A new Tesla car caught fire while the driver was driving it and burned for 3 hours (photos)

The new Tesla Model S Plaid caught fire, the driver narrowly avoiding it, before transforming into a giant fireball and lighting up the sky of a Philadelphia neighborhood for nearly three hours.

The electric vehicle caught fire in Haverford, Pa. Around 9 p.m. local time on Wednesday, according to Gladwyne Volunteer Fire, who said in a now-deleted article that the crew battled the raging blaze for about three hours.

Fortunately for the neighborhood and the firefighters, the two firefighters underwent special Tesla training and were able to “deploy manual lines to put out the fire, maintain a dedicated water supply and continue to cool the vehicle for about 90 minutes.”

It’s unclear to what extent the technology – which a statement from Gladwyne and Marion Fire firefighters said in a Wednesday night article titled “Tesla Vehicle Fire Emergency” – or how often firefighters should use it, is unclear. but a unique tactic to subdue a Tesla fire suggests that the problem is more widespread than Elon Musk’s pilots would have them believe.

Meanwhile, the driver of the car hired a lawyer who told Business Insider that his client had been cheated and only miraculously escaped death.

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“He managed to get out the door,” said Mark Geragos, managing partner of the Geragos & Geragos law firm. “The car soon after turned into a fireball.”

According to the lawyer, the driver insists that he did nothing to cause the car – which was delivered to him this weekend – to catch fire, calling the bizarre incident “completely spontaneous”. He said his client first detected smoke, then fired, and after some effort he managed to get out, leaving his Tesla to roll on the street by itself.

Charles McGarvey, fire chief of the Township of Merion Fire Department, confirmed that the electric vehicle was not driverless when it caught fire.

An EMT team working for Narberth Ambulance, which was on the scene to assist firefighters, reported that the emergency call came from a local resident who “saw a Tesla go off the road before it hit the road. explodes in front of their house, apparently “after the driver had already exited.

The Model S Plaid, Tesla’s most expensive car to date at $ 130,000, has only been on sale for a few weeks.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was investigating the crash and spoke to response agencies as well as Tesla itself to try to determine if there was a serious flaw in the design. of the model. “If data or investigations show an underlying safety defect or risk, NHTSA will take appropriate action to protect people,” a spokesperson told CNBC.

Source: RT

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