▲Tesla service center fire scene in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. Taken on the 7th. /Provided by Joto Fire Station
On the 7th of this month, a fire broke out in a parked Model X at the Tesla Service Center in Seongsu-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, and half of the car body disappeared. After receiving the report, the fire department dispatched 65 firefighters and 27 fire engines, but it took 2 hours and 48 minutes before the fire was completely extinguished. It seems that the digestion work was extremely difficult due to the battery abnormality called “thermal runaway”.
Since the owner of the car was at the scene of the fire at the time, a real-life image of the fire was posted on the internet bulletin board of Tesla owners.
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▲Tesla service center fire scene in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. Taken on the 7th. /Provided by Joto Fire Station
On the 7th of this month, a fire broke out in a parked Model X at the Tesla Service Center in Seongsu-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, and half of the car body disappeared. After receiving the report, the fire department dispatched 65 firefighters and 27 fire engines, but it took 2 hours and 48 minutes before the fire was completely extinguished. It seems that the digestion work was extremely difficult due to the battery abnormality called “thermal runaway”.
The owner of the car, who was at the scene of the fire at the time, posted a real-time update of the fire on an online bulletin board for Tesla owners. The owner said, “The firefighters mightn’t open the hood in front of the car and asked for an engineer to be called. But the service center is closed on weekends, so we had no choice but to call a tow truck to move the car.” He pointed out problems such as
At around 1:30 p.m., the car in which the fire broke out was driving in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, when suddenly the messages “low power” and “impossible to drive” came on and the engine stopped. The owner called the tow truck directly through the insurance company and arrived at the service center in Seongsu-dong around 4:18 p.m. However, the service center does not operate on holidays, so there were no staff in charge or workers. . At 4:50 p.m., the sound of boiling water might be heard inside and outside the car, and around 4:57 sparks began to fly from under the car. Immediately following that, the first metallic explosion sound was heard, and the owner himself called 119 at 5:02 pm. A second explosion was heard shortly following police and fire engines arrived at 5:20 p.m.
The dispatched firefighters struggled to respond. Unlike regular internal combustion cars, the Tesla is very difficult to open the trunk (hood) without the car’s battery in it. The net shows how to open the bonnet, such as “Open the trim of the wheel house inside the front wheel and pull the wire” and “Open the port next to the outside air intake and pull the wire”. But a firefighter who has never driven a Tesla cannot follow the manual in an emergency situation where a car catches fire. Firefighters called in Tesla engineers and requested a tow truck to move the car away from the building. He also tried to break the window glass to extinguish the fire. Firefighters lowered the temperature of the car and the scene appeared to calm down for a while, but at around 5:55 pm, the whole car was engulfed in violent flames with the sound of a third explosion.
Among Tesla owners, there are voices such as “How can I get into a car that does not solve the ignition problem?” there is There is only one wired phone line to contact Tesla in South Korea, and the same number must be used in the event of an emergency. When this newspaper tried to interview Tesla by phone on the 8th, it was refused an interview saying, “Tesla Korea does not correspond to the media.”
Reporter Lee Seul-bi
Chosun Ilbo / Chosun Ilbo Japanese version
(c) Chosunonline.com
