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While the ongoing issue of lithium batteries catching fire is certainly a valid concern, no one today thinks twice about just how flammable the gasoline that powers most cars today actually is. I think this all needs to be put into perspective.
Pretty sure nobody questions the flammability of gasoline, but let's not be stupid and pretend like gasoline vehicles just burst into flames...
The perspective is that for the MILLIONS of gasoline powered cars that are out there, the rate of spontaneous combustion is vanishingly small. The same cannot be said for electric cars.
No doubt that MB's engineers will thoroughly examine the car to try to determine what went wrong in this particular case. My hunch is that the problem rests with the lithium battery itself. Car batteries aren't the only examples of lithium batteries catching fire. It's also been a problem for lap top batteries which has resulted in lap tops being banned from carry-on items for commercial airplanes. There are other examples of lithium batteries bursting into flames beyond this. It seems that no one has gotten to the bottom of the reason for lithium batteries spontaneously bursting into flames. BTW, You tube is littered with videos of gas fires so they're more common than people realize.