Take a look at this statement:

"The nationwide driving statistics make this very clear: there are 150,000 car fires per year according to the National Fire Protection Association, and Americans drive about 3 trillion miles per year according to the Department of Transportation. That equates to 1 vehicle fire for every 20 million miles driven, compared to 1 fire in over 100 million miles for Tesla. This means you are 5 times more likely to experience a fire in a conventional gasoline car than a Tesla!"

Facts stated: * 150,000 car fires per year according to the National Fire Protection Association. * Americans drive about 3 trillion miles per year according to the Department of Transportation. * 1 fire in over 100 million miles for Tesla.

Sales pitch at the end: "This means you are 5 times more likely to experience a fire in a conventional gasoline car than a Tesla!".

The reason I call this a sales pitch or a marketing messaging, is that while the facts technically support this, as pointed out earlier, it's based on a data set of 1 occurrence.

Personally, I buy Musk's argument and if I was in the market for a new car, figuring out how to pay for Tesla would actually be at the top of the list for me. This story only re-enforces my own personal opinion that these are great cars.

"1 occurence" is misleading, as the miles driven is the actual random event. If you throw a coin 100 million times and 1 time it lands on its side - then you can have a rather reasonable estimate on how rare that possibility is even though you have just 1 occurrence. I.e., it may be that the chance is 0.5 per 100m or 2 per 100m; but it'd be very strange if the actual chance is 10 per 100m.