According to Transport Topics issue of January 6th, 2025, there was a single truck” crash” and fire on August 19 of 2024 involving a 2024 Tesla Semi that “burned to the ground after it veered off Interstate 80 and slammed into a tree in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.” The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating this incident and their representative indicated that such investigations could take up to two years to complete and that this is their first such investigation involving an electric tractor trailer. It’s not specifically stated in the article whether or not the truck was being driven by a driver or whether the truck was being driven autonomously.  The way it’s worded however suggests that the truck-tractor that departed the roadway to the right while navigating a right-hand curve was possibly driving itself. The “crash” occurred at 3:13 AM and the Tesla driver sustained no reported injuries.

On impact with the tree the truck’s lithium-ion electric battery system ignited in a “post-crash” fire.

Tesla sent a technical advisor to the scene.

Telsa did not respond to a request for comments.

The California Highway Patrol, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), and The California Department of Transportation were also sent immediately to the “CRASH” site.

Emergency responders dumped 50,000 gallons of water to extinguish the fire and COOL THE TRUCK BATTERIES.

 CAL FIRE deployed an airplane and doused fire retardant to mitigate the fire spreading.

A thermal scanner was deployed to monitor the temperatures of the burning batteries.

Both directions of I-80 were closed for approximately 15 hours while fire fighters waited for the batteries to be considered safe to begin recovery procedures.

The Tesla Semi was moved to an open-air facility and monitored for 24 hours and no reignition of the batteries was detected.

And, finally, get this: “An FMCSA spokesperson had no information to provide since NTSB is the primary investigative federal government organization looking into the incident.”

I’m not going to try to list or enumerate the number of aspects of the above scenario that underline the absurdity that fuels the fire for autonomous trucks and for all EV vehicles, much less large trucks. However, just extrapolate the above off-the-shoulder ACCIDENT that by our old standards would not even qualify as a reportable accident, by thousands of such accidents per day. And what was the real cost of closing down I-80 both ways for 15 hours? Or flying in fire retardant? Or a two-year long investigation by NTSB?

I’m sure however that the 50,000 gallons of water could have been used by folks in Southern California even if a few smelt didn’t survive.

To view the full Transport Topics article, visit: https://www.ttnews.com/articles/tesla-semi-crash-ntsb