Elon Musk made headlines last weekend when his Boring Company handed out literal flamethrowers to 1,000 people, and now one of his other companies is grabbing attention for a product shooting flames—this time, though, it’s not the intended use. Late Friday, West Wing actress Mary McCormack shared a disturbing video of her husband’s Tesla after it randomly caught fire while he was in traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
She thanked the couple who apparently saw it starting to happen for flagging him down to pull over, and she expressed gratitude that the couple’s three daughters were not in the car at the time. She also specified that it was a normal Tesla, not a self-driving model.
@Tesla This is what happened to my husband and his car today. No accident,out of the blue, in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd. Thank you to the kind couple who flagged him down and told him to pull over. And thank god my three little girls weren’t in the car with him pic.twitter.com/O4tPs5ftVo
— Mary McCormack (@marycmccormack) June 16, 2018
“We offer our support to local authorities and are glad our customer is safe,” a Tesla spokesperson later told ABC News. “This is an extraordinarily unusual occurrence, and we are investigating the incident to find out what happened.”As of Saturday evening, however, McCormack tweeted that she and her husband, British director Michael Morris, had not heard from the company as to the apparent cause of the fire.
Last month, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated a fatal car crash involving a Tesla when a 2014 Model S crashed into a concrete wall and burst into flames, killing two teenagers. Despite this, the company claims that testing suggests its vehicles are 10 times less likely to catch fire than a gasoline-powered car.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to ABC that there had been no collision involved and that the fire was likely caused by either a battery or mechanical issue.
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H/T Business Insider