Musk calls anti-Tesla stories “double standard”

Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk has been defending Tesla on Twitter, after a parked Tesla Model S caught on fire in Shanghai on 22 April.

“Over a million combustion engine (it’s right there in the name!) car fires per year & thousands of deaths, but one Tesla car fire with no injuries gets biggest headlines. Why the double standard? This is a real question,” reads one of Musk’s tweets.

Musk goes on to say a Tesla, like most electric cars, is over 500% less likely to catch fire than combustion engine cars.

Musk says the problem is journalists ignoring fatal combustion car fires or fail to mention any contextual statistics in articles but write about Tesla fires with no injuries are misleading readers into thinking EVs have a high fire risk.

A Twitter user tweeted to Musk saying the misinformation campaign against Tesla is far more pervasive than most would realise. Musk responded “absolutely.”

Musk has announced Tesla will release statistics regarding vehicle fires in its quarterly safety reports, an idea tweeted to him by another Twitter user.

Another Twitter user suggested “big oil/major automobile companies” are threatened by Musk taking money out of their pockets. Musk replied “sad if true.”

@ShanghaiJayin has since deleted the videos of the Tesla on fire, after Musk’s tweets.