Jun 3, 2015
lagann I could see it now: A thunderstorm is incoming; Tesla owners have taken to the streets in hopes of harvesting a lightning strike�
Jun 3, 2015
Pollux Absolutely!
Thank you for sharing the story. I imagine it was terrifying; glad you're OK!
Also: *awesome* new signature.
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Jun 3, 2015
lagann Not as much terrifying. The lightning struck so quickly that there wasn't much time to be terrified. More like, startled, then I got this sinking feeling in my stomach when I saw all the errors popped up. I was like "...hopefully it's something simple and I can just restart..." NOPE I went to unplug to see if it something like that but the charging port wasn't lit and the plug wouldn't come out. Then it was just a matter of super frustration waiting to be on the phone with Tesla for a whole hour. They were getting a ridiculous amount of calls it seems. Apparently I should have called roadside assistance first. I tried tech support, then the supercharger line. The supercharger line hung up on me after twenty minutes... Luckily it was just 5 minutes with roadside assistance. So much time, though. The tow truck took like an hour to get there. Then it was all this time trying to get the cord disconnected, then another long time trying to get the sunroof closed since I had vented it while sitting there waiting for 3 hours. All in all it was about a 4 hour event.
Thanks on the signature, I rather like it as well
�
Jun 3, 2015
Pollux Huh. Thank you for breaking out the time allocation. I might've gone through the exact same sequence you did (tech support, then SC line, and only then roadside), as I hate to tie up what I view as the most critical resource (roadside) on an issue that I would figure belongs in someone else's bailiwick. But perhaps when some of these hotlines are understaffed and/or over-subscribed, it's best to start with roadside and then be re-directed as appropriate. Kinda like calling 911. It used to be the case that it was silly to call 911 for anything other than a true emergency. But over time, due to abuse by so many people, 911 hotlines became staffed to handle a large load with a relatively small percentage of true emergencies. And the 911 staff then handoff to whoever is appropriate. (At least, that's my impression of how 911 operates in the modern day.)
Alan
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Jun 3, 2015
davewill It's still important to reserve calling 911 for emergencies. Despite perceived improvements, 911 gets overloaded sometimes, and even a tiny delay can mean the difference between life and death. Some places use 311 as a non-emergency help line. All major police depts have a 24hr non-emergency line. If you're unsure if it's an emergency (like a break-in where you don't know if the perp might still be around), you are better off calling 911 than wasting what may turn out to be crucial time.�
Jun 3, 2015
Cyclone Hopefully without going too far off topic... This is always how I lived my life and I agree with it. Sadly, where I live now, I called the general police department to report an accident (a minor fender bender) and they told me to hang up and dial 911. Similarly, I called once because of road debris (some left Lowes to quick and some pavers spilled over their truck onto the roadway) and again was told I need to call 911. That just doesn't jive with me as it wasn't life-threatening., but its what I have to do here. Now imagine people who grew up around here moving to another place. They will think dialing 911 is normal for non-emergencies!�
Jun 3, 2015
Bruce Williams Dang! We live a mere 10 miles south of the Grove City, OH supercharger in the summer and only two miles west of the Port Orange, FL supercharger in the winter. Just two reasons why we ordered our car TODAY at the Easton showroom! The guys there are great and helped make it the most pleasant buying experience we've ever had. Hope everything works out for you.�
Jun 3, 2015
Khatsalano "Sarah Day: Lightning charging her Model S since May 2015
Destroyer of Superchargers"
Too awesome.
- K�
Jun 3, 2015
bwa Downloaded full resolution version, played with mplayer (command line), mplayer said it is 28FPS, I used "." command (frame by frame mode) and I counted 12 frames of flash starting 12 frames before the boom, so that's 478 feet all the way down to almost 0 feet +/- lots of error possibilities, but I am guessing a lot of the continuing flash was the light bouncing around and the bolt had already finished by then. Not only the bouncing photons, but it may have also caused something else to start lighting things up on its own too (such as a transformer exploding, causing more light later than the bolt, or a tree exploding, same thing possibly as it singes).
