West Wing star films burning Tesla Model S: why electric cars catch fire

Electric saloon belonging to Mary
McCormack’s husband burst into flames while sitting in traffic

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The footage appears to show a jet of flame shooting out of the
electric car’s underside, which is where Model S’s battery is
stored. 

West Wing actor McCormack tweeted that the car had not
been involved in an accident and that her husband, director Michael
Morris, was “barely moving in traffic” when the fire broke
out. 

“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,” McCormack wrote.

West Hollywood Sheriff’s Lieutenant William
Nash said that Morris escaped from the car without injury before
firefighters extinguished the flames, The Guardian reports.

Nash said a car log entry indicated that the vehicle may
have had a faulty battery.  

What causes electric car fires?

The cause of this latest incident is not yet known.
A Tesla spokesperson told US broadcaster ABC News: “This is an extraordinarily unusual
occurrence, and we are investigating the incident to find out what
happened.”

There have been previous cases of Tesla cars bursting into
flames, but most of the fires occurred after some sort of crash. In
March, a Model X SUV caught fire after striking a concrete barrier in Mountain View,
California. 

Concerns have been raised about the lithium-ion batteries
used in most electric cars. Often located underneath the cabin,
lithium-ion batteries can “have a sudden and unstoppable
increase in temperature” under certain circumstances, Reuters reports. This causes a “chain reaction”
that can lead to fires, the news site adds.

According to a 2013 report on the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology’s (MIT) Technology Review, Tesla reinforces its
batteries with a 6mm-thick hardened aluminium plate to prevent
battery fires. 

EV transport website Electrek says Tesla’s vehicles catch fire
“significantly less often” than the US national average for all
production cars.