The CEO of electric car company Tesla said Fri day that a battery in a Models that caught fire this Week was apparently impaled by a metal object.
Elon Musk gave more detail in a blog post about the fire that became an Internet sensation and unsettled Tesla investors. He also defended the car's battery technology.
"For Consumers Concerned about fire risk, there should be absolutely Zero doubt that it is safer to power a car with a battery than a large tank of highly flammable liquid," Musk Wrote.
The CEO said a curved metal object on the road was apparently to blame for the fire Tuesday. He says the large object's shape led to a powerful hit on the underside of the vehicle, Punching a 3-inch hole through an armor plate that protects the battery under the passenger compartment.
The car properly contained the blaze in one section of the battery, the company said. The driver was able to exit the highway in the seattle suburb of Kent and get out of the vehicle before flames engulfed the front of the sedan.
Of the estimated 194,000 Vehicle fires in the U.S. each year, the vast majority are in cars and trucks with gasoline or diesel engines. Electric vehicle make up less than 1 Percent of the cars sold in the U.S.
Telsa shares fell more than 6 Percent Wednesday and continued to skid the following day after a video of the burning Model s surfaced on automobile site Jalopnik.com. The stock rebounded today to close $180.98, up 4.4 percent on the day.
Musk Wrote that fires are common in Conventional gas-powered vehicles.
Shares of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Tesla Motors Inc. fell sharply Wednesday and Thursday after a video of the car fire circulated on the Internet. The stock recovered somewhat Friday, rising $7.67, or 4.4 percent, to $180. The shares still finished the Week with a loss of $9.92, or 5.2 percent, but they're still up nearly 400 percent this year.
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