But ~0 to ~478 feet from what? As pointed out by others, probably some electronics was hit, possibly even further than 478 feet away. Often it's a transformer, and those things explode, as do a lot of other things hit by lightning (trees, etc.), so one is often lucky not to get a direct hit. Other posts talk about EM fields. I'm glad she is OK.�
Jun 4, 2015
andrewket So lagann- what's the latest on your car? I assume Tesla has it now.�
Jun 4, 2015
lagann Pretty sure it was close. I looked up through my pano roof and saw it next to me on my right. I think it hit the building, or it hit the light in the trees. I walked pretty far though to try to find something and didn't see anything. I had a lot of time to just walk around.
- - - Updated - - -
I have heard nothing from them.�
Jun 4, 2015
S'toon Wouldn't surprise me if they held on to it for a little while so engineers can fly in and examine it.�
Jun 4, 2015
brianman @lagann - When they're prepping the vehicle for return to you, you might ask them to have Elon sign it with a lightning bolt on your passenger visor with the date of the strike. He (and Tesla employees generally) is (are) cool enough they might like the idea and get it done for you. If not, bonnie might be able to hook you up; she's done some visor stuff before for TMC folk.�
Jun 4, 2015
Cyclone That is a GREAT idea!�
Jun 4, 2015
dsm363 Should we update the title if the car wasn't directly hit by lightening as the title implies?�
Jun 4, 2015
lagann That would be amazing! Who would I ask to get this done?�
Jun 4, 2015
HankLloydRight I'm kinda surprised that nobody in this thread has mentioned yet the two Model Ss used for the cross-country Supercharger trip: Thunder and Lightning.
�
Jun 4, 2015
brianman I'd start with your current contacts at service and ask them to float the request up the chain.�
Jun 4, 2015
Pollux One would think as you do! Makes a lot of sense, right, to NOT call 911 for non-emergencies! I think the 311 thing is a great idea, and should be used wherever possible. But sometimes dialing the police directly on a non-emergency number results in advice to "dial 911" (even though it's not an emergency). Sheesh.
One time, I drove myself to the hospital when I realized I needed a tune-up on some internal body part or other. I valet'd the car and walked in to the front desk. Waved good-bye to the nice people in the waiting room, as I got expressed back into triage/ER. There were a few fumbles, though, as they expected people to show up **via the ambulance bay / 911 path** for anything other than the usual cough/cold/stubbed digit problems.
So apparently 911 is so mis-used that now the "right thing" to do is to call it even if you think it's not an emergency!
Drives me nuts. Wish we had a 311-equivalent where I live.
�
Jun 4, 2015
lagann Okay, I asked Paul at the Columbus service center and he laughed and said he could see what he could do. I also have a small update but I will wait till he sends me the info he would email me.�
Jun 5, 2015
CUBldr97 Love your moniker "Sarah Day: Lightning charging her Model S since May 2015
Destroyer of Superchargers"
GLad you kept your sense of humor through all this...
�
Jun 5, 2015
kuttakamina Man the SpaceX supercharger doesn't work very well, does it?�
Jun 5, 2015
lagann Omg, I have more than my sense of humor, this is all super fascinating! I keep eagerly awaiting the smallest updates from them. I wish I could be there to watch them, actually.�
Jun 8, 2015
S'toon Update at Teslarati:
http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-struck-lightning-charging/�
Jun 8, 2015
brianman This has the makings of a very interesting blog post, like some of the .. um ... "pre underbody shielding" blog posts.�
Jun 8, 2015
scottm There may be a case here for Tesla to reduce ride height of air suspension, back down to what it was originally, to help duck lightening strikes while charging.�
Jun 8, 2015
brianman I'd got the other way...
