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Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

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Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#91

Post by user_7832 »

greenthrow wrote: post #89
Animats wrote: post #58

I'm not too happy about very large lithium ion batteries as a mass market product in low-end vehicles. Lithium iron phosphate, which doesn't have the thermal runaway problem but stores less energy per kilogram, may be more appropriate there. Both BYD and Tesla are going that route at the low end. Light electric vehicles (bikes, scooters, skateboards) are now causing a sizable number of fires in NYC.[1] It's mostly a…

Can we stop it with this absurd fear mongering already? There's millions of EVs on the road now. I have had my Leaf for 8 years and keep seeing this same tired FUD online. The incidents of fires from electric cars are extremely low. The scooters and other cheap vehicles you cite are a separate problem from just being Lithium-Ion batteries. They're cheap procucts with bad electronics and poor protection of the battery…

It is possible both for a technology to be incredibly safe and yet occasionally have huge risks. I'm typing this on a device with li-ion batteries. Most of us accept the slight risk involved. Yes the parent comment is a bit weirdly skeptical, but calling it FUD isn't accurate either.

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#92

Post by mkr-hn »

moffkalast wrote: post #73
Reason077 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk has said that he believes a significant portion of the industry will move to LFP (Lithium iron phosphate) chemistry due to its lower cost, fewer supply constraints, and better safety and stability properties. It was recently reported that Ford is working on LFP packs for their Mustang and F-150 Lightning EVs.

So they say, but the main gripe of switching to EVs has always been their too small range. Your average Li-ion 21700 cell has a capacity of 4-5Ah, whereas one with an LFP chemistry only gets 2-3Ah. That's almost a 50 % reduction in spatial density, not to mention their abysmal C rating. Perhaps they would fit for PHEV usage, but for pure EVs they would be rather shite imo.

Those modest yearly increases in battery capacity and drops in production costs add up. After a while, a use case that needed the batteries with all the downsides can get by with a safer, more affordable battery that wouldn't have enough juice 20 years before. It's a much slower version of the phenomenon we see in computing power. Eventually, even a slow CPU can do what only a top end desktop CPU could do 20 years ago.

The phrase "range anxiety" has been with us for almost 25 years, so it's about time.

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#93

Post by armada651 »

wongarsu wrote: post #83
elihu wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems is that lithium ion batteries can't be discharged fully without destroying them. Effectively, the batteries are a very large energy source that can never be fully turned off. Another problem is that (if I understand correctly) lithium ion battery fires tend to produce their own oxygen. Another problem is that a manufacturing defect in one cell could cause the whole pack to catch on fire. According…

> Putting out an EV battery fire basically entails dumping enormous amounts of water on it That's a problem fire departments are still trying to adapt to, many resorting to putting out the fire conventionally, then submerging the car in a water-filled container. But I'm unclear on how that makes the risk profile worse for ships? The initial fire should be easier to contain with EVs than with gasoline cars because EV…

> But I'm unclear on how that makes the risk profile worse for ships?

Gasoline-powered vehicles aren't fueled when loaded onto a ship, so they don't really pose much of a fire hazard. However for EVs this is a problem, because it's very difficult to completely drain a lithium battery.

> water for cooling affected vehicles for a couple hours is plentiful. It's a ship after all.

Getting the water to all those vehicles is the hard part. If enough of the EVs catch fire the only realistic way to get that much water to the fire is to get the deck below water level, which tends to be very bad for a ship.

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#94

Post by black_puppydog »

greenthrow wrote: post #89
Animats wrote: post #58

I'm not too happy about very large lithium ion batteries as a mass market product in low-end vehicles. Lithium iron phosphate, which doesn't have the thermal runaway problem but stores less energy per kilogram, may be more appropriate there. Both BYD and Tesla are going that route at the low end. Light electric vehicles (bikes, scooters, skateboards) are now causing a sizable number of fires in NYC.[1] It's mostly a…

Can we stop it with this absurd fear mongering already? There's millions of EVs on the road now. I have had my Leaf for 8 years and keep seeing this same tired FUD online. The incidents of fires from electric cars are extremely low. The scooters and other cheap vehicles you cite are a separate problem from just being Lithium-Ion batteries. They're cheap procucts with bad electronics and poor protection of the battery…

> Gasoline powered products of such low quality would be similar fire hazards, if not worse.

And they're heavily regulated so that they cannot reasonably be sold in most countries. Calling for similar regulation for EVs and other electrically powered devices just makes sense in my book.

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#95

Post by themitigating »

Animats wrote: post #58

I'm not too happy about very large lithium ion batteries as a mass market product in low-end vehicles. Lithium iron phosphate, which doesn't have the thermal runaway problem but stores less energy per kilogram, may be more appropriate there. Both BYD and Tesla are going that route at the low end. Light electric vehicles (bikes, scooters, skateboards) are now causing a sizable number of fires in NYC.[1] It's mostly a…

What is sizable from a fire department that covers 9 million people?

