and facts do not match. NHTSA must examine how it tests electric cars with lithium batteries. Looking at the evidence here, yes, a Tesla is safer in general, but if something is wrong, you are more likely to be killed. This means that mathematicians among us, who can calculate the probability of death at any time, will probably be less concerned. For all the others, it's time for Elon Musk to address the real elephant in the room.

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