I'd love to see "Elon style" analysis how a current production Model S should behave when directly hit. What systems would need to be replaced? Would the battery be cooked or are there mechanisms in place to prevent that? Etc.�
Jun 8, 2015
Chris TX Here's a thought:
A few months ago, I had just finished a Supercharging session when the charge ring went red and the car said "Service Now!" That's when my main pack contactors failed (welded shut.) I wonder if Sarah's contactors were going to go bad anyway at this charging session and when the lightning struck nearby, the EMF burst caused the Supercharger to simply halt charging. When the charging session ended, all the symptoms Sarah described sound exactly like mine did, just without the weather event.
This might be a bit more innocuous than it's being made out to be.
- - - Updated - - -
Maybe a grounding strap that drops down when it's in Park?�
Jun 8, 2015
Xenoilphobe They should have you appear in the next Back to the Future movie�
Jun 8, 2015
Cyclone Yup, I posited a similar theory. The strike stopped the a Supercharging session and the car acted up because of that.
�
Jun 9, 2015
beeeerock "If my calculations are correct, when this baby (supercharger) hits 88 (kW) you're going to see some serious s*&%!"�
Jun 9, 2015
lagann So, Paul from the service center called me. The car is working now, and everything seems to be working the way it's supposed to work. I'm going to hold off on saying what they did to the car till I get the email from him containing detailed explanations since I can't remember exactly everything he said, and I want to be as accurate as possible. Unfortunately, the people at the service center don't know what went wrong. The engineers at corporate were doing all the analysis and were basically relaying instructions on what to do for the car. He said that when the engineers give him the details on that he will be sure to let me know ASAP. He hasn't said anything about the passenger visor, though.
- - - Updated - - -
What do you mean about a blog post? I don't really have a blog, but I could write something up when everything is finished.�
Jun 9, 2015
EdA I think he means a blog post by Elon on the Tesla Motors website (Updates | Tesla Motors)�
Jun 9, 2015
lagann Ohhhhh, that makes sense. It's taking too long to know what happened. If you can't tell, I'm a bit impatient.�
Jun 9, 2015
ibdb That makes sense. You're used to things happening at lightning speed.
I'll show myself out... :wink:�
Jun 9, 2015
Ugliest1 I'm going to wait for the movie. You know... "Destroyer of Superchargers". Sounds better than "Conan".
And ibdb, my stomach is still hurting from being unable to stop laughing.�
Jun 11, 2015
brianman That would be awesome. We want pictures!�
Jun 11, 2015
EdA Glad the car is ready to be picked up.
Make sure to be carrying a light bulb when you get in, perhaps it will glow like
in an Abbott and Costello film�
Jun 11, 2015
Cyclone Given this...
I can totally understand you position on this...
My guess is that the lawyers would be worried you would forever say X is wrong, maybe it was the lightning, replace it. Then Y is wrong, maybe it was the lightning, replace it. That said, a goodwill on your specific car for these potentials would go a long way, even if you were the type to abuse it and get more changed (and I'm not saying you are). Ultimately, I hope the info in the contract is overgeneralizing and they instead have paperwork saying that unless something can be definitively linked to being a result of said lightning strike, normal warranty/customer-pay rules apply. Because, as described, they could also refuse warranty work altogether and make it customer-pay. Others on the forums have reported that, for instance, TSBs may not be applied free of charge if the car is past the mileage warranty. Stuff that like is what I would predominantly worry about.
In the end, I hope we are all worrying over nothing and all is well! Good luck Sarah!�
Jun 11, 2015
bonnie If that doesn't work out, send me a pm & I'll see what I can do.�
Jun 11, 2015
beeeerock If the lightning didn't directly strike your car, the current would have come in via the SuperCharger. I don't think, based on the long discussion of flash/thunder timing (LOL), that anything would have been induced into the car any other way than via the cable - but I could be wrong. So you could be right that the SC did something nasty in the process. Or the current just went right through it and into your car... You wouldn't sue your power provider if your TV frapped during a lightning storm though, so unless you can prove that the SC was the cause rather than the conduit (impossible I think), you're probably stuck to accept their good will and move on.
However, if you can get the document they want you to sign, in advance, it might be worth having it checked over before you get out there for a wet signature.
