The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has had for years had to deal with the issue of Human size and weight of the test dummies, Large male size or female, Medium size male or female, small adult (teenagers), children, and babies… And over the years, the topic of those dummies has had their share of topics posted…
NHTSA crash tests generally deal with running a vehicle into a stationary wall, simulating a head-on crash into a vehicle of approximately equal size and speed.
Now, they are having to re-think the crash tests as an ICE vehicle hitting another vehicle, but an EV that might weigh more than 1,000 pounds more is not like a head-on crash into a vehicle of approximately equal size and speed.
The heavier EV striking the lighter ICE vehicle will be slowed down gradually, because the heavier EV will push the ICE vehicle back, thereby increasing the apparent impact speed significantly on the ICE vehicle…
And because those NTSA tests how well the single vehicle holds up against the stationary wall. But, in real life, you ram an EV Chevy Bolt into an ICE Toyota Corolla and Chevy wins… and as one might say, the Toyota goes down in a crushing defeat…
There are MANY vehicles on the road today that are heavier than an EV vehicle. My 66 Cady weighed a lot more than an EV vehicle. NHTSA has had to deal with different weight vehicles on the road for decades. This isn’t anything new for them.
Large cars in the 1960’s and '70’s had a heavy feel to them but were mostly big metal cans.
The 1966 Cadillac DeVille 4 door hardtop had a shipping weight of 4515 lbs.
The Tesla Model S has a curb weight of 4561 lbs.
With a full tank of gasoline, the Cadillac outweighs the Tesla, but not by much.
Mike, don’t I know that, my Dodge Ram, 2500, Diesel 4x4, goes almost 7200 pounds, and the NHTSA knows this, but I think it has a bit to do with Mass verses Area. I do not know if I can explain it, but it deals with a certain weight concentrated into a smaller area, that little Chevy Bolt weighs about the same as your Cady.
Very timely. On last night’s episode of “Fire Country” they dealt with that exact issue: they put out the fire in a burning hybrid car, only to have the battery catch fire a few minutes later.
In our little town, there have been two house fires this winter from charging lithium batteries. Gonna have to reconsider things like computer power supplies and tools I guess.
Electric vehicles (EVs) have gained significant popularity in recent years as a more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. They offer benefits such as reduced emissions, lower operating costs, and improved driving performance. However, there are also some challenges to widespread adoption of EVs, such as limited driving range, higher upfront costs, and a need for improved infrastructure for charging and battery recycling. Ultimately, the choice to use an electric vehicle is a personal decision that depends on an individual’s specific needs and circumstances.
I am always nervous about cheapo no-name batteries because of this. I don’t mind leaving a genuine power tool battery charging but I accidentally got some cheapos online once and you can tell they are not the best. Any “fast” chargers see them as defective and will not charge them. The slow chargers work fine but still make me nervous. They are rated as 6AH batteries but the genuine 5AH batteries clean their clock!
I see PLENTY of laptops fried from the use of cheapo aftermarket power adapter replacements as well.
I seem to recall a dive ship catching fire and sinking, killing most on board, due to a battery fire within the last few years.
Same here. I bought some cheap replacement batteries for my Hitachi impact wrench. They lasted less than a year. I then bought the Hitachi brand (not sure who makes them). Much happier now.
Usually the power tool cells are made by Samsung or some other large maker you would know and trust. I have opened up a few dud laptop, power tool, etc. batteries.
Something else about the cheapos… You can leave a legit one sitting around for months and it barely loses charge. The cheapos will be completely dead.
I replaced my laptop battery last month and made sure it was a genuine HP replacement before I bought it. After delivery I read the text on the battery to verify it before I installed it.
Good idea! There are lots of counterfeits out there for stuff like this right now, mostly crap from China. You want to lookup all the numbers and make sure it is the real deal.
I guess this problem is really bad for car parts right now as well. I got burned on some razor blades from eBay once. They were the Gillette ones and seemed like a really good deal. They were fake and I reported them and at least got my money back that time but they had sold TENS OF THOUSANDS of these things to others. They were tearing up my face on the first use so I wondered if they were fake. I found a website showing how to differentiate between real and fake. Mine were obviously fakes. That was my first run-in with this but it is almost something you expect these days. I always look at the listing for whatever it is and then confirm once I get it in case they bait and switch.
I don’t care if it is basic consumer goods, car parts, or electronics. This is a huge problem right now.
I suspect a lot of the off-brand cells are actually made by Samsung, Panasonic, LG etc. but fail QC.
Then they get sold by the barrel to basement shops in China.
It’s a better deal for the mainstream companies than trying to disassemble, recycle, or even disposal.
Then someone at the bargain shop does a quick voltage check and maybe a brief load test for basic functionality.
Then off they go for assembly into knockoff crap.
Re something like those razor blades, I suspect when the legit plants wear out the tooling they sell it to a middle man and it winds up in a Chinese sweat shop.
I think you’re close but I think the big brand name companies are not going to mess around with defective materials discovered in their manufacturing stream. They just push them back onto their supplier. Often as an entire date code batch if the problem is prevalent enough. The more likely scenario is the big companies are buying batteries from some large scale battery manufacturer that serves many customers. That manufacturer likely has yield issues for whatever reason. Rather than pay to scrap them, they are the ones selling them as generic batteries that find their way into off brand products.
Big companies like those have tremendous leverage over their supply chain. Although contracts usually try to limit consequential damages, I have seen situations where they demanded and received compensation for re-working product in-stream or returned from the field when defects are discovered.
Materials in their manufacturing stream don’t have to be defective for the yield to be less than 100%.
And what to do with those cells that don’t make the grade?
My older Makita driver/drill’s NICad pack eventually failed, so I purchased a Makita-branded replacement, worked great. Problem is, that was the last one of those the hardware store had in stock, and they aren’t restocking, few people want this part any more. I took the old pack apart and found it was constructed using industrial NiCads, 9 strung together I think. They look appx like a C-cell, but not exactly the same size. Called “sub C”. The individual batteries remain available , so next time I’ll have to home-brew the replacement battery-pack using these.
I have one disagreement with the lady in the video. Neodymium is not used in EV batteries, it’s used in high performance electric motors, and neodymium-free electric motors are possible. There’s absolutely no neodymium in your ceiling fan, air compressor, refrigerator or the extremely large industrial motors that pump water to your house. Even the earlier Teslas used high performance induction motors which don’t require rare earth elements for magnets.
