Elon Musk, CEO of upstart automaker Tesla announced that he is confident that the Model S vehicle will be deemed safe and cleared by federal investigation regarding two battery fire incidents wherein the said car model was involved. Musk mentioned that the fires, which started due to a metal road debris that pierced the underbody of the cars at highway speeds, are very extreme cases. He isn't expecting a recall and said Tesla engineers are not working on any fixes for the battery-powered cars.
"In both cases it was a large piece of metal essentially braced against the tarmac," Musk said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press.
Thankfully no one was hurt when the fires occured, which happened along the freeways near Seattle and Nashville, Tennessee starting October 1. Another unfortunate incident happened in Mexico after the driver ran through a concrete wall at more than 100mph.
Musk again reiterated that no one has ever been hurt in a Model S crash, of which it was implied that there's no safety problem for drivers or their passengers. The only takeaway from the investigation that Tesla had taken into consideration was the economic loss from such fires. As such, Tesla amended its warranty to cover fire loss in crashes.
Musk described the weeks since the fires as a torture. He said the crashes have received an unreasonable amount of media attention given that no one was injured. He understands that a new technology such as electric cars will get more scrutiny.
With that being said, Tesla's stock price has dropped by 37 percent since the first fire incident.
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