According to CAL FIRE’s Nevada-Yuba Placer Unit, a Tesla Semi electric truck caught fire on a highway near the California-Nevada border.

Despite numerous media reports, there is no statistical evidence that electric vehicles catch fire more often than fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

However, this is a relatively new technology and they sometimes catch fire for different reasons than gasoline-powered vehicles, such as a battery failure in the case of the Bolt EV. Such cases should of course be investigated and reported.

Now we learn that a Tesla Semi, Tesla’s Class 8 electric truck, caught fire in California near the Nevada border.

The CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit first reported the fire:

Tesla electric commercial vehicle fire, hazardous materials incident due to the lithium-ion batteries involved. Minimal spread to vegetation by using aircraft to contain the fire until it is safe to construct containment lines.

There is no information on how the fire started, but no accident was reported. It is not even clear if the truck or the cargo caught fire first, as the firefighter referred to a “lithium-ion battery fire.” However, Tesla’s trucks are known to transport battery packs from Tesla’s factory in Nevada to its factory in Fremont, California.

The fire lasted several hours and later a hazardous materials team was seen recovering the remains of the truck for Tesla:

If the truck itself caught fire, this will probably be investigated by the authorities, as there are currently only a few dozen Tesla semi-trailers on the roads and most of them are used by Tesla itself for testing purposes.