Tesla Inc.’s run of bad news is continuing as the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation into a Model S that crashed Tuesday and caught fire in Florida, killing two teenagers.

The crash occurred about six weeks after a Model X crashed into a concrete barrier on Highway 101 in Mountain View. Although there’s no suggestion that this vehicle crashed while being operated in autonomous mode, the NTSB is looking into the “electric vehicle fire” aspect of the crash.

Noting that its interest was part of a broader investigation, NTSB Chairman Robert S. Sumwalt said in a statement Wednesday that the board “has a long history of investigating emerging transportation technologies, such as lithium-ion battery fires in commercial aviation, as well as a fire involving the lithium-ion battery in a Chevrolet Volt in collaboration with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The goal of these investigations is to understand the impact of these emerging transportation technologies when they are part of a transportation accident.”

Tesla said in a statement that its “thoughts are with the families and friends affected by this tragedy” and that it’s “working to establish the facts of the incident and offer our full cooperation to local authorities,” but have said nothing on cooperation with the NTSB investigation.

The absence of a commitment to work with the NTSB may be intentional, with both bodies falling out over the investigation into the March Model X crash. In a he said/she said case, it was reported April 12 that the NTSB had revoked Tesla as a party to the investigation because the carmaker released “investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the NTSB.” Tesla claimed that it “willingly withdrew” from the investigation, claiming that the NTSB is more concerned with press headlines than actually promoting safety.

Complicating matters further, at the same time the NTSB said it was investigating the safety of the batteries in the Florida Model S crash, it has emerged that firefighters in California were called to put out flames coming from a Tesla Model X battery involved in the March fatal crash days after the crash itself occurred. According to television station KTVU, the problem is believed to have been with the lithium-ion battery continuing to flow with electricity even after it had been damaged in the crash.

Safety issues with lithium-ion batteries are not new, but their addition to hybrid and all-electric vehicles is a more recent phenomenon, hence the NTSB investigation. Tesla is doubly exposed should the NTSB find their use is unsafe: Not only does it use them in all of its vehicles, it also makes the batteries itself at its “Gigafactory” facility in Nevada.

Photo: Tesla