You may have missed it, but a major fire broke out in California as a result of an accident involving a Tesla semi-truck, forcing the closure of one of California’s highways in both directions due to the release of toxic chemicals. This has raised questions and concerns about the technology, especially since the two-week firefighting effort at a lithium-ion storage facility had already raised concerns about the technology among people in the area.

In the early 2000s, I was the lead battery analyst for about a decade and lithium-ion batteries were a quick fix to the need for power for portable electronics, but even in laptops, the technology was extremely dangerous. I learned this first hand when I got an upgrade to a lithium-ion battery pack for my then-new electric bike. It caught fire and nearly destroyed my house, leading to the bike manufacturer going bankrupt.

This recent Tesla fire prompted an investigation by the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) due to concerns about this technology, especially in vehicles with extremely large lithium-ion batteries like the Tesla Semi, which will undoubtedly extend the testing phase for the trucks that began back in 2017.

Lithium-ion batteries have about a quarter of the energy density of dynamite. When they burn, the fire is hot enough to melt aluminum and is extremely difficult to put out. When you wreck an electric car (I’ve wrecked two of them), the accident requires special handling. The first time, I wasn’t even allowed to touch the car to get my things because of the danger, and the second time, the car was parked outside in a sort of fire pit (neither car caught fire).

The problem for Tesla

Long haul trucking companies already have a lot of problems with theft and a massive driver shortage (while most long haul truckers make about $64,000 a year, I recently saw a guy hired for $120,000 who didn’t even have a commercial driver’s license, even though the pay was contingent on him passing the course). These companies don’t need any additional drama or problems, and electric semi trucks have several unique problems even without the fire hazard. One of them is that there is no infrastructure to charge them, since they can’t use a typical Tesla charging station because the trucks are too big and the batteries are huge, meaning they need charging stations designed for those trucks. And that’s a cart and horse problem, since these companies don’t want the Tesla trucks until that infrastructure is in place, but the infrastructure can’t make money until there is a critical mass of those trucks in areas where you need them.

Truck rest stops are usually located in rural areas and away from existing high voltage power lines. This means they involve high additional costs to either lay copper lines to the site, install expensive petrochemical generators or set up huge solar and wind generators. The latter would be preferable because otherwise the electricity costs are too high and the electric trucks are not financially viable.

Another problem is the nature of the accident. The truck that crashed was unloaded and, although the cause has not yet been determined, it could be due to improper use of Tesla’s autopilot, something that has plagued Tesla’s automotive division for some time and where Musk seemed to ignore proposed solutions.

Finally, the fire itself is questionable, as the truck hit trees and shouldn’t have caught fire given its size and weight and the hardness of lithium-ion batteries in cars. But it did, suggesting there’s something very wrong with the design and implementation of the battery enclosure. Perhaps cost-cutting was the result, but this accident makes it seem like the design itself is problematic, and that could force California, which loves electric vehicles but really hates things that currently start fires, to make a choice between technology and safety. Most states – and I doubt California will be any different – would err on the side of safety, and it’s not like they love Tesla right now, either.

Conclusion: This could end Tesla’s semiconductor experiment

This type of accident can end a business before it even starts. A nearly uncontrollable fire in a wooded area in California caused by an experimental vehicle usually leads to policy decisions being made to stop that activity to ensure safety. The cause of this accident is not obvious, but certainly could have been Tesla’s autopilot, the truck’s battery pack should not have caught fire but did, and the truck’s inherent ability to prevent fires was inadequate in a simple accident (without a trailer). But imagine if the semi had been pulling a gas trailer, nuclear waste, or toxic chemicals. This could have been a much bigger disaster, and the NTSB is charged with preventing those.

Depending on how this is handled (and Musk tends to work very poorly with regulators), this could end up with a ban on Tesla semi-trucks in California, and California is arguably the most aggressive state when it comes to developing and adopting electric vehicles. If they ban the trucks, I expect most other states to follow.

In other words, this problem could be one of the worst Tesla has ever faced.

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst covering automotive technology and battery developments at Torque News. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X and LinkedIn.