this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Try the same experiment using salt.
The problem isn't really about the water getting things wet, more about the salt in it adding conductivity that can corrode metals making holes and also shorting any exposed electronics.
As much as I dislike tesla and it's unnerving ubiquity along with being under an unstable leader, we have to remember... These are land vehicles, not submarines. They weren't designed for prolonged immersion in salt water. Most of the environmental testing very likely revolved around using chambers to simulate different weather patterns.
Pressure and immersion testing are generally used only for individual components that do get sealed, permanently. So if you were to seal the battery pack or even just sections, you would still need to connect it all to the electronics like the BMS and in/output. With enough time just these two points could allow a path to short the battery causing the cells to overheat, expand, crack any seals (further increasing the reaction), build enough pressure and eventually pop like a shotgun shells fired outside of a barrel
I'm guessing you don't live in a city that has hurricanes or tropical weather in general?
Cars are submerged in water all the time in certain parts of the world and if you live in one of those places then there's nothing you can do to avoid it. Every car I've ever owned has at some point been exposed to water depths deep enough that the tesla battery would've been fully submerged.
It's not uncommon for a tropical storm to rain billions of gallons of water over a small area in a short period of time. When that happens you just can't keep your car dry.
If it destroys the car, OK that's an insurance job. But if the car catches fire it has the potential to burn down buildings/etc which is really really bad especially if it happens during sever weather when a fire fighter will not be able to respond potentially until days later even if the nearest fire station is a few city blocks away.
I'm sure this is a solvable problem. Also - it's worth noting only two cars caught fire and I'd bet a lot more than two EVs were submerged a widespread flooding incident like this one. There must be more to it than just "if you expose an EV to salt water, it'll burn".