In what could turn out to be an unusual case of caveat emptor, Ali Hasan of Texas found the interior of his Tesla Model 3 electric car in smoking ruins a mere 10 minutes after picking it up from a body shop to repair some exterior damage.
A couple of incidents necessitated repairs to the automobile, which lost its rear bumper, wheel covers and sustained underbody damage in deep water in August 2022.
In the previous year, the car had been involved in an accident, resulting in some damage to the front end of the vehicle.
Strike three for the Tesla seems to have been what happened after it left the body shop.
“To my eye, everything looked just fine,” Hasan told Carscoops, an online magazine for auto enthusiasts.
He continued, “While I was driving down the highway, I noticed smoke coming from the right passenger seat, and it kept getting worse as I drove it half a mile to get it off the highway.”
The cause of the fire has yet to be determined and Hasan isn’t ready to blame the body shop, although he understands the inclination to do so.
“As far as I know so far, nothing apart from that they replaced sensors and bumper and the cover under the car,” he said.
Hasan had more to say on the matter on a Facebook thread, according to the Carscoops story.
“There were sensors as well that they changed which now that I see it go to the passenger side and there was also a cover that goes under the frunk that they replaced as well,” he said.
Still, he is hesitant to blame the body shop for his car ending up with a completely destroyed interior.
“I’m not pointing any fingers whatsoever,” Hasan said. “I’m just saying a theory because it’s my only explanation.”
While some suspect the Tesla’s battery is the culprit, Hasan said that has been ruled out as the cause of the fire.
Some studies have shown electric vehicles are less likely to catch fire than gas or hybrid vehicles, but when it does, electric vehicles burn hotter and longer due to rupturing of the high-voltage battery that triggers a chain of chemical reactions that continues to light new flames.
“The insurance site Auto Insurance EZ compiled sales and accident data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the National Transportation Safety Board,” NextBigFuture.com reported in December. “The site found that hybrid vehicles had the most fires per 100,000 sales at 3474.5. There were 1529.9 fires per 100k for gas vehicles and just 25.1 fires per 100k sales for electric vehicles.”
Hasan counts himself lucky for getting out of the burning car mostly unscathed.
He said he was in the hospital with breathing difficulties.
At the time of publication of this story, there was no comment from Tesla.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