Perhaps they can remove the visor and send it to California and back again... If Elon can't go to the visor, the visor can go to Elon... ;-)�
Jun 11, 2015
andrewket Except that tesla is the manufacturer and provider in this case, and a reasonable person would assume the SC would have protection against lightning. If not, tesla should have warnings to not charge in the rain, or even use he rain sensors to stop charging when rain is detected.�
Jun 11, 2015
davewill Well I don't see it as any worse than if you had had to pay for the repairs. If you had hit a pothole, for instance, and they had to fix the suspension, there would always be the possibility that in the future they might claim a steering or alignment problem was caused by the pothole. They're just having you sign so that you understand this wasn't a warranty repair even though they paid for it.�
Jun 11, 2015
brianman She who rocks. --^�
Jun 11, 2015
electracity She was connected to a supercharger. Tesla is fixing it for that reason.�
Jun 11, 2015
Chris TX That means nothing. If an ICE vehicle was pumping gas and a nearby lightning strike cooked some components, the gas station wouldn't be responsible. It would be exactly the same thing if any plug-in vehicle was plugged into any public L2 EVSE for charging. Do you think ChargePoint, Blink, etc. would say "Oh yeah, we'll just take care of all that damage for you" ?
Again, this would normally be an auto insurance claim. Tesla is just that awesome, and they really want to see what a real world nearby lightning strike does.�
Jun 11, 2015
pgiralt I totally agree with you. That said, I could foresee the insurance company trying to blame Tesla for at least some of the fault and ending up costing a bunch of money in legal fees trying to argue their point.�
Jun 11, 2015
Chris TX It does state this in the warranty under Exclusions:
"The environment or an act of God, including, but not limited to,
exposure to sunlight, airborne chemicals, tree sap, animal or
insect droppings, road debris (including stone chips), industry
fallout, rail dust, salt, hail, floods, wind storms, acid rain, fire, water,
contamination, lightning and other environmental conditions."
https://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/ms_vehicle_warranty.pdf
This was 100% caused by lightning, not a faulty Supercharger. I'm sure some of the paperwork Sarah will sign says something to that affect. Tesla isn't accepting responsibility, but fixed it anyway. For everyone else that has their car hit by lightning after Sarah's, hooray for insurance!�
Jun 12, 2015
EVenthusiast But that's the vehicle warranty. In this case, the Supercharger physically connected to her vehicle is what caused these problems. Without being connected, her vehicle would have been fine.
If this happened while charging at your house, your home owner's insurance would take care of it.
So in my opinion (which doesn't matter, just adding another point of view), Tesla should be responsible, or include a disclaimer/warning that supercharging during bad weather is not permitted. But Tesla stepped up, and took care of this, I just hope some lessons were learned here.
Does anyone know if the Superchargers have lightning detection/protection (be it 'cloud' based, and/or other commercial lightning protection systems, and yes I know there's no perfect solution)? Even the 'little' 30A EVSEs seem to have this now.�
Jun 12, 2015
HankLloydRight I don't think that's really been established.�
Jun 12, 2015
eloder I think an appropriate situation and comparison to this situation was given before.
Is your cable company responsible for damage to your TV if lightning indirectly fries a TV? The cable company installed the wires necessary to transmit data to your TV, but that doesn't make them responsible for this unless they explicitly say they will cover it beforehand.
Knowing Tesla, they'll probably use this incident to improve supercharger safeguards for cars in the future though. I imagine they already have significant safeguards in place, which is why this is the first time this has happened (especially with all of the supercharging that happens in Florida).�
Jun 12, 2015
SabrToothSqrl Yea, I figured this would fall under comprehensive in PA, and I keep a $100 deductible on mine... If lightning hit any of my cars insurance would be the route of resolution.
