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Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

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Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#21

Post by fragmede »

sanderjd wrote: post #13
bob1029 wrote: post #8

You'll never catch me with a lithium ion battery larger than ~150wH inside my home. I don't care how aggressively the statistics are massaged. I've personally experienced laptop and cellphone batteries catching on fire and can see how something with 100x+ the capacity could cause some serious fucking trouble. Anyone who has one of those 1kWh+ emergency power backup things sitting inside their house right now really n…

> But I think it is much less likely to occur You think . The point of gathering data and studying it is to attempt to replace our animal-brain intuitions with real evidence. I honestly haven't looked into the evidence on this enough either way, since I haven't yet seriously researched purchasing an electric vehicle. But I know that I have a big tank of gasoline sitting directly underneath a portion of my childrens'…

It's worse than that! You (well, I'm guessing, I don't actually know you) have this wire just bringing foreign ideas, and crazy people's written thoughts, from all over the world, and you pipe them straight into your brain, with no helmet on. And this happens right next to your kids! You're a mad man!

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#22

Post by magicalhippo »

Here in Norway we have a relatively high ratio of EVs on the road, and has had so for many years now.

As such there's some decent statistics showing that it's much more likely for an ICE car to start burning than an EV[1][2], up to 4-5x.

Our EVs are on average newer, for the last few years the majority of sales have been EVs. As such our ICEs are on average older. Interestingly the number of cars catching fire[3] hasn't increased substantially since 2016. The number of EVs catching fire has doubled since then, but the number of EVs on the road has gone up 5x[4].

Here in Norway new EVs no longer come with the "emergency charger" that hooks up to a regular 220V socket, as charging using regular sockets has been identified as a potential fire hazard.

[1]: https://www.motor.no/aktuelt/elbiler-brenner-langt-sjeldnere...

[2]: https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/myten-som-nekter-a-do/7821704...

[3]: https://www.brannstatistikk.no/brus-ui/search?searchId=9B135...

[4]: https://www.ssb.no/statbank/sq/10090893

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#23

Post by zdragnar »

DannyBee wrote: post #20
derbOac wrote: post #6

My impression is that the concern with EV and battery fires is that they can occur in the home or while otherwise stationary, unexpectedly causing much more catastrophic damage. ICE fires, in contrast, seem to be mostly associated with collisions, or somewhat less so with driving; it seems uncommon for ICEs to suddenly catch fire in an enclosed building. e.g., https://www.jstor.org/stable/44631649 I'm not an expert o…

ICE fires occur in stationary as well. It's just that we have learned to handle gas better over the years. I otherwise agree, but it's complicated because while what you say in the first sentence is true, it was true for ICE at one point too. So for example, this is why gas containers have pressure releases, etc. I mean, for an ICE vehicle you go to a gas station and fill it up. It's hard these days to think about ho…

This is a lot of words to say that EVs are currently more dangerous than ICE vehicles to park in a garage.

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#24

Post by ThinkBeat »

I think the article is grossly misrepresenting the dangers from lithium battery fires in other places than cars. Especially about escooters and bikes as well as air travel.

There is statistically one fire a week on passenger aircrafts in the US now. ⁽¹⁾⁽² ⁾ New York City is trying to deal with a large number of fires started by ebikes og escooters. ⁽³⁾⁽⁴⁾

To dismiss this problem by finding a fire that happened in Vietnam that was incorrectly attributed seems quite biased.

When it comes to the stats for cars, they are probably correct but somewhat misguided. Most electric cars are pretty new, a large percentage are nearly brand news.

To compare them to the entire fleet of fossile fueled car fires is a bit unfair. I think if you compare all new and brand new combustion engine fires the stats would look different.

May well be much higher for combustion engines, I dont know, but the comparisons used in the article are in my opinion biased.

¹ https://explore.dot.gov/t/FAA/views/LithiumBatteries/Inciden...

² https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2023/03/03... ³ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/nyregion/e-bike-lithium-b... ⁴ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/22/ebike-batter...

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#25

Post by Kirby64 »

dataflow wrote: post #18
vel0city wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE fires aren't often related to collisions. I've seen a neighbor's house burn down due to a car that had been parked in their garage for hours combusting. I've had multiple ICE cars recalled for catching fire when stopped. In the examples in the articles they mentioned vehicles in parking garages and on cargo ships, those weren't moving. Your general impressions don't reflect reality. Out of all the cars I've owned…

> I've seen a neighbor's house burn down due to a car that had been parked in their garage for hours combusting The ICE car combusted while the engine wasn't running? Like, it was parked, they'd turned off the car as usual, and hours later it randomly combusted? Do you have any information on what the likely cause may have been? (e.g., hot weather? unexpected sparks?)

Yes. Usually it's related to some sort of electrical fire that occurs when the vehicle is off, that catches fluids (brake fluid, gas, etc) on fire, although a big enough regular electrical fire can do it too.

