I've owned only diesel cars for the last 18 years but if I was worried about being incinerated in a car crash my choices would be in order. EV Diesel Gasoline LPG

It will be interesting to see exactly what caused the fire. Was it directly caused by the damage to the battery, or did damage to another component lead to the fire, and the battery joined? Regardless, EVs are still far more safe than a gasoline car.

Magnesium car parts on fire are a nightmare, water makes a worse burn, and CO2 on magnesium fire is also a problem. Burning titanium is also a problem. Read the link and google if a concern: http://firelink.monster.com/training/articles/849-is-it-time-to-change-our-training-yet-part-4-magnesium-fires?page=1

How on earth would a highly reactive metal like lithium catch fire? Very odd. I hear that some lithium batteries in laptops caught fire when over used or over charged? I wonder if the lithium batteries that burned in this care is some how related to lithium laptop batteries that burn.
Of course that is sarcasm. Batteries are for toys not transportation. We need to ban EV car so these companies will stop wasting time and money on these stupid things. We could do so much more if we focused on bio fuels, CNG or even straight Hydrogen.

Typical alarmist reaction to a non-issue. Anything to smear the image of electrics. How many people perished in internal combustion vehicle fires before they got that one right?
Regardless, its all an engineering fix: "Only one of the 16 modules was damaged when a metallic object was thrown up from the road and impacted the battery pack." Install bash plate to protect pack from mechanical damage
"As water seemed to intensify the fire, firefighters began to use a dry chemical extinguisher. In the end, the front end of the car had to be disassembled. " Install a dry chemical fire suppression system around the battery pack and power electronics modules.
"Holes were punched in the battery pack, and a circular saw provided access to apply water to the battery, which finally quenched the fire." Make maintenance ports available that can be accessed in an emergency from the outside of the vehicle to pump dry chem and/water into the pack below with venting to allow the water easy circulation through the pack.
"All indications are that the fire never entered the interior cabin of the car. " Insulate the pack with fire proof material so this is a certainty.

A Ferrari catches fire and its no big deal. An electric car does and its news?

Another thing came to mind that may make for a safer battery system. Tesla uses thousands of little batteries with a lot of monitoring and car contained selection of them for use. It seems fire would spread slower from one burning battery to heat up and start other batteries burning, Than the fewer larger batteies used in other EV battery systems:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/tesla-roadster.htm "... Tesla went with technology proven in the laptop computer field -- rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. The Roadster contains 6,831 of them. ..."
Also there are different versions of the lithium batteries, more recent ones far less likely to self destruct than earlier designs.

We learn from the video that something penetrated the battery pack as a result of the accident. Can you imagine what would have happened with an ICE vehicle if the fuel line or the gas tank had been penetrated? More like this: http://ktla.com/2013/06/19/driver-killed-in-fiery-car-crash-in-hollywood/#axzz2gkcCH2Dx That driver might still be alive if he'd been driving a Tesla instead of a Mercedes.

It's big news when you have the financial interests standing by just looking for any reason to short this stock and make millions in the process. All they need is an incident that will puncture the aura of invincibility around the stock and then as the investor psychology changes, they pile on.
It isn't just all about the technology. The same old human traits- fear, greed, envy, hubris- all will play at one point or another in this story, as long as Wall Street has anything to do with it.

In the past couple of weeks, a lamborghini, a ferrari, and Van Dykes Jaguar all caught fire and burned to the ground. Did the respective shares in those companies take a hit?
The fact that Tesla shares was mentioned, the selling of said share is from day-readers, people who were profit taking, and selling on the news. Nothing more.
To the guy who argues for a cessation of battery powered vehicles, you obviously have a no substantive understanding of something as simple as energy density, and the entropy of powering vehicles with hydrogen.