Peter DeLorenzo: Sources Say Tesla Batteries Not Sufficiently Protected

TTAC Staff
by TTAC Staff

Reports from unnamed sources critical of competitors are not the most reliable, but Pete DeLorenzo says according to his sources within the auto industry a design shortcoming is the reason why the batteries in two Tesla Model S cars have recently started fires following collisions. Presumably DeLorenzo’s source or sources are within General Motors because they compare the way the battery pack is housed in Tesla to the way the Chevy Volt does it. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stressed how his company protects the battery pack with 1/4″ thick armor plating underneath the car, but DeLorenzo’s source says that is essentially a band-aid solution to the fact that the battery pack itself has only a single protective shield, compared to the three layers of wrapping that the Volt’s battery pack has.

From DeLorenzo’s Autoextremist site:

What I’ve found out about the Tesla is this: There is a reason for fires upon impact with the Model S and it has nothing to do with the batteries themselves but how the batteries are – or are not, as the case may be – protected in the vehicle.

We all know Elon is a genius and that Tesla is the miracle of the new automotive world, but the fact remains that the miracle workers at Tesla skipped a step. It’s something that GM – you know, that tired old rust-belt auto company from a bygone era – learned while developing the Volt. The GM engineering team zeroed in on a critical area of concern with the Volt’s batteries when it came to protecting them upon impact, something like, “Gee, if someone were to really crash one of these things there could be a problem with the batteries, so, we better do something about it.” So the GM development team triple-wrapped the Volt battery pack to reduce the chance of “piercing” during accidents.

And guess what? The “piercing” of the batteries is exactly what caused the two post-crash fires in the Model S. Why? The Tesla development team chose to single-wrap the Tesla batteries, thus leaving the batteries less protected and more exposed during incidents, which is a giant heaping, steaming bowl of Not Good, when it comes right down to it.


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  • Doctor olds Doctor olds on Nov 01, 2013

    @Big Al from Oz- Thanks for the link! Now, for some numbers. The United States has 254.4 million registered vehicles. The link you provided shows 187,500 highway vehicle fires in 2011. It also says that only 3% of them were caused by collision or overturn, or 5,624 of the total. Those 3% do account for 58% of the fatalities! If we generously (for Tesla!) assume all of them were collision induced that produces an average rate of 5,624/254,400,000=0.000022. If all 12,550 Teslas sold through June (latest data I easily found) were actually on the road for a full year, we would expect the probability of a single crash initiated fire to be 0.000022*12,550=0.277 incidents. In other words, we shouldn't see a single fire for at least 3.6 years. Since the Tesla exposure is actually a lot less than 12,550 vehicle years, a conservative estimate that the rate we have now, with two fires, is over 7 times the average. The real collision fire rate is likely at least 10 times the average vehicle population, probably more like double that number when you consider the June sold cars only have a few month exposure. Very unappealing. Any more collision initiated fires will be very, very bad.

    • See 3 previous
    • Doctor olds Doctor olds on Nov 02, 2013

      @PCH101- My analysis is sound and exactly how regulators decide to bring engineering analytical focus on issues to determine if a defect exists. I haven't drawn any conclusions as to what, if anything, should be done by Tesla, but simply addressed the issue of average crash induced fire rates versus what the current state is for the Tesla Model S. It is nothing more than a rough cut. I am curious how understanding and comparing rates is unhelpful or clouds anything, unless you simply want to shield Tesla. I agree that it is neither definitive nor a litmus test without engineering evaluation of the incident details. I wrote on the earlier post about the first fire that it is up to Tesla to evaluate what happened and what it means. The bureaucrats will focus on the rates and Tesla will have some 'splaining to due.

  • HiFlite999 HiFlite999 on Nov 01, 2013

    Regardless of the source, there is a valid point to be made here: Tesla chose to cover nearly the entire bottom of the car with battery. This has the effect of making a very big target for road debris or crash damage, including projectiles kicked up by the front tires. The Volt battery is in the center console and under the back seats - a much smaller target. The volume contained vs surface area is much higher, making the structure both natively stronger and easier to armor within a given weight. No car maker would dare to turn the entire bottom of their car into a gas tank these days. The Volt's battery container would make a fine, safe, fuel tank - the Tesla's, not a chance!

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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