A rented Tesla vehicle full of New Year’s fireworks and six gallons of camping fuel “connected to a detonation system” (or not) exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas today, resulting in one fatality (Matthew Livelsberger, a US Army special forces solider) with seven bystanders injured.
It is just the latest in a concerning pattern of increasingly fatal Tesla vehicle fires that have drawn increasing scrutiny from safety regulators. The fire is similar to one reported in Georgia the night before, in that a Cybertruck did not abruptly veer off road and crash into a building or a tree when it went up in flames.
An alleged guest of the hotel, identified on Twitter as ‘kaaaassus’, provided footage from the lobby of the emergency scene including sounds of fireworks and camping gas cans popping off:
LVMPD issued an urgent warning to avoid the area as specialized emergency response teams worked to contain the fire.
The incident required specific hazmat protocols due to the toxic fumes produced.
Las Vegas authorities say the vehicle was a “peer-to-peer” rental driven hours from Colorado Springs that had arrived in Las Vegas at 7:30am.
About an hour later, after driving up and down Las Vegas Boulevard, the truck pulled up to the Trump Hotel and exploded, authorities said Wednesday evening. Surveillance video shows a driver passing by the Trump Hotel in Vegas about an hour before the car explodes, and then circling back near the end of that hour and stopping in front of the hotel, where the car explodes several seconds later, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. […] “I have to thank Elon Musk specifically…” [Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a news conference] bizarrely claiming that the CEO had personally “really limited the damage”.
Somehow I can’t imagine NYC police thanking a CEO of Nissan for the limited car bomb damage in 2010. Consider the political intention of this Sheriff’s statement during widespread ongoing discussions about Tesla safety, particularly multiple recent reports of sudden explosive Cybertruck fires around the country taking on a new urgency. Dozens have been killed by Tesla design flaws in just the past two months alone, an increasing threat of multiplying losses including massive emergency response and environmental cleanup at taxpayer expense.
Notably, Tesla has marketed itself aggressively as the safest car yet is the only car company to exhibit such a clear and present danger to society, to put the Las Vegas Sheriff’s strange commentary in context. The level of recalls, incidents, fires and fatalities (real world results) are significantly worse than industry averages.
The NTSB should be expected to investigate this latest driver fatality as part of their broader inquiry into the fast rising death toll from Tesla vehicle fires.
Total Tesla Fires as of 1/1/2025: 232 confirmed cases
Fatalities Involving a Tesla Car Fire: 83
Related:
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Tesla Dealer Can’t Stop Cybertruck From Exploding in Flames
A Tesla dealer in Georgia saw their Cybertruck burst into flames December 31st, the day before this tragedy in Las Vegas. Source: WSBTV - CA Tesla Cybertruck Kills Three
- Tesla Cybertruck Catches Fire From Crash Into Fire Hydrant
- From Nice to New Orleans: Vehicle Borne Attacks as Urban Terror and State Control