Originally Posted by tdracer
Scuffers, at least two Tesla's have caught fire and burned due to battery failures in service. As vapilot said, never say never.
AFAIK, both of these were caused by massive mechanical damage to the battery packs. Apparently, Tesla goes to great lengths to precisely control environment and demands for every single cell.
Also, I don't know the 787 battery packs, but Tesla's pack is made up of a really large number of rather small battery cells (type 18650,
AFAIK). Every one of those has its own controller that makes sure the cell doesn't exceed the design limits, in addition to the global controller that monitors the whole pack.
I wonder how the cells in the 787 are handled...
And yes, the Tesla pack also comes with armor plate, but mostly to avoid damage to the pack...