Nice move on their part. I think while the Tesla may be less fire-prone than other cars, Musk exaggerates it:
"The odds of fire in a Model S, at roughly 1 in 8,000 vehicles, are five times lower than those of an average gasoline car..."
What matters is the miles driven by cars, not the number of cars on the roads. It seems likely that other cars are driven longer distances, and Tesla cars are probably used by many owners as a second car.
What matters is making the appropriate comparison. Which in this case would be with a population of high-end gasoline driven cars of equivalent age.
The population of extant cars contains vehicles that are decades old. It's ought to be unsurprising that they have a higher rate of vehicle fires than the Teslas do. How to the Teslas compare with (say) BMW 5-series cars less than three years old?
Gotta say, I don't know a single Model S owner who uses it as a second car. In a recent thread on the forums asking whether there had been any reported thefts, one person shared the story of how their wife will occasionally come to where his MS is parked and swap it out with her car so she can drive it on her errands. A couple of other owners mentioned this happening to them, and I can attest it has happened both ways with our car.
When you are fortunate enough to own and drive one of these, most people cannot be content ever going back to an ICE.
Exaggeration, perhaps, but the majority of collisions occur on local roads rather than on highways, and as you say, the Tesla is more likely to be used locally than on long highway trips, hence more exposed to drunks running stop signs and so forth.
Sure they do. Vehicle fires occur spontaneously, due to sabotage (the most common reason), due to various acts of god, due to road debris, and due to collisions.
Anyway, two of the three Tesla fires were on freeways, not local roads. The third was under somewhat mysterious circumstances (Mexico).
"The odds of fire in a Model S, at roughly 1 in 8,000 vehicles, are five times lower than those of an average gasoline car..."
What matters is the miles driven by cars, not the number of cars on the roads. It seems likely that other cars are driven longer distances, and Tesla cars are probably used by many owners as a second car.