Giant Tesla Semi truck lithium battery combusts as driver escapes fire that closed I-880

A Tesla Semi went up in flames on Interstate 880 in Hayward on Tuesday evening, and the fire may still be burning. The California Highway Patrol closed the freeway in both directions around 5:45 p.m. over fears of hazardous smoke from the truck’s lithium battery. Northbound lanes reopened by 8:40 p.m., but southbound traffic was told to expect a wait of 15 to 18 hours while the pack burns itself out.

This seems to be the first Tesla Semi battery combustion incident that doesn't involve a crash, as the driver escaped unhurt and told officers the rig simply caught fire, with no idea why. The cause is under investigation, so it's too early to blame the truck, the battery, or anything else. The incident does echo the Semi that crashed near Emigrant Gap on Interstate 80 in 2024. That fire took about 50,000 gallons of water to put out, kept the road shut for 15 hours, and had aircraft dropping retardant around the site.

Tesla's own guide for responders calls for large amounts of water on the battery enclosure and warns about reignition. This is the part of electric mobility that never gets easier. In Tesla's impact report, the company argued that EVs catch fire far less often per mile than gas cars, around 7 times per billion miles driven against nearly 60 for the US average.

While this may be so, when a battery does ignite, a regular car extinguisher that goes for $35 a pop on Amazon is not nearly enough. Tesla itself says it can take 3,000 to 8,000 gallons applied directly to the pack. The Semi's 822 kWh battery is many times larger than a car's, so the water bill climbs accordingly. That is the core firefighting problem, as thermal runaway doesn't care about a hose aimed at the outside of a sealed pack. Cells can reignite hours or even days later, which is why burned EVs often sit under watch after the flames are gone. The fumes add a second headache, and crews have to worry about high voltage, too.

Solutions are slowly arriving in the form of EV firefighting tools like the Rosenbauer nozzle that slides under a car and douses the cells directly, needing up to 1,000 gallons and staying attached to the tow truck in case of a flare-up. Some departments now run dedicated EV workshops and tools, too.

Then there are the garage fires, like the electric Mercedes in South Korea that needed 19 fire trucks and 57 firefighters to put out. Most of this gear is designed with cars in mind, not 80,000-pound trucks. Hayward drivers just have to wait for the alleged spontaneous Tesla Semi battery combustion to peter out, while fire departments get a warning about the challenges that electric rigs' battery fires would present when there are more of those on the road.