The last time this did the rounds (before the post got flagged into oblivion)[1] I did my own analysis [2]. When normalized by vehicle-years it was actually closer to 40x worse than the Pinto, not just 17x as stated in the article.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43039631

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43039925

why include the las vegas one where he intentionally detonated it?

Still nearly 14x the Pinto instead of 17x. Four fire fatalities for 34,438 vehicles is pretty concerning.