X’s Community Notes makes quick work of misleading “Tesla fire” report

By Simon Alvarez

Posted on July 1, 2024

Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, now known as X, seems to be doing some good for the electric vehicle community. Since Musk has taken over the platform, he has heavily promoted the use of Community Notes to fact check everyone, even himself, as needed. This became particularly useful recently after CBS News Sacramento published a rather misleading report about a “Tesla Fire” in California.

Last week, the news outlet posted a video covering a fire that was reported in front of a Tesla store on Granite Drive in Rocklin, CA. While no injuries were reported, the blaze was significant enough to damage two parked Tesla vehicles outside the store.

Readers added a Community Note to this Post: https://t.co/coOxz3Lvn8

— Helpful Community Notes (@HelpfulNotes) July 2, 2024

CBS News Sacramento’s coverage of the incident specifically focused on the fact that two Teslas caught fire. As could be seen in the comments section of CBS’s YouTube post about its report, numerous users interpreted the story as another instance where Teslas just randomly burst into flames. Others echoed typical anti-EV talking points, while some called for Teslas to be banned due to their alleged fire risks.

This is nuts. A truck’s exhaust caught the bushes on at a Tesla Store in Rocklin, CA a couple of days ago.

A few Tesla’s were damaged by the fires.

The media is reporting as a “Tesla fire” but the only one to blame is the truck driver. Crazy

Do better @CBSSacramento https://t.co/o16OIrXjtY pic.twitter.com/HZRIMkylVF

— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) July 1, 2024

Thanks to X’s Community Notes feature, users of the social media platform were able to add some context to the news outlet’s coverage. As per X users’ Community Notes, the fire outside the Tesla Rocklin store was actually started by a combustion-powered pickup truck whose exhaust got unfortunately caught in some bushes.

Yeah

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2024

This meant that while it is true that two Teslas outside the Tesla Rocklin store burned, the vehicles were not the source of the blaze at all. A fire started by a combustion-powered truck simply spread to the Teslas. This detail is easily missed in platforms that do not have X’s Community Notes feature, as could be seen in the comments section of CBS News Sacramento’s YouTube video about the incident.

Watch CBS’s coverage of the incident in the video below.