Of course Tesla would be the ones to fix it, but esurance would get said bill.
if lightning hit the house and caused damage to the car... I have the same insurance for both, so I don't care what they call it, long as they pay for it. Because I pay them to assume that risk.�
Jun 12, 2015
green1 I work for a large telecommunications provider, we ARE responsible if our client's equipment is fried by lightning or power surges coming in over our wires, UNLESS we have taken reasonable steps to mitigate the risk. As such, we install surge arresting hardware at the side of every house, and fuse links in all our terminals. These devices are not foolproof, however they limit most damage, and as long as they are in place, we are not legally responsible for any damage caused by lightning that overwhelms them. If those devices are not in place, then we are liable in the event of lightning damage.
So, has tesla taken reasonable steps to mitigate the risk of a surge coming through their superchargers? if so, they aren't liable, if not... then I suspect legally they would be liable.�
Jun 12, 2015
electracity Obviously it does mean something, as Tesla fixed her car.�
Jun 12, 2015
mspisars Yeah, it means Tesla didn't want a PR nightmare with an insurance company pointing the finger at the charger not the fact that lightning struck! (not willing to cover the repairs)�
Jun 12, 2015
andrewket Tesla wanted her car so they could better understand what happened and hopefully engineer solutions so minimize the chances of it happening again. Plus, think of the negative PR they would receive if this went more public, which it would inevitably do if insurance companies became involved (although for all we know Tesla's may carry lability insurance for the SCs that cover this.) The landlords of the SCs may in fact require Tesla to indemnify to protect themselves, which likely would translate to Tesla carrying a policy to hedge the risk.�
Jun 12, 2015
Chris TX An act of kindness does not admit fault.�
Jun 12, 2015
SabrToothSqrl Tesla, unlike GM took an opportunity to learn and improve. GM would have just said... that's a shame, then denied even making the car or that lightning is a thing.�
Jun 12, 2015
S'toon They were taking so long before you said it was fixed I was beginning to wonder if they'd keep the entire car and give you a new one. :biggrin: :tongue:�
Jun 12, 2015
andrewket Are you sure they'll tell you what they find? They fixed your car with new parts. My bet is they don't follow up.�
Jun 12, 2015
Xenoilphobe By the time the engineers get done examining those parts the will be rolling Tesla off the line months later that are EMP proof!!!�
Jun 13, 2015
K5ING I have to wonder if all the parts they replaced, including the battery, were actually damaged. It could be that they just needed or wanted more time to examine and study everything in detail that would/could/was affected and didn't want to keep your car that long.�
Jun 14, 2015
eloder That's interesting to know!
I guess I need a new ISP, because I know from personal experience that they don't cover damage due to lightning to their rented router...�
Jun 14, 2015
Chris TX Exactly. There might some kind of commercial agreement that could cover power surges and such. That would be included as part of the contract. Lightning is almost never covered by anyone except insurance companies. I work in the telecom business and the two largest ones I work with never had anything like that.
Lightning hits your house or business? Call your insurance company.
Power surge cooks your gear? Call your insurance company and maybe the power company.
Shuffle your socks across the carpet floor and zap your charging iPad? Call Apple and say "I don't know what happened!"�
Jun 15, 2015
green1 I don't think you read the whole quote.
If they have taken reasonable steps to mitigate, and lightning still damages it, it's not their fault. In the context of this thread, the question becomes whether or not Tesla took reasonable precautions, if so, they're not liable, if not, they probably are. (I suspect they have, but we know so little about a lot of this stuff that we really don't know)�
Jun 16, 2015
Stephenph Sitting inside a car is one of the safest places to be in a thunderstorm - ( not a tornado!).
read this
Lightning Safety: The Myths and the Basics
...and with no fuel to ignite, A tesla does seem to be a safe place.
But tocharge a car with high power electricity in a thunderstorm is not a sensible thing to do!
Please tell us how Tesla deal with this event. Do you get your car back repaired?
Will Tesla warn cutommers not to use a Supercharger in a storm?�
Jun 16, 2015
supratachophobia I propose a lunch at Easton where we take the magician out who resurrected the car when she comes back to pick it up.�
Jul 1, 2015
lagann I'll be getting my car back soon! Probably sometime next week. I can't believe it has been 1 whole month now. I really miss it.�
Jul 1, 2015
Electrical_Eng That's awesome! I was at the Columbus SC last Thursday picking up my MS. I asked about your MS and they said they still had it. They said they wish they had a surveillance video of where exactly the lightning bolt struck.
