Trailer-load of Teslas burns in Nevada

The Nevada Highway Patrol had to temporarily close down a section of eastbound Interstate 80 last week after a truck trailer hauling mostly Tesla electric vehicles inexplicably caught fire, destroying the trailer and six vehicles.

Fire officials told the Elko Daily that the fire started in the second, or rear, trailer, which was carrying five Teslas and one Subaru. The driver was able to disconnect the front and rear trailers and move the truck out of harm’s way. No one was injured in the incident.

Tesla told the paper that the cause of the fire was related to the carrier truck itself, not to any of the vehicles it was carrying. But Elko County Fire Protection District spokeswoman Linda Bingaman told InsideEVs that the cause of the blaze was yet to be determined. “The extreme heat generated by the fire has made it very difficult to determine the cause,” she said. “I am not sure what basis Tesla has on saying it was the carrier, so I cannot help you there.”

Autoblog has asked Tesla for comment about how it made its determination and will update this if and when we get a response.

Tesla, of course, has something of a history with its electric vehicles catching fire, most of them after a crash. In April, video surfaced on Chinese social media of an unattended Model S sedan parked in a garage emitting smoke and then bursting into flames. The company later said a single battery module was responsible.

It’s hard to imagine what would have caused the fire, as car trailers don't typically combust. The fire took place near Carlin in remote north-central Nevada, and flames spread to the median and the wild area south of the freeway, with damage reported to some guardrail posts next to the vehicles.