The first incident involving a Tesla Semi occurred in the Greater Sacramento area in northern California yesterday. The highway in Placer County was closed by the responding California Highway Patrol unit.
Semi Fire
The exact causes and details of the fire and incident remain unclear at this time, but it seems that the Semi caught fire around 3 AM immediately following the crash. The highway was closed in both directions due to the fire and remained closed until late afternoon for the westbound lanes, while eastbound was closed until about 7:30 PM. The incident began as a crash, and no injuries were reported.
Batteries
Electric vehicle fires are rare, in fact, they’re much rarer than traditional vehicle fires, but there are a few key facts to keep in mind. EV fires tend to be devastating for several reasons – the materials in the battery can be toxic when exposed to the air – especially through the smoke and fumes of a fire. In addition, due to the massive amounts of energy that EV batteries can store, EV fires can blaze for a long period of time. We recently dug into EV battery electrolytes and the chemistry in batteries.
This Tesla Semi fire is particularly devasting, partly due to the Semi having a ~900kWh battery – nearly 9-10 times that of a Model Y. In a recent incident report involving a Model Y fire, it took about 10,000 gallons of water and 4 hours to extinguish the fire. This one began burning at 3 AM and it wasn’t until more than 12 hours later that the battery temperature was under control.
First responders on the scene have had to don HAZMAT suits in order to respond to the fire, and the fumes from the fire are the primary reason that the local roadway has been closed. In general, the immediate response for EV fires is to cool the battery pack, generally using water. Other options include submerging the pack in water to immediately cool it, or to bury the pack with sand, or just letting it burn itself out.
For now, first responders appear to be hosing down the Semi with just water, and nothing else is on the books just yet. The Semi is on fire pretty close to a major treeline, but luckily California hasn’t had a spate of dry weather recently, so the risk of this evolving into a major wildfire remains pretty low, according to officials.
It turns out that the big undocumented change in Tesla update 2024.32 that disables the 12V power and USB ports while Sentry Mode is active is not a bug but an intentional change.
A fan contacted Tesla Service to see if the change was intentional and what the reason behind the change was. Surprisingly, they received a response pretty quickly.
No 12V Power Access
Tesla has decided to restrict 12V power access for safety reasons—namely, to “reduce the likelihood of thermal events” when third-party devices are left powered on without users present. Tesla reached out to the fan in question by phone, and they seemed to be sticking to that line.
It seems that Tesla is resolute that it was due to safety reasons and that the change would not be “fixed” or allowed in a future software update – as this was an intentional change for safety reasons.
Other sources have reported that the change was due to potential misuse of the 12V power access, with people wiring 1200w microwaves and kettles or jury-rigging 240v to 120v adapters, which had apparently been the cause of multiple fires in Tesla vehicles within China.
Workarounds
There are a couple workarounds, although neither are ideal. You can tap in to the vehicle’s 12v line directly to power your accessories, or you can use Camp Mode.
If you choose to enable Camp Mode, then you’ll need to manually lock the car from the app since walk-away door locking is disabled with Camp Mode. However, Camp Mode will use extra energy to keep the climate system enabled.
We’re still hoping Tesla considers bringing the Cybertruck’s Power Control menu to the rest of its vehicles and is somehow able to limit the max draw from these outlets to prevent dangerous situations.
With the Robotaxi event just a day away, we thought it would be a fun idea to run a contest to predict what Tesla will announce tomorrow evening.
We’ve outlined a list of questions below; simply answer them on our forums or social media (X or Threads), and be entered for a chance to win some great prizes.
The individuals who have the most correct answers will win one of five prizes mentioned below. If more than five people get them all right, a random drawing will be held from the pool of winners.
We’ll reach out to the winners either by email or by DM on social media.
The Questions
Will Tesla let attendees experience Robotaxi at the event?
Will Tesla first start the network with human supervision (ridesharing), or with Robotaxis only?
What year will the network start? When will it become fully autonomous? (if announced)
When will Robotaxi production begin? (if announced)
Will it be Robotaxi or Cybercab?
Which of these Robotaxi Concepts will be the closest to the one announced?
Will Robotaxi include:
Front-facing camera?
Stainless-steel body?
Steer-by-Wire or No Steering Wheel? (if announced)
Which current Tesla model has the most similar door-opening mechanism?
How many seats will the robotaxi have?
Will the robotaxi include AI5/Hardware 5, HW4 or something completely different?
Where will Tesla’s first Rideshare/Robotaxi location be established?
Will customers be able to purchase a Robotaxi?
Requirements
Please use the template below to answer the questions on social media or in our forums. You can post your answer as a comment to our forums, to our X post, or to our Threads post.
Once you do that, repost or quote post your favorite article from us.
1. Yes
2. Ridesharing
3. 2025/2027
4. 2025
5. Cybercab
6. Dominic's
7. Yes, Yes, SBW, No, 2
8. HW5
9. LA
10. Yes
Prizes
Prizes are generously provided by Enhance and Jowua, makers of some of the best Tesla accessories and amazing Tesla community members. Prizes will be mailed out directly by them. Winners will get to choose their prize from the list below. First place will have the first pick and so on. There will be five winners in total.
S3XY Buttons (including a commander and wiring)
S3XY Knob for Model 3/Y
Tesla Gaming Controller - Multi-Device Wireless Controller (Wireless Charging)
Tesla Gaming Controller - Multi-Device Wireless Controller (Wireless Charging)
Tesla Gaming Controller - Multi-Device Wireless Controller (Wireless Charging)
Disclaimer
This is a Tesla event, and Tesla normally likes to hold their cards close to their chest. If an answer is ambiguous, we’ll go with the best choice decided by our staff. We’ll do our best to be fair. This
With all that said, we wish our entrants the best of luck, and we’ll announce the winners at the end of the week.
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