"On average, 31 highway vehicle fires were reported per hour."

It's not news because it's so frequent.

http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/vehicle-...

"more than 150,000 annually, which kill some 209 civilians every year" http://www.businessinsider.com/17-cars-catch-on-fire-every-h...

I live in a major city and we have freeway closures due to vehicle fires on a near daily basis. Most recently a truck full of bread caught on fire and resulted in one of the cities most major arteries being closed both ways for 4+ hours.

No it happens, so friends car was overheating, opened up the bonnet to see flames, car was engulfed within 7 minutes of stopping the car.

Yep, the wire harness in two different cars of mine have caught fire over the years.

Over a 10 year period 2003->2013: 2,395,000 car fires causing 4,050 deaths and 13,215 injuries

roughly: 656 fires and one death every day

http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/vehicle-...

This data is valuable but also slightly I'll-fitted for this purpose.

How many relatively recently sold modern gasoline vehicles in a similar category to the Tesla catch on fire? That's the proper number for the comparison.