Tesla’s theory: event caused by metallic debris on road impaling battery What really caused the fiery Octoincident?

Tesla Motors Model S battery had thermal runaway Lattice Energy LLC- Technical Discussion-Oct 1 Tesla Motors Model S Battery Thermal Runaway-October 16 2013 The best that can be hoped-for under such circumstances is that a battery fails relatively ‘gracefully’ without detonating, as happened on Oct. What distinguishes field-failures from ‘ordinary’ thermal runaways are vastly higher peak temperatures in conjunction with electric arc discharges. 1 was very likely a much rarer, deadlier type of thermal runaway called a ‘field-failure” (again, see Appendix 1). In this incident, Lattice believes that the Model S battery pack encountered something very different from “garden variety” thermal runaways (see Appendix 1 in this presentation for definitions and details) that Tesla’s otherwise brilliant system safety engineering was designed to thwart. The consequent retardation of thermal propagation between cells by safety features built into the battery pack lengthened the runaway event timeline by > 2 - 3 minutes, which was observed on Oct. Importantly, propagation of field-failure-induced super-hot runaway conditions into adjacent cells (“thermal fratricide”) within same battery pack module was slowed rather significantly by Tesla’s multi-tier, very sophisticated battery safety system engineering discussed herein. This field-failure-triggered event caused catastrophic overheating of the affected cell, creating huge local temperature increase within a few seconds that eventually wreaked havoc within the immediate module. Lattice’s alternative theory for the October 1 model S runaway incident posits that: field-failure internal electrical short (whatever its proximate cause might truly be) occurred in a single 18650 cell that was located somewhere in first front module of vehicle’s battery pack. In Tesla’s theory, this hypothetical metal object somehow rotated upwards, slammed into the car’s armored underbody with 25 tons of force, and then pierced a module in the car’s battery pack, which triggered a thermal runaway and fire.

It explains the runaway as having been caused by the car’s driver accidentally running over piece of road debris - “large metallic object” - that had been lying on the highway surface. To explain why its much-heralded battery safety systems were unable to prevent the occurrence of a potentially dangerous battery thermal runaway and fire that disabled and destroyed key parts of a full-sized vehicle within a span of several minutes, Tesla proposed a theory for the event. On October 1, 2013, in Kent, WA USA while traveling down a 4-lane state highway during morning rush-hour, a Tesla Model S sedan experienced a battery thermal runaway and ensuing fire with 6-foot high flames that destroyed the front hood area of the vehicle.

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