Electric vehicles like Teslas can turn into raging fireballs during hurricanes — and local officials are warning that the flames can’t be put out.
“It’s not fake news,” St. Johns County Fire Chief Sean McGee said during a Wednesday press conference alongside Sheriff Robert Hardwick.
McGee explained that saltwater can react with the large battery banks on the underside of electric vehicles and cause them to burst into flames.
“It’s something called thermal runaway where you can’t put the fire out. It just keeps making it’s own fire,” he said.
Like a scene out of a science fiction movie, McGee said social media clips of completely submerged Teslas still burning away are all too real.
“Our recommendation would be to obviously if you have one of these vehicles to get it as far away from your structure or home as possible because it could spread to your home or other structures,” he added.
McGee stressed that the batteries primarily interact with saltwater.
Golf carts, he said, can catch fire from overcharging, but are unlikely to react to saltwater since their battery packs are much smaller than those found in electric vehicles.
If your Tesla starts to burn from floodwaters, McGee warned, all the sprayed water in the world won’t subdue it.
“We’ll do our best to mitigate,” he said. “It’s not going to go out.”
