Tesla semi-truck fire on Northern California freeway leaves people stranded for hours
PLACER COUNTY — Crews have fully reopened Interstate 80 in Northern California following a Tesla semi-truck fire near Emigrant Gap.
It started when a big rig went off the road and crashed into the trees around 3 a.m. Monday. This caused major delays for people traveling in both directions.
"So far, we're doing just fine, we drove to Colfax no problem. Here we are. We're going to get a sandwich. We don't know what's going to happen from here on in," Richard Bernstein, traveling to Tahoe, said.
Some people were trying to make it to a camping trip.
"We were really looking forward to enjoying the rest of summer. We're not sure how many times we're going to be able to come camping with the good weather you know," Joshua Ice, Vacaville resident, said.
Saul Garcia was coming from Pollock Pines to try and get to a job near Quincy when he got stuck.
"We were supposed to be there at like 5:30, something like that but we got stuck. We've been waiting since like 4 in the morning," Garcia said.
Another man we spoke with said he was trying to get to Reno when he got stuck at the Shell gas station in Nyack.
"I stopped here to try and take a little break and went to sleep in my car for about 20 minutes and when I woke up my exit was closed," he said.
Dylan Khoo is an electric vehicle industry analyst and said the battery in the semi is at least 10 times the size of one in a Tesla Model 1 or 3.
"That battery is going to release a lot more toxic gases. It's going to burn a lot longer. It's generally a lot harder to put out," Khoo said.
He said the general procedure is to let it burn out by itself, which can take quite a bit of time with a battery that size. Khoo added that you can't just use water to put it out.
"The water that you use to put it out is going to collect toxic chemicals. You'll create sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid," Khoo said.
Following this incident and a separate one back in July on I-15, GOP lawmakers are calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to delay his Advanced Clean Fleets Mandate. The mandate is part of a strategy to transition California's medium to heavy-duty trucks to zero-emission vehicles by 2045.
No juries were reported in Monday's crash. The westbound lanes reopened during the late afternoon and the eastbound lanes reopened during the evening.