Glad you are getting your MS back soon.�
Jul 2, 2015
EVenthusiast If they really want that data, they should probably get in touch with one of the weather monitoring services, as many of them log this data (but not sure if they can log accurate locations).
Example site for Columbus, OH.
�
Jul 2, 2015
lagann Well, video or not, when I looked up through the roof I saw the bolt to my back-right, extremely close. It either hit the trees right next to me, or maybe the building behind me, but that seemed too far away from what I saw. It had to have been within 100ft.�
Jul 2, 2015
Lloyd Coordinates Mapped
https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B005'13.0%22N+81%C2%B047'[email�protected],-81.7905556,993m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en�
Jul 2, 2015
mibaro2 Glad you are getting your car back.
Another scenario to ponder : Would this have happened if you were connected to the SC, but not charging (the charge finished, or you stopped it from the MCU). Without any current going into the car, would the car have still fried some of its components?�
Jul 2, 2015
K5ING From my experience (former Skywarn volunteer and weather "fan"), those lightning maps are not very accurate. I live in a very rural area with a clear view for miles in every direction, and watched as lightning struck, for example, about a quarter mile to my north while the tracking sites I was watching showed it to be more than a mile to my south. Sometimes one stroke of lightning will trigger three or four "hits" within a couple of miles of each other and none of them where it actually hit. They are good for showing a very general area, but not very good for accurate pinpointing of locations of lightning strikes.
If it's a really active storm, you get something like this (zoomed out to a very wide area, but you get the idea):
�
Jul 8, 2015
lagann I'm going to have my car back on Friday! I'm so excited!! I'll post pictures when it gets back in ^_^�
Jul 8, 2015
EdA Will it be sCARred like Harry Potter?�
Jul 8, 2015
lagann I sure hope so! I'm crossing my fingers at least lol.�
Jul 15, 2015
lagann After a month and a half, my car is back! I missed it so much, especially since I had to drive a BMW for the last 2 weeks. It was worth the wait, though. The people at the Columbus, OH service center did an EXCELLENT job. The visor doesn't seemed to have been signed, though. I'll send a message out to bonnie about it.�
Jul 15, 2015
Zaxxon Nice. Also, I don't mean to alarm you, but there appears to be a PT Cruiser stalking your car...�
Jul 15, 2015
wws Maybe stick a couple of these on it: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Harry-Potter-Lightning-Bolt-Vinyl-Car-Window-Decal-Magic-Symbol-Sticker-ANY-SIZE-/251323504527�
Jul 15, 2015
pgiralt Great news! Did they allow you to share what was actually fixed/replaced?�
Jul 15, 2015
lagann They replaced a lot of stuff, not all of it broken, and sent it to Fremont for testing. So I really don't know exactly what was broken or what went wrong. I think we'll just have to wait for Tesla to release any information on that.�
Jul 15, 2015
brianman I hope they blog about it.�
Jul 15, 2015
LetsGoFast Bummer. I suspect they won't have very much to say and I'd have loved to hear all about it. I'll keep my fingers crossed that they think it is interesting enough to comment publicly.�
Jul 15, 2015
lagann Yeah, I'm definitely going to keep hounding them to keep everyone updated. I really hope they do.�
Oct 31, 2015
Khatsalano So, I'm assuming you got your car back by now, Destroyer of Superchargers?
- K�
Jul 28, 2016
787steve So what was the final outcome with the car?�
Jul 28, 2016
supratachophobia Fixed.�
Jul 29, 2016
787steve Did warranty cover lightning strike?�
Jul 29, 2016
Cyclone I believe the Op explained that. Normally no. Normally, you would go through your insurance. However, Tesla wanted to examine the car and came to an agreement to cover the replacement/repair costs as a courtesy so that they could study the vehicle and how it was affected.�
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