191–200 of 432 posts
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> Germany is starting to standardize on towing an electric car away to dunk it in a tank to ultimately handle fires. I suppose if the problem is widespread enough, every city will have a mobile dunk truck at the ready for electric vehicle fires.
And what do you do if those fires cause other things to burn in the vicinity?
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Yes, but an important part of that context is that electric car fires also burn longer and hotter and take significantly more effort to put out. Too little water can actually make the fire worse. Annecdotally, my recollection from other articles is that electric cars do in fact catch on fire less often. But it also seems like they may be more difficult to deal with. This may change as EV's become more mainstream & fi…
Yep. Moreover, the issue isn't new cars today. You know when you saw that old Chrysler Grand Caravan burning on the side of the road, and you hear the story that the person has been holding it together solely with thoughts and prayers and maybe $500 between tires and oil for the last 7 years of its 19 year life? That's the current inevitability. I'm not worried about someone's 6-month old Bolt or 2-year old Model 3.…
Except that the 22 year Model 3 also has a computer inside the battery that should be keeping things in check. Assuming the battery can even hold any charge at that age.
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But it's not the GM-made part of the car that's failing here, it's the LG-made batteries.
And totally understand the sentiment, but Foxxcon isn’t blamed if iPhones start to fail left and right, Apple is. The people branding the car are responsible for their supply chain.
Maybe lithium-ion batteries in mass-market vehicles aren't such a good idea. We may need a battery technology that can survive poor maintenance less than perfect battery construction, and low-cost vehicle designs. Tesla had to put a titanium plate under their battery. That's not a mass-market solution. BYD is converting over to lithium iron phosphate, which is much better behaved when damaged. Toyota is working on so…
The problem here is the form factor of the cell as much as the chemistry. Pouch style cells are very difficult to regulate temperature in. This is a key reason why other automakers like Tesla use the small cylinder cells. Chinese companies like BYD have always used lithium iron phosphate. It has less energy density than lithium nickel batteries like NCA and NMC, but is cheaper. The patent was never taken out in China…
But that is way too inconvenient, since I charge in the garage, and I don't live in exactly the best of neighborhoods. So I'm left wondering, if this car does catch on fire and burn the house down, will insurance cover it? Or will I be at fault for not following Hyundai's recommendations?
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I've noticed a 5mpg decrease with every car I've owned in pretty similar driving conditions over 5-10 years and immaculate maintenance.
That can’t be right, it would leave your cars immobile after like 6 years, and getting half the range out of a tank after 3 years. Cars are good for 20 years still going roughly as far on a tank as they did. I’ll believe 10% loss of mpg over a lifetime, I don’t track that closely, but 10-20% range loss on a tank per year, nahhh.
That's insane. For (probably) a majority of owners it makes the car unusable if you adhere to that restriction. If I had one then I would have nowhere to park it. Certainly not at work. And at home with once car in the driveway and another in front of the house they couldn't be 50 feet apart. In tightly packed houses even one driveway to the next isn't 50 feet apart. If you went shopping and we're lucky enough to man…
> The Bolt normally can go 259 miles on a charge, but that has been limited by GM’s guidance to avoid a fire. The automaker told Bolt owners to limit the charge to 90 percent, plug in more frequently and avoid depleting the battery to below about 70 miles of remaining range. They’re also advised to park their vehicles outside immediately after charging and not leave them charging indoors overnight.
So instead of 259 miles of charge, it's about 163 miles of charge. Oh, and don't leave your car in your own garage after charging.
Tough pill to swallow, I'm a Volt owner and I love that car, but couldn't blame anyone for them being soured on GM after that.
But it'll be interesting to see if this recommendation gets out, and people start avoiding my Bolt like the plague when I park at the store. That could be a good thing...
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I’ve never heard of a gas tank spontaneously bursting into flames.
There are about 160,000 fires involving personal internal combustion engine vehicles per year.
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I think there's the 5 second cool factor but after that novelty you're probably just as disgruntled as the fact that you lost 35% of the range for your car. I hope the Chevy bolt is a rare case and stories like this don't pop up with the other upcoming electric vehicles. The new lightning F150 looks very attractive.
I don't see how electric cars are any different than mobile phones. So basically this means a 3 year life span in terms of battery performance. Regular combustion cars though also suffer reduced mpg so I am not saying this is an apples to apples comparison.