I don't know about individually disconnecting each cell, but there is a loop that emergency responders are supposed to manually cut to disconnect the battery. However there are still components that retain power and remain hazardous such as the converter and capacitors. Firefighters need to take great care to cut around them. Plus there's the possibility of the battery compartment being compromised in an accident as well. Tesla's training video covers all this.
Nobody's arguing that Teslas are unsafe, just that the "safest car" claim sidesteps the electrical safety issue. You can't really argue that everything's fine because nothing bad has happened yet, because there are so few Teslas on the road. And it should be noted, a lot of people were hurt along the path to making gasoline cars as safe as they are today. Look at Ralph Nader's work on automobile safety for example.
I actually believe progress demands that we work through electrical car safety. But what irks me is it's just a little premature to be trumpeting "SAFEST CAR EVAR" when you've got a novel set of serious safety issues that the test suite doesn't even try to target.
Nobody's arguing that Teslas are unsafe, just that the "safest car" claim sidesteps the electrical safety issue. You can't really argue that everything's fine because nothing bad has happened yet, because there are so few Teslas on the road. And it should be noted, a lot of people were hurt along the path to making gasoline cars as safe as they are today. Look at Ralph Nader's work on automobile safety for example.
I actually believe progress demands that we work through electrical car safety. But what irks me is it's just a little premature to be trumpeting "SAFEST CAR EVAR" when you've got a novel set of serious safety issues that the test suite doesn't even try to target.