Tesla Car Fires

I’m not getting how news of the third Tesla Model S has sent stocks plummeting and people skeptic about electric cars. I’m doing some math here to try and illustrate why this shouldn’t be such a big deal.

According to Tesla, there have been around 20,600 Telsas sold (including the Roadster; around 2,500 Roadsters were made). 3 Teslas have caught fire… So 1 out of 6,867 Teslas have caught fire.

According to the US Beureu of Transportation Statistics there are 254,212,610 registered passenger vehicles on the road as of 2009. According to the National Fire Protection Association, 152,300 vehicles catch fire per year… So 1 out of 1,669 cars catch fire each year.

I was attempting to find how many new cars catch fire per year but I wasn’t able to find that data as this may seem to some comparing apples to oranges.

I still feel safer in an electric than in a gasoline powered car. We shall see if the NHTSA launches an investigation and what they find.