Part of the problem is those fires are significantly harder to put out than other vehicle fires are. Fire departments are going to need to invest in new fire fighting chemicals and equipment. Some regulations may be useful as well such as some fire supressants installed near the battery or a battery eject and roll foward/back feature. The main goal there being buying more time to get people, especially kids in seats, out of the car.
Well that’s down to unsafe design. Car locks that don’t open in an emergency has nothing to do with EV or not. All cars have electric locks these days run from the low voltage (12v/24v) battery.
Totally, and you never hear about it with other EVs. But the image of being trapped in a burning car with no door handle is fucking terrifying and Elon has given EVs that association.
Just like I think every EV is just a stupid tablet on wheels with OTA updates that sells your data to third parties.
Oh wait that’s every car now so I’m never buying one newer than 2018.
Some regions have EV fire training that includes cutting open the battery pack to get water in. There should be an external hose hookup but governments are not really regulating EV for safety outside of China.
Europe has mobile water bins where they submerse the whole car for 72hrs.
EVs use lithium-ion batteries with an energy density of around 0.3 kWh/kg. Gasoline, by comparison, has an energy density of roughly 13 kWh/kg. That means ICE vehicles, including diesel cars, store nearly nine times more potential energy than EVs
They’re probably saying the battery is 4x the weight of a fuel tank. Not far off.
No, it’s not and you probably intuitively know this already, but an uncharged battery burns almost exactly the same as a charged one.
Here is a other way to think about it. Let’s trade “gallons of gas” for “bowling ball at the top of the slide” both object represent an amount of stored potential energy.
Let’s arbitrarily say that you gallon of gas is equivalent to a bowling ball sitting on top of a 1ft tall slide. The gas tank is the equivalent of a ball sitting on top of an 18ft tall slide, and the battery is roughly a 3ft tall slide. If someone asked you which slide had more potential energy, you might say “the gas one”, but what we have missed is that the gas slide was built at sea level, and the battery slide is sitting on top of a mountain. Normally, that whole mountain’s height isn’t considered in the potential energy of the ball on the slide, but the battery fire is a catastrophic event where the ball flies off the end of the slide and falls down the side of the mountain.
Basically, the battery has a ton of potential chemical energy in it, which is used to store a little bit of electrical potential.
There may also be some energy released from the battery materials themselves burning (like, an uncharged battery might have a significant amount of energy to release when combusting)
Part of the problem is those fires are significantly harder to put out than other vehicle fires are. Fire departments are going to need to invest in new fire fighting chemicals and equipment. Some regulations may be useful as well such as some fire supressants installed near the battery or a battery eject and roll foward/back feature. The main goal there being buying more time to get people, especially kids in seats, out of the car.
I think another part is the horrifying stories of people trapped in burning Teslas, which makes all electric cars look bad.
Well that’s down to unsafe design. Car locks that don’t open in an emergency has nothing to do with EV or not. All cars have electric locks these days run from the low voltage (12v/24v) battery.
Totally, and you never hear about it with other EVs. But the image of being trapped in a burning car with no door handle is fucking terrifying and Elon has given EVs that association.
Just like I think every EV is just a stupid tablet on wheels with OTA updates that sells your data to third parties.
Oh wait that’s every car now so I’m never buying one newer than 2018.
Because stories of people burning to death in ICE cars doesn’t even make the news.
ICE cars don’t make your burning car a puzzle room with unbreakable glass like a Tesla does.
Wrong, GM has been killing people with electronic locks long before Tesla.
Some regions have EV fire training that includes cutting open the battery pack to get water in. There should be an external hose hookup but governments are not really regulating EV for safety outside of China. Europe has mobile water bins where they submerse the whole car for 72hrs.
“are going” … EVs are already everywhere, and fire departments have been on it for years now.
If the battery is actually burning, yes… But that’s not a given. Upholstery burning is still a car fire.
Regardless, there’s a lot fewer fires. The easiest fire to extinguish is one that didn’t happen.
Do you have a source for fewer EV fires? The graphic doesnt seem to have any comparisons to ICE car fire rates.
Estimates are between 25 and 50x fewer fires per 100,000 for EV.
EV Fires vs. ICE Fires: Safety Comparison and Analysis — Lectron EV https://share.google/10FD9YASthmasL0mg
Somehow, people have no idea that petroleum is explosive and holds a huge amount of energy, and it is piped at high pressure around the occupants.
Neither do they realise…
They’re probably saying the battery is 4x the weight of a fuel tank. Not far off.
TBF, that is comparing the potential energy difference of a charged/uncharged battery to the total energy potential of gas.
It’s that potential energy that gets released when they burn. 9 times more energy equals a bigger woof when it goes.
No, it’s not and you probably intuitively know this already, but an uncharged battery burns almost exactly the same as a charged one.
Here is a other way to think about it. Let’s trade “gallons of gas” for “bowling ball at the top of the slide” both object represent an amount of stored potential energy.
Let’s arbitrarily say that you gallon of gas is equivalent to a bowling ball sitting on top of a 1ft tall slide. The gas tank is the equivalent of a ball sitting on top of an 18ft tall slide, and the battery is roughly a 3ft tall slide. If someone asked you which slide had more potential energy, you might say “the gas one”, but what we have missed is that the gas slide was built at sea level, and the battery slide is sitting on top of a mountain. Normally, that whole mountain’s height isn’t considered in the potential energy of the ball on the slide, but the battery fire is a catastrophic event where the ball flies off the end of the slide and falls down the side of the mountain.
Basically, the battery has a ton of potential chemical energy in it, which is used to store a little bit of electrical potential.
There may also be some energy released from the battery materials themselves burning (like, an uncharged battery might have a significant amount of energy to release when combusting)
Aside from the battery, there is no other source to fuel a fire in an EV.
That’s not true; most cars have a lot of plastic in trim, upholstery, etc.
it doesn’t just catch fire. No fires from spontaneous plastic combustion. it’s either electrical or leaked fuel.
Neither do gasoline or batteries.