Is It Safe to Ship Thousands of Electric Cars on Big Ships? • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by FabHK » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:25 PM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #76

hutzlibu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that might be done at some point. So most shipments of cars are hazard free and cheap (to insure). And then you have high risk battery shipments. With lots of expensive measures to minimize risks and fail safe. (This is already today a thing, as you can ship items without batteries for less money.)

It is not clear to me, why it would be cheaper to ship the batteries separately. The car shipment might be theoretically cheaper, however it is much more difficult to ship cars which cannot drive. On the other side, you would have the increased risk for the battery shipment with the associated insurance costs. However, it is not obvious to me, that shipping electric cars is more risky. Actually all statistics point t…

And you would not want to place the batteries densely together, in case of fire. Maybe put a few of them in some metal container or so, to keep them apart. Then one could put wheels on that container to move them more easily, maybe even add an engine.

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

#112

Post by heavenlyblue » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:25 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #92

moffkalast wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ag…

With CPUs the growth was approximately 2x each 2 years which means that in 20 years it was approximately 1024 more powerful.

This is not happening with batteries ;)

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

#113

Post by cdiddy2 » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

iamhamm wrote: post #107

greenthrow wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fire isn’t the hazard we need to be concerned about for Lithium-ion, it’s the destructive mining and the subsequent hazmat disposal that should be worrying everyone. The lithium mining companies are filing claims all over my county and the proposed large scale excavation of extremely sensitive desert dry lake habitats is just disgusting. I’m no fan of oil, but at least there you drill a hole and not remove a few cubi…

The issue I have with this is that if we aren't allowed to mine in the desert where there is one sensitive shrub, like Thacker Pass, then how are we ever supposed to mine anything ever again. It seems like the perfect place to mine with minimal destruction.

The other option is we never mine anything ever again and let countries with less environmental protections do the dirty work which is net worse for the environment.

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

#114

Post by fy20 » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #52

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #9

They say not securing the cars properly can cause impacts that cause fire. But these cars are impact tested for passenger safety. The only vulnerability for the battery pack will be a bottom impact which should not occur on Roll on-Roll Off Carrier. Ships do need to adapt their firefighting process for Lithium-Ion batteries. But I'm not convinced about impacts causing fire.

There's a couple videos on YouTube of vehicles on a carrier ship where the vehicles are bash around a fiar bit beyond what might happen in a passenger safety impact test. This one shows the result of a ship passing nearby a Category 3 hurricane and teh aftermath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7EqGzO_qsc

I'm surprised they aren't strapped down like on a tow truck. That would prevent the majority of issues.

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

#115

Post by willis936 » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

cdiddy2 wrote: post #113

iamhamm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fire isn’t the hazard we need to be concerned about for Lithium-ion, it’s the destructive mining and the subsequent hazmat disposal that should be worrying everyone. The lithium mining companies are filing claims all over my county and the proposed large scale excavation of extremely sensitive desert dry lake habitats is just disgusting. I’m no fan of oil, but at least there you drill a hole and not remove a few cubi…

The issue I have with this is that if we aren't allowed to mine in the desert where there is one sensitive shrub, like Thacker Pass, then how are we ever supposed to mine anything ever again. It seems like the perfect place to mine with minimal destruction. The other option is we never mine anything ever again and let countries with less environmental protections do the dirty work which is net worse for the environme…

Oh you can mine lithium, just Not In My BackYard.

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

#116

Post by torpfactory » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

iamhamm wrote: post #107

greenthrow wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fire isn’t the hazard we need to be concerned about for Lithium-ion, it’s the destructive mining and the subsequent hazmat disposal that should be worrying everyone. The lithium mining companies are filing claims all over my county and the proposed large scale excavation of extremely sensitive desert dry lake habitats is just disgusting. I’m no fan of oil, but at least there you drill a hole and not remove a few cubi…

You kind of have to choose what sort of destruction you want: either you can have marginally more mining for the minerals required for battery production or you can have ecosystem wide damage due to further global warming. There is no free lunch.

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

#117

Post by SigmundA » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #104

SigmundA wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> No nickel or cobalt is another advantage, iron in plentiful. Nickel is a problem but you might be surprised to know that cobalt is fairly plentiful. The issue is it doesn't have a whole lot of industry usage outside of batteries. That's why it's a human rights problem. Instead of mining it locally we use small time mining operations with cheap (often child) labor. In other words, the amounts needed to meet global d…

Nickel is more abundant than cobalt in the earths crust and most cobalt comes as a byproduct of nickel or copper mining:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...

https://www.globalenergymetals.com/cobalt/cobalt-supply/

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

#118

Post by iamhamm » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:55 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #115

cdiddy2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue I have with this is that if we aren't allowed to mine in the desert where there is one sensitive shrub, like Thacker Pass, then how are we ever supposed to mine anything ever again. It seems like the perfect place to mine with minimal destruction. The other option is we never mine anything ever again and let countries with less environmental protections do the dirty work which is net worse for the environme…

Oh you can mine lithium, just Not In My BackYard.

The NIMBY question is a legitimate social one to solve. It’s easy to sit and say that, but if you were facing a giant pit, dust problems, and leaking toxic mine tailings in your literal backyard, as I am, you might find yourself with a different point of view on the utility of it. It’s also possible you can truly look past that and accept it, I don’t know, but in my case this is the equivalent of bulldozing a favorite city park because corporate interests in the supply chain need to build batteries. Maybe it needs to happen, I don’t know, but I’ll tell you it’s a bitter pill to swallow and one that doesn’t come with much empathy from the folks calling for bulldozing my backyard for their benefit.

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

#119

Post by jacquesm » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

Battery quality in consumer electronics is horrible and it's a small miracle that there aren't many more fires. The things I've come across while servicing/disassembling/rebuilding e-bike batteries would set your hair on end. More than one wire that simply evaporated inside the casing and fortunately did not set off some kind of chain reaction. Balance wires crossing and recrossing, having their insulation eaten away by vibration. Single cell fires that miraculously did not spread to the cells around them.

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

#120

Post by willis936 » Sat, May 14, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

iamhamm wrote: post #118

willis936 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh you can mine lithium, just Not In My BackYard.

The NIMBY question is a legitimate social one to solve. It’s easy to sit and say that, but if you were facing a giant pit, dust problems, and leaking toxic mine tailings in your literal backyard, as I am, you might find yourself with a different point of view on the utility of it. It’s also possible you can truly look past that and accept it, I don’t know, but in my case this is the equivalent of bulldozing a favorit…

You're right that it's not a simple problem. Individuals face consequences for decisions made by people with no stake. On the whole though, mining done in a well-regulated country with accountability and citizens with a means to environmental justice is better than mining done in countries where you get your lot and die of lead poisoning at 40.