(VitalNews.org) – An as yet unexplained fire has destroyed a Tesla Model Y car on a residential street in London. Local man Eugenio Mereu, aged 36, heard the crackling of the flames from his nearby home in the Ilford area of North London and managed to take video footage of the unexpected scene before being warned away from the area by the police attending the scene.
Mereu told reporters that he did not see any obvious cause for the fire and believed the vehicle had in fact “self-combusted”. The car was parked at the side of the road with no signs of a crash, and there was nobody near the vehicle at the time it caught fire.
The fire, which was eventually brought under control by the crews of three fire engines, would not be the first fire caused by a Tesla vehicle self-combusting this year. In January, a Tesla car had to be doused with 22,000 liters of water after catching fire in Sacramento, California. In May, another Tesla driver in California had a narrow escape after his car began to billow smoke as he drove along a highway. Bishal Malla was able to pull over and leave his vehicle before flames engulfed it and fire crews had to be called to the scene. Members of the fire department later confirmed that nothing had been previously wrong with the car.
Tesla cars have been criticized by fire crews, including the one that attended Bishal Malla’s car fire, as the batteries cause additional problems when dealing with a fire. Tesla Model Y cars, such as the one that caught fire in London, require 3000-8000 gallons of water to put out a battery fire and cool it completely. This can take 24 hours to achieve. A standard car, by comparison, takes just 500-1000 gallons on average. Not only that, but the Tesla batteries are more likely to re-ignite, and according to Battalion Chief Robert Kasparian, the batteries are difficult to access. Often, a fire crew has no choice but to allow the rest of the car to burn before they can even tackle the battery.
Police are still investigating the unexplained Tesla fire in London, although they did tell the press that the car had been stolen earlier that morning before the fire took place.
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