A fire was reported to have been caused by a Tesla Supercharger at a Wawa store in New Jersey last weekend, but a local fire official now says Tesla had nothing to do with the cause of the fire.
On Sunday, a fire was reported at the Tesla Supercharger station located at Wawa’s Parsippany, New Jersey, store.
The next day, a Wawa spokesperson told CNBC that the issue was with the Supercharger station.
But now we learn that Tesla had actually nothing to do with the fire.
Matthew Palmeiri, who works for Parsippany-Troy Hills Fire Department District 5, told Automotive News that Jersey Central Power & Light had a problem with a transformer next to the Tesla Supercharger:
No vehicles were involved; it wasn’t the charging stations at all. It was a separate onsite transformer that sends power from JCP&L to the charging stations… Nothing to do really with the charging stations.
He added:
Once the power was isolated, we were able to extinguish the fire. The scene was turned over to representatives from the power company and Wawa to have repairs made to the transformer.
They didn’t disclose the extent of the damages at the charging station, if any.
We contacted Tesla, who was reportedly investigating the situation, to learn more about the fire, but the automaker never commented on the fire.
Electrek’s Take
As we reported yesterday, even if the fire had happened at the Supercharger station, it wouldn’t have been that big of an issue, or at least not as big as the media was making it to be, considering that gas stations fire occur quite frequently.
Nonetheless, I saw that the shorts were quick to jump on the news as a sign that Tesla is doomed.
It’s another narrative that turned out not to be true for them.
I feel like they will grab on to more of those these days because of how well Tesla’s stock is doing.
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