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#96

Post by kube-system »

greenthrow wrote: post #89
Animats wrote: post #58

I'm not too happy about very large lithium ion batteries as a mass market product in low-end vehicles. Lithium iron phosphate, which doesn't have the thermal runaway problem but stores less energy per kilogram, may be more appropriate there. Both BYD and Tesla are going that route at the low end. Light electric vehicles (bikes, scooters, skateboards) are now causing a sizable number of fires in NYC.[1] It's mostly a…

Can we stop it with this absurd fear mongering already? There's millions of EVs on the road now. I have had my Leaf for 8 years and keep seeing this same tired FUD online. The incidents of fires from electric cars are extremely low. The scooters and other cheap vehicles you cite are a separate problem from just being Lithium-Ion batteries. They're cheap procucts with bad electronics and poor protection of the battery…

I didn’t read the above comment as an attack on Li-Ion, but a suggestion that we should hold these products to high safety standards, like your Leaf.

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#97

Post by [deleted] »

armada651 wrote: post #93
wongarsu wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Putting out an EV battery fire basically entails dumping enormous amounts of water on it That's a problem fire departments are still trying to adapt to, many resorting to putting out the fire conventionally, then submerging the car in a water-filled container. But I'm unclear on how that makes the risk profile worse for ships? The initial fire should be easier to contain with EVs than with gasoline cars because EV…

> But I'm unclear on how that makes the risk profile worse for ships? Gasoline-powered vehicles aren't fueled when loaded onto a ship, so they don't really pose much of a fire hazard. However for EVs this is a problem, because it's very difficult to completely drain a lithium battery. > water for cooling affected vehicles for a couple hours is plentiful. It's a ship after all. Getting the water to all those vehicles…

[deleted]

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#98

Post by onethought »

wongarsu wrote: post #85
jbay808 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for serviceable batteries, but I don't see how it solves the shipping safety issue. So you ship the EVs without batteries, and then... you ship the batteries?

That might actually make sense. The main danger with batteries is thermal runaway, meaning if you keep them cool you can prevent the fire from starting. So what if you shrink-wrap each battery assembly to waterproof it, and ship them submerged in water (or another liquid of your choice). The water should easily absorb the heat from a couple damaged batteries without reaching a temperature that harms the other batteri…

Thermal run away only happens on fully/close to charged batteries - so couldn't they just only ship <= 40% full batteries and be fine?

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#99

Post by davidkuennen »

greenthrow wrote: post #89
Animats wrote: post #58

I'm not too happy about very large lithium ion batteries as a mass market product in low-end vehicles. Lithium iron phosphate, which doesn't have the thermal runaway problem but stores less energy per kilogram, may be more appropriate there. Both BYD and Tesla are going that route at the low end. Light electric vehicles (bikes, scooters, skateboards) are now causing a sizable number of fires in NYC.[1] It's mostly a…

Can we stop it with this absurd fear mongering already? There's millions of EVs on the road now. I have had my Leaf for 8 years and keep seeing this same tired FUD online. The incidents of fires from electric cars are extremely low. The scooters and other cheap vehicles you cite are a separate problem from just being Lithium-Ion batteries. They're cheap procucts with bad electronics and poor protection of the battery…

I always wonder where this is coming from. I'm sure there are certain well funded industries that would have interest in such FUD.

From what I can see, this technologie is the future to a green world. We could ultimately have a distributed power system where every home has its own battery with solar panels on top. How fucking awesome would that be. Not even an eletrical grid failure would be a problem anymore.

Re: Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships?

#100

Post by SigmundA »

Reason077 wrote: post #62
Animats wrote: post #58

I'm not too happy about very large lithium ion batteries as a mass market product in low-end vehicles. Lithium iron phosphate, which doesn't have the thermal runaway problem but stores less energy per kilogram, may be more appropriate there. Both BYD and Tesla are going that route at the low end. Light electric vehicles (bikes, scooters, skateboards) are now causing a sizable number of fires in NYC.[1] It's mostly a…

Elon Musk has said that he believes a significant portion of the industry will move to LFP (Lithium iron phosphate) chemistry due to its lower cost, fewer supply constraints, and better safety and stability properties. It was recently reported that Ford is working on LFP packs for their Mustang and F-150 Lightning EVs.

LFP is also a more stable chemistry which makes them safer but also it has more than double the cycle life and can be charged to 100% while still keeping that long cycle life. No need to choose to charge to 80-90% for daily use vs 100% for long distance, Tesla recommends charging the LFP to 100% all the time.

LFP's where getting ridiculously cheap recently, you can get 19" rack mount batteries with built in BMS for less than $300 / kWh to your door. I think most UPS are going to move over to LFP, they will be 20 year batteries in controlled environments.

I put some 12v replacements in my RV getting 4X the capacity of my lead acid at half the weight for about 3x the cost but the batteries will last 10+ years.

The main downside is a lower energy density than NMC which seems to be getting better I believe its about 20% less kWh/kg at this point. No nickel or cobalt is another advantage, iron is plentiful.

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