The cause of a Tesla fire in Vancouver garnered attention after the driver battled to evacuate the vehicle. The incident is being investigated by the Canadian auto safety commission. Following a Tesla Model Y fire in Vancouver on May 20, 2021, Transport Canada said it had its outsourced collision and defect investigation team " locate and secure the vehicle."
The agency added it "notified Tesla of the incident and is currently making arrangements for a joint inspection of the vehicle in an effort to determine the cause of the fire. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Reuters it "is aware of the incident and has reached out to the manufacturer for information."
According to the auto-tech website Electrek, Jamil Jutha was driving in his 2021 Tesla Model Y that he bought just eight months ago when he claims that the vehicle pushed an error notification and then powered down.
The Electrek website posted a video of the incident in which the owner said he received an error notification and then saw smoke. The driver said that to get out, he "had to smash the window. ... I kicked through the window because everything stopped. The power didn`t work. The door didn`t open. The windows didn`t go down." Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
While it is true that the primary way to operate the doors in a Tesla vehicle is through the electronic releases, which do not work in case of a loss of power, every door is also equipped with a manual release in plain view, the report said.
In fact, it is often a problem for people who are not familiar with the car as they use the manual release instead of the electronic release, which enables the windows on the frameless door to go down before enabling the door to be pushed open -- ensuring a safer opening of the doors, it added.
With inputs from Reuters
