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After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

ctinsider.com

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Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#61

Post by cptskippy »

ThePadawan wrote: post #14
GiorgioG wrote: post #7

As much progress has been made in EVs, I have no interest in sitting atop of a napalm bomb while zipping around town. There's a few problems that keep me from being remotely interested in EVs, this is one of them. The others are range anxiety, energy storage portability and battery replacement costs. If I run out of gas on the side of the highway, I call AAA and they can deliver me a couple of gallons of gas or I can…

(I'm not a driver, but I learned about this in German driving school) > If I run out of gas on the side of the highway, I call AAA and they can deliver me a couple of gallons of gas or I can walk to a gas station. If your EV runs out of juice, you have to have it towed to a charging station. AFAICT, if your diesel car runs out of fuel (completely), it also needs to get towed, maybe even to a garage to get serviced.

Fuel injectors, filters, and pumps in unleaded cars can also be damaged when the vehicle runs out of gas. I believe fuel injectors are always damaged when run dry but not necessarily to the point of failure.

Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#62

Post by starkd »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #12
GiorgioG wrote: post #7

As much progress has been made in EVs, I have no interest in sitting atop of a napalm bomb while zipping around town. There's a few problems that keep me from being remotely interested in EVs, this is one of them. The others are range anxiety, energy storage portability and battery replacement costs. If I run out of gas on the side of the highway, I call AAA and they can deliver me a couple of gallons of gas or I can…

The napalm bomb you're speaking of is made of gasoline. Which is in most cars and vehicles on the road. So you're less afraid of something designed to catch fire and explode (gas) than something that is designed to operate safely at it's core (batteries)? That just doesn't make sense. Other than being afraid of new technology. And that's totally ok. Its fine to say you don't like change or new technologies. There is…

But ICE engines have had over 100 years of continuous testing and deployment on a mass scale. The risks and dangers are fairly well known now. EV's lag far behind that. Perhaps they should be deployed in smaller passenger vehicles before attempting trucks and buses.

Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#63

Post by cptskippy »

GiorgioG wrote: post #7

As much progress has been made in EVs, I have no interest in sitting atop of a napalm bomb while zipping around town. There's a few problems that keep me from being remotely interested in EVs, this is one of them. The others are range anxiety, energy storage portability and battery replacement costs. If I run out of gas on the side of the highway, I call AAA and they can deliver me a couple of gallons of gas or I can…

Pretty much everything you've outlined is an irrational fear.

ICEVs catch fire a lot, it's just not reported because it's not news.

https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-st...

> The others are range anxiety, energy storage portability and battery replacement costs.

Unless you frequently take long road trips, range anxiety isn't a thing for 200+ mile EVs. Batteries in EVs are currently warrantied for mileage far beyond the distances that most ICE owners drive their cars during it's usable life.

The horror stories you hear about people having to pay to replace batteries are usually because they failed to do something like have proper insurance.

> If I run out of gas on the side of the highway

Do you often run out of gas on the side of the highway and need AAA to deliver you gas? I have never in my life run out of gas.

Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#64

Post by velcrohacker »

starkd wrote: post #60
ShakataGaNai wrote: post #19

While this is unfortunate to have happened, this says more about CT being smart and having an over abundance of caution, than lack of faith in a technology. BART, which has been running for 50 years recently [1] had an issue with the heat that caused a train to derail. For several days that section of track was totally shut down. For weeks afterwards they ran the trains at an extremely low speed through the miles of…

Yes. Good thing to ground them, but it also shows these vehicles are not ready. Even if its an act of sabotoge, like someone shooting at the battery. It would not happen with a regular diesel bus.

Umm, it did. In CT. Last month. https://archive.ph/FZ2wv

Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#65

Post by velcrohacker »

jeffbee wrote: post #31

Battery buses are a solution ahead of their time. Any old bus is better than car-based transportation, so shifting modes from car to bus is more important than changing the energy source of the bus. If shifting from car to bus is impossible because of built environment, that's the first priority. Buses powered by batteries should be way down at the end of the TODO list. If you absolutely insist on having buses that a…

Any sources to support the claim that fuel cells are more mature?

Looking at another aspect, how many hydrogen generation facilities are there in CT, vs. facilities that can charge an electric bus?

Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#66

Post by sofixa »

akgerber wrote: post #33
billyo wrote: post #28

We need more electric trolley busses. These battery powered ones are nonsense

Modern trolleybuses with in-motion charging, like Dayton's latest models, will still have substantial batteries for off-wire operation.

Even then, a much lower capacity is required if the trolley bus will spend the majority of it's lifecycle on a catenary.

Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#67

Post by bragr »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #10
bragr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not really true. There are tools and agents to address lithium fires, but you have to have them. If you just try to put them out with water, you're going to be there all night fighting reignition.

Please don’t leave us in suspense: what are these tools and agents? Got a link?

Lithium fires are considered class B so any chemical agent such as found in any standard ABC or dry chemical fire extinguisher would be sufficient. As for tools, there's stuff that can be used to pierce the battery case and inject water or agents directly into the battery.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/11/new-firefighting-tool-d...

Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#69

Post by sleepybrett »

billyo wrote: post #26

We need more electric trolley busses. This whole battery nonsense is ridiculous

Seattle has a great many of them but the lines for them to run on only exist in certain place, granted they are the densest places. But running that pair of electric lines everywhere is a big infrastructure project for any city.

Re: After bus fire, CT pulls electric fleet from service

#70

Post by bdamm »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #11
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #2

IMO this is an aspect of the shift to EV's that I don't hear all that many people talking about- is the gov giving enough resources/training to local emergency services providers to deal with these sorts of fires and the disposal of the EV materials after a fire. Totally surmountable, but I feel like I don't hear the federal gov talk about it much and instead the focus is on more chargers and tax credits to eliminate…

> is the gov giving enough resources/training to local emergency services providers to deal with these sorts of fires and the disposal of the EV materials after a fire. The main immediate threat is not disposal or even fire itself but the release of hydrogen fluoride _during_ a fire. You have to avoid airway and eye exposure at all cost with HF. This is probably the main difference in an EV emergency response as oppo…

Many models have a pyro fuse in the battery pack high voltage hook-up that blows when the airbags deploy. Also common is that if the 12V battery is disabled, the high voltage pack is also disabled. And many models simply disconnect the high voltage pack when in park (or soon thereafter).

So while you're right that there's not a common standard, the common reality is that the packs aren't dangerous in a crash. Regulation could push this just a little further and mandate pyro fuses in pack hookups, which would reduce the probability of electrocution to first responders and occupants to basically zero, since nobody would try to cut through the floor of the vehicle in an extraction (where the pack cells are, and the most dangerous part when it comes to randomly cutting cross sections.)

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