GM Offers to Loan Hollywood Star a Chevy Bolt after Tesla Fire
After Mary McCormack posts clip of husband’s Tesla in flames, GM offers a ‘more dependable electric vehicle.’
Last Saturday, Hollywood actress Mary McCormack posted to social media a crazy video showing her husband’s Tesla parked on an L.A. and on fire! The shocking clip shows huge flames engulfing the Tesla’s driver’s side tires and seems to be originating from beneath the popular luxury car, near the battery area.
“This is what happened to my husband and his car today,” explained McCormack, who is best known for her starring roles on the TV series The West Wing and Murder One. “No accident, out of the blue, in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd. [in West Hollywood]. Thank you to the kind couple who flagged him down and told him to pull over. And thank god my three little girls weren’t in the car with him.”
Of course, the Tesla apostles immediately descended to the social networks to explain that cars catch fire all the time. Now, this may be true with some random older cars, but Tesla models have only been on the road for six years. With around 40 fires reported so far in 300,000 Tesla cars, the rate of incidents looks to be worth investigating. We can’t find any stories of Chevrolet Bolts catching fire in traffic and, according to Jalopnik, GM is confident and good humored enough to offer McCormack a Bolt EV as a loaner. In fact, GM spokesperson, Ray Wert, seemed to be enjoying having a little poke at Tesla in a recent tweet (right).
And, frankly, we don’t see why he shouldn’t. While Tesla has been grabbing all the headlines, the Chevrolet Bolt EV has quietly not been catching fire. It has also been selling quite well and getting consistently solid reviews in the media, including Chevrolet Forum.
Los Angeles TV news station KCAL reports that there were no injuries and says that Tesla called the incident “an extraordinarily unusual occurrence.”
While the Bolt doesn’t play in the same EV market space as any Tesla, it does highlight the fact that Chevy is taking a steady and practical approach to electric vehicles compared to Tesla’s slapdash habit of over-promising and under delivering. Now, on top of all of Elon Musk’s other issues, Tesla is investigating the incident and The National Transportation Safety Board is reportedly sending an investigator to observe the company’s examination of the burnt car.
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