Here's an article on a recall Hyundai/Kia are going through right now: https://fortune.com/2023/09/27/hyundai-kia-recall-nearly-3-4...

They're recommending you park the vehicles outside and away from structures.

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#26

Post by XorNot »

dataflow wrote: post #18
vel0city wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE fires aren't often related to collisions. I've seen a neighbor's house burn down due to a car that had been parked in their garage for hours combusting. I've had multiple ICE cars recalled for catching fire when stopped. In the examples in the articles they mentioned vehicles in parking garages and on cargo ships, those weren't moving. Your general impressions don't reflect reality. Out of all the cars I've owned…

> I've seen a neighbor's house burn down due to a car that had been parked in their garage for hours combusting The ICE car combusted while the engine wasn't running? Like, it was parked, they'd turned off the car as usual, and hours later it randomly combusted? Do you have any information on what the likely cause may have been? (e.g., hot weather? unexpected sparks?)

There's an entire 12V electrical system which stays active. There's also rubber and plastic parts, possible contaminants, a bevy of additives...plenty of interesting chemistry which normally does nothing but in the right sequence of unlikely events leads to an ignition.

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#27

Post by dataflow »

Kirby64 wrote: post #25
dataflow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen a neighbor's house burn down due to a car that had been parked in their garage for hours combusting The ICE car combusted while the engine wasn't running? Like, it was parked, they'd turned off the car as usual, and hours later it randomly combusted? Do you have any information on what the likely cause may have been? (e.g., hot weather? unexpected sparks?)

Yes. Usually it's related to some sort of electrical fire that occurs when the vehicle is off, that catches fluids (brake fluid, gas, etc) on fire, although a big enough regular electrical fire can do it too. Here's an article on a recall Hyundai/Kia are going through right now: https://fortune.com/2023/09/27/hyundai-kia-recall-nearly-3-4... They're recommending you park the vehicles outside and away from structures.

Fascinating, thanks.

> the anti-lock brake control module can leak fluid and cause an electrical short, which can touch off a fire while the vehicles are parked or being driven.

> [...] Dealers will replace the anti-lock brake fuse at no cost to owners.

How can replacing a "fuse" prevent fluid leakage?!

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#28

Post by zelon88 »

How can you have an article about battery combustion without talking about the chemistry?

A gasoline fire is a well understood event. Gas ignites and burns until there is no more fuel, or no more air. We know to extinguish this type of fire, we need to remove the air. Once the reaction has stopped, it would need another fresh ignition source to reignite.

A lithium fire is, on the other hand, is almost completely misunderstood by most people. It is a chemical chain reaction. It it an uncontrollable state in which the lithium becomes so hot that it perpetuates it's own combustion. You can remove the oxygen, but that's not the chemical that's keeping this reaction going. So the reaction will not stop. The lithium will keep heating itself, which will cause that heated lithium to heat more lithium, which heats more lithium, until there is no more lithium remaining.

It is disingenuous to compare apples to oranges like what is being done by comparing ICE car fires to EV car fires.

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#29

Post by dataflow »

XorNot wrote: post #26
dataflow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen a neighbor's house burn down due to a car that had been parked in their garage for hours combusting The ICE car combusted while the engine wasn't running? Like, it was parked, they'd turned off the car as usual, and hours later it randomly combusted? Do you have any information on what the likely cause may have been? (e.g., hot weather? unexpected sparks?)

There's an entire 12V electrical system which stays active. There's also rubber and plastic parts, possible contaminants, a bevy of additives...plenty of interesting chemistry which normally does nothing but in the right sequence of unlikely events leads to an ignition.

> There's an entire 12V electrical system which stays active. [...]

I'm not that illiterate about cars or basic physics. I was trying to figure out what actually went wrong in their situation. Because I'd never heard of any specific cases of these actually happening. Previously these sounded incredibly less likely to me than what I'm now discovering here.

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#30

Post by vel0city »

dataflow wrote: post #27
Kirby64 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Usually it's related to some sort of electrical fire that occurs when the vehicle is off, that catches fluids (brake fluid, gas, etc) on fire, although a big enough regular electrical fire can do it too. Here's an article on a recall Hyundai/Kia are going through right now: https://fortune.com/2023/09/27/hyundai-kia-recall-nearly-3-4... They're recommending you park the vehicles outside and away from structures.

Fascinating, thanks. > the anti-lock brake control module can leak fluid and cause an electrical short, which can touch off a fire while the vehicles are parked or being driven. > [...] Dealers will replace the anti-lock brake fuse at no cost to owners. How can replacing a "fuse" prevent fluid leakage?!

Sizing the fuse to be smaller means the fuse will blow faster at the short before the wires in the puddle of brake fluid get hot enough to start the fire. Chances are the fuze was oversized to begin with.
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