No One Seems to Care That EVs Are Catching Fire
With all the excitement around rising sales, splashy investments and government initiatives, we’ve lost sight of the most basic requirement: safety.
Regulate me if you can.
Photographer: BRITTA PEDERSEN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Electric vehicles, and the technology surrounding them, are all the rage. Everyone loves to talk about rising sales and a greener future. Yet for all that attention, there seems to be very little concern about safety.
This week, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rejected a 2019 petition to open a formal investigation into Tesla Inc.’s battery-management software, according to documents posted on the agency’s website. Certain Tesla vehicles that received an over-the-air system update, or wireless delivery, were defective and caused fires in five vehicles, according to the petition.