Tesla Spontaneous Combustion

The most obvious problem is the fire, though one would expect that to be a lesser known problem, and that is how the flames eventually get spread around the car. But other than that, everything else feels incredible.

The dashboard displays a digital readout of the current mileage, temp, pressure and other variables. Within each area or even location within the dashboard there are specific gauges, like an avometer - essentially a resistance gauge - which tell you about how the engine reacts to the running conditions. This is especially helpful for early vehicles as it means you can know what your performance characteristic is before you really have a chance to actually drive the same thing.

Naturally, every single one of the dashboard indicators is possible to test by itself. In general, we only find the gauges next to the ignition keys in the dash, although we use all of them whenever we’re driving.

One thing that really stands out from our short time behind the wheel is that every one of the gauges looks extremely well built and seemingly robust. The heater gauges glow bright orange when the temp is high enough to cause flame, the back indicator flashes green when the throttle is engaged and the rear indicators flash yellow with overheating and sticking.

The first thing we did when we pulled the car out of the garage was take the temp gauge to the auto shop where I work and run it with an oscilloscope. We immediately noticed some minor issues with the meter, but quickly found that if you look carefully into the power connections rather than the meter. If you try and pull the power cord, you’ll just get sparks, so this is fine. You can also check the temp connection in a variety of different ways.

So we decided to open up the unit and remove the heater controls. I set it up on the engine of the engine block and glued a rubber grommet to it (it’s not as difficult as it sounds, trust me). Then I took the vacuum connector out of the throttle cable and made sure my fuses were fully open. Then I reached under the motor bay and removed all four bearings.

Here are some shots of the device in action.