Just a week ago, I read an article about a Tesla crash in CA (I don’t remember where that article is now, on Reeuters if I remembered correctly). Aside from the EV crash that bursted into flames, I am very intrigued about the fire from EV battery. Does lithium-ion fires can not be extinguished? Besides the videos online I’ve never seen such fire.
Overall, does this make EVs more dangerous?
Quick Google search showed this… Can’t confirm nor deny the contents…
Some/most of the other guys on here know way more about EV’s and EV battery’s then I ever will, they will chime in later…
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The liquid (electrolyte) in the battery is flammable and it is hard to put out. Water won’t extinguish it but will cool the battery down. Li-ion battery fires are due to thermal runaway. ABC and dry chemical extinguishers are recommended to put the fire out, but if it’s too hot the fire will start up again. Using water will likely wash the fire extinguishing medium off and it must be applied again. EVs have thermal management sensors and software to prevent overheating while charging. Don’t confuse fires on cheap battery powered devices like scooters with EV systems. The cheap ones don’t have thermal management systems so phones enough to handle overheating.
There was a fire at rivian plant in Illinois a week or two ago. I think it took out about 50 vehicles in the lot.
Yes, EV fires are more dangerous because the batteries are their own fuel and oxygen. That means they cannot be smothered. A single vehicle EV fire might take as much as 30,000 gallons of water to cool it enough to put the fire out. And cooling it is the only way to achieve this.
Fires can come from battery failure, crash damage and flooding. A flood damages a gas car, it may ignite a serious fire in an EV car. They catch fire less often than gas cars but when they DO catch fire, the effects are far more serious.
Or in large groups, if ONE catches fire, it can spread.
https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/hundreds-cars-destroyed-fire-norway-airport
And of course two large container ships full of cars…
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More dangerous than what?
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I think more dangerous than a gas or diesel vehicle parked in an attached garage, in a parking ramp, or parking lot.
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The risk of a battery fire is measured in two ways. One is the risk of a fire starting. This is mitigated in Li-ion batteries by reducing the possibility of thermal runaway and limiting the possibility of damaging the battery to name two. The other risk measure is how serious the problem is if a fire starts. In the case of Li-ion batteries this risk is very high and means that more effort has to go into keeping a fire from starting than for other battery technologies. There are very few BEV fires but when they do happen the results are catastrophic. It’s quite likely that future battery technologies like solid state batteries will significantly reduce the fire risk. That’s why they are under development.
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good question mate
They say the leading cause of death is birth. Yet we still wake up and get out of bed every day.
Nobody ever talks much about all the gas/ICE car fires every day. I’ve driven past a few of them that were shockingly hot and intense.
LOL, I’ve always said the leading cause of death is life. (Same thing). Then there’s that age old question for the doctor: “Doctor. Am I going to die?!” There’s only one honest answer…
Exactly. But not only car fires. What of tanker fires? (That was a random web-grab). The worst one that I ever personally witnessed was an RV fire on the side of an interstate (before mobile phones so I don’t have any pics). I guess those are “easier” to put out than th Li-ion due to the physics/chemistry. But really?
This RV fire was at the gas station on the corner right below where i work, guy was trying to fill an unapproved container with gasoline when the fire started, total loss on the rv and the pump and canopy had to be replaced.
LOL (but not truly funny) - it was probably started by that kid I saw recently sitting in the car smoking while it was being re-fueled at a gas station.
No fire in this case, so I guess no story, but I worked at a gas station in high school. Some numbskull pulled away from the pump with the hose still in the car. It pulled the whole thing out of the pump and gasoline went all over the place. I don’t recall whether it was necessary or not, but it was the only time I hit the emergency shut off.
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wow… I don’t think I will encounter one, but the anxiety is pretty real tho
Your personal safety isn’t so much an issue with EVs. If it starts smoking, just walk away!
The concern is any accident, even minor, that might set it off and where you park it. Collier country fire control told people to drag them out of the garages after being flooded. It would be safer to park it outside, not in the garage.
Ok, well above, I asked “more dangerous than what?” but we’ll assume more dangerous than ICEs. The reasons that EV fires are more dangerous have been outlined above. But EVs are far less likely to catch fire. But they’re new and the fires are dramatic, so they get press.
Here re a couple of things to check out if truly interested:
Here’s the opening of the Motortrend piece:
"There’s a car fire roughly every five minutes in America. The vast majority of them never make the news. But if a Tesla or a Chevy Bolt catches fire? It’s probably on the front page nationwide and going viral online. If the sensational headlines and social media videos are to be believed, EVs are flaming deathtraps that could spontaneously combust at any minute.
EVs are new and different, and their fires pose some different challenges for first responders, so some coverage makes sense…But if electric vehicles are no more likely to catch fire than any other car on the road, the headline frequency can be misleading. In fact, the data says they account for a tiny fraction of all car fires."
And it’s not just that EV fires are a fraction because EVs are still a small fraction of cars on the road. Translated to rates per vehicle (see esp the KBB piece), the rates of fires are still far lower - by a long shot.
That said, as @Mustangman (and perhaps others?) said above - even small things like minor accidents can matter. So be vigilant. (Tho’ being vigilant applies no matter what, I think).
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