My Lightning burned to the ground

[Zprime29]

Given what happened, my guess is the OP is just very busy handling the aftermath.

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[Mal106]

This thread reminds me of two things. 1. Humans are lousy at understanding statistics and their relation to probability. And 2. Anecdotal evidence usually isn't.

9/11 was a good example. The day after, it was near impossible to happen again yet the public immediately transitioned from the safest to the least safe mode of transportation.

I highly recommend John Stossel's book, "Give me a break" for a good summary of what's really dangerous.

 

[Maquis]

Probably a lawyer involved.

Not really, given how far off-topic much of the discussion has been.

 

[Maxx]

rantings of a madman.

I am left wondering after reading thru 14 pages:
1. it was cold and HV battery had to have the heater on.
2. most likely cabin heater was on also.
it could be the battery conditioning system causing a pack to overheat and swell. this is where I would start looking due to the popping sound d under the truck.

OP said battery temp was normal. Overheating would show. Op also said it felt like we hit something. Although low possibility, we should consider the possibility that something did find an uncovered weak point and got to the battery.

Many years ago I had a USB power pack that I powered my SENA helmet comms/camera for long trips, after several years of use, sometimes in very cold weather, she began to bulge, eventually I properly disposed of it.

I have had a couple of EGO batteries that got fat and died. I have two jumper batteries one in ICE and one in lightning as well. And both at 100% SOC all the time. I am sure it is not the actual 100% SOC but high.

If you're going to worry about anything, just worry about the risk of plain old death in a traffic accident.

But if you are in a Lightning, your odds of dying from fire goes up because accident could get you stuck in the truck and then cause the battery fire. Now I am even more afraid of dying from battery fire in addition to my ear buds exploding in my ears while I am being barbecued. Can you people stop trying to put my mind at ease

This thread reminds me of two things. 1. Humans are lousy at understanding statistics and their relation to probability.

It is important to note that Humans are the ones that came up with statistics and probability. Human brain that is a pattern recognition machine came up with those abstract concepts by observing the events in physical world. In my state, Ellicott city MD got a 1000 year flood (0.1% chance) in 2016 and a lot of businesses were ruined. The ones that didn't understand probability and statistics left for good and the ones that did came back. Ellicott city got another 1000 year flood in 2018 and all those folks with good understanding of laws of probability got flooded again.

Our assessment of probability comes from observing the events of the past. Often we don't understand every component that influence those events and when one of those components change, we won't get to update our probability forecast until we have more data points in future but our intuition can detect something has changed here and hence the freak out. My guess is the reason everyone freaks out without having concrete evidence that it is justified is this:

When our ancestors eating bananas in the jungle heard branches moving, some of them freaked out and ran away and some of them kept eating their bananas and made fun of the first group. It turned out that 99 times out of 100, the branches moved because another monkey was coming in for the banana but 1 out of 100 times, it was a hungry T Rex. Over time, natural selection selected the freakout group to become humans.

All that is to say, we don't know what caused the fire. Since this was a 23, if age of a component in Lightning along with a design flaw is the cause of this and there is not enough info in the ashes to figure out the cause, we may have more fires and probability and statistics based on fires in other EVs in the past will be irrelevant.

I am not loosing sleep over this and can't park anywhere safe and convenient but I usually charge to 50% and do whatever I can that is convenient to reduce risk.

 

[CoolViper777]

This thread reminds me of two things. 1. Humans are lousy at understanding statistics and their relation to probability. And 2. Anecdotal evidence usually isn't.

9/11 was a good example. The day after, it was near impossible to happen again yet the public immediately transitioned from the safest to the least safe mode of transportation.

I highly recommend John Stossel's book, "Give me a break" for a good summary of what's really dangerous.

In an commercial (or private) airplane, you are totally dependent on who is flying the plane and who serviced and fueled and loaded the plane. Just because statistics say that only 1 plane crash out of say 100 million miles travelled, that makes NO difference for the current flight you are on. Who knows what got missed by multiple people, and multiple mistakes made, and then some weather event happens?

Statistics never predict the future. They only give you a trend, which can be helpful for decision making, that's it. They can help you avoid an obvious bad airline. Or an obvious bad car.

Reality is, every time you get on a plane, or drive a car, the determining factors are the pilot (or driver) experience and training, the weather, the other planes/cars around you, and the condition (and amount of fuel) of the plane/car. Add in human factors like tiredness, or sickness, or confusion about where you are at, and even the best, most informed/trained pilot (or driver) can make a mistake.

 

[Jim Lewis]

In an commercial (or private) airplane, you are totally dependent on who is flying the plane and who serviced and fueled and loaded the plane. Just because statistics say that only 1 plane crash out of say 100 million miles travelled, that makes NO difference for the current flight you are on. Who knows what got missed by multiple people, and multiple mistakes made, and then some weather event happens?

Statistics never predict the future. They only give you a trend, which can be helpful for decision making, that's it. They can help you avoid an obvious bad airline. Or an obvious bad car.

Reality is, every time you get on a plane, or drive a car, the determining factors are the pilot (or driver) experience and training, the weather, the other planes/cars around you, and the condition (and amount of fuel) of the plane/car. Add in human factors like tiredness, or sickness, or confusion about where you are at, and even the best, most informed/trained pilot (or driver) can make a mistake.

If many small, mostly independent random factors contribute to outcomes, then the observed population statistics already encode those factors.

Without new information that your case is atypical, the population probability is the best estimator of your individual risk.

If you believe in Bayesian statistics and your pilot has bloodshot eyes and slurred speech, yes, your flight is likely to deviate from the norm.

 

[doggod]

I would think they have a temp gauge for every module not every cell so 6-9 temp monitors. This might not catch one cell. The heater had to be on there was snow on the ground. Could have even been a leak of the liquid to heat and cool the battery into the pack.

 

[Maxx]

Reality is, every time you get on a plane, or drive a car, the determining factors are the pilot (or driver) experience and training, the weather, the other planes/cars around you

especially that last one (Them illegal aliens will get you).

 

[chossboard]

Yes, in today's day and age, you have to ask yourself this, hard to trust much these days...

Yeah, I think the OP is real but it's also totally reasonable to doubt things on the internet these days. There's a ton of AI slop in the world and it's only going to get more common and harder to detect.

 

[Storx]

I'm curious why the front of this truck had so much damage early on. There isn't much up there....

 

[Mal106]

I'm curious why the front of this truck had so much damage early on. There isn't much up there....

Likely because that was the fire's easiest way out with just a bit of plastic and an aluminum hood.

 

[CoolViper777]

It most likely wasn't from cooking crystal meth in the frunk!

Likely because that was the fire's easiest way out with just a bit of plastic and an aluminum hood.

 

[digitaldad]

OP is gone, "deleted member"

 

[s_c]

@blitzlinger and @Lightning Rod expressed they'd like to learn how much time it took from pop to pain in the cabin and I was also really trying to learn this info... OP expressed that it was quick. Would have loved to learn this before they deleted..

 

[PJnc284]

OP is gone, "deleted member"

Well that escalated quickly

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