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Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

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Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#61

Post by DoktorL »

Electric scooters and such do create a new danger that didn't exist before: they let (indeed, encourage) you to take the hazardous part (the battery) inside an apartment to "refuel". An equivalent would be bringing a gas-driven moped into your place which is against the rules in many places, and why would you do it anyway.

As such, it's important to take all possible reasonable steps to mitigate the risk. Those vehicles are still great overall, if only because, between air quality problems and exacerbated extreme weather events, fossil fuels cause deaths, injuries and property damage just through their normal usage. But the danger is there, and needs to be considered.

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#62

Post by froh »

itsoktocry wrote: post #2

Does this article extinguish anything? What does "per 100,000 sold" mean? Is that simply per 100,000 cars? This metric makes no sense unless you age-adjust vehicles; most EVs are And dismissing firefighters lack of knowledge and training and equipment to put out these fires is strange. It will be overcome, but it's a legitimate issue.

ICE vehicles have an average ge of about 11 years most (80%) of the cars are younger than 20years. older than that is the exception, not "all the time"

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/123niq7/ag...

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#63

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

magicalhippo wrote: post #22

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] has…

> 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.

So wait, do the stats show that ICE cars are more likely to burn, or are they just older on average?

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#64

Post by magicalhippo »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #63
magicalhippo wrote: post #22

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] has…

> 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. So wait, do the stats show that ICE cars are more likely to burn, or are they just older on average?

The age distribution of our cars hasn't changed significantly[1] between 2016 and 2022.

However back in 2016, only about 4% of our cars were EVs[2]. So the 2016 car fire statistics is essentially just ICEs, which would include young ICE cars as well.

In 2022, around 20% of our cars were EVs. Given that the age of our cars has remained roughly the same, if EVs were as likely to catch fire as an average ICE in 2016, you'd expect[3] around 140-145 EV fires in 2022. Yet there were only 29.

Of course, that's assuming I did the math right.

[1]: https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/sq/10090898

[2]: https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/sq/10090899

[3]: 661 fires per 2.4M ICE cars in 2016 vs 564k EVs in 2022

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#65

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

magicalhippo wrote: post #64
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. So wait, do the stats show that ICE cars are more likely to burn, or are they just older on average?

The age distribution of our cars hasn't changed significantly[1] between 2016 and 2022. However back in 2016, only about 4% of our cars were EVs[2]. So the 2016 car fire statistics is essentially just ICEs, which would include young ICE cars as well. In 2022, around 20% of our cars were EVs. Given that the age of our cars has remained roughly the same, if EVs were as likely to catch fire as an average ICE in 2016, yo…

My point is that even if the overall age distribution is constant, you'd need EVs to work their way through the same lifespan before it came out the same. What we need to know is not the overall distribution, but the age distribution per ICEs and EVs. (Otherwise you end up in a situation where the overall age curve is constant, but EVs are the majority of the young part of the graph, which makes them look good because they're all young and the ICEs look worse because they average even older.)

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#66

Post by b112 »

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…

I think time will fix some of this, which of course doesn't counter what you're saying.

An example, how many decades of natural gas use were there, before we purposefully made it smelly? We've had more than a century of improvements to ICE cars, to learn how to make them safer. And even how to make safety systems and methods more cost effective. The issues with Pintos exploding upon being rear-ended, resulted of course in fixes, etc.

So I do wonder what will, eventually, come of battery tech. Say.. 40 years from now, or some such. I imagine it will be much, much safer. We certainly try to prevent such disasters, but it seems we're also commonly having an issue, people almost or sadly do die, and then we fix that problem.

Edit:

Googled, curious. Wow.

https://www.gasodorizer.com/gas-odorization-history/

New London School Explosion ... The explosion left behind a collapsed building, with as many as 295 deaths.

As a result of the disaster, the United States and Canada began regulating the use of odorants in gas.

This is the sad way it is, often. Everyone will say "Oh, it's fine!", sometimes with logic, sometimes with a desire to not accept the potential risk, thus feeling safer, and then a massive disaster occurs.

My guess would be some sort of global warming induced flooding event, with salt water, as a key for many cars at once going BOOM!

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#67

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

thebruce87m wrote: post #41
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #4

When statistics are presented on fires per car sold, does it account for car age? I'd assume that average ICE car catching on fire is older that average EV just by EV not existing when ICE was made

https://thedriven.io/2023/05/16/petrol-and-diesel-cars-20-ti... > Furthermore, fires in electric cars are declining. The MSB says the number of fires in electric cars has been around 20 a year over the last three years The number of fires should increase if age was a linear factor. Could be non linear of course.

> Furthermore, fires in electric cars are declining. The MSB says the number of fires in electric cars has been around 20 a year over the last three years, although the number of electric cars over that tie has almost doubled. Presumably, this is due to EV makers improving fire suppressing designs in newer models.

article directly says that there's an exploding growth of new vehicles, thus "average car" hasn't aged yet

I'm not arguing against EVs being more safe, I'm arguing against awful statistics of comparing "new EVs against aging ICE" while only saying "EV vs ICE"

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#68

Post by magicalhippo »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #65
magicalhippo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The age distribution of our cars hasn't changed significantly[1] between 2016 and 2022. However back in 2016, only about 4% of our cars were EVs[2]. So the 2016 car fire statistics is essentially just ICEs, which would include young ICE cars as well. In 2022, around 20% of our cars were EVs. Given that the age of our cars has remained roughly the same, if EVs were as likely to catch fire as an average ICE in 2016, yo…

My point is that even if the overall age distribution is constant, you'd need EVs to work their way through the same lifespan before it came out the same. What we need to know is not the overall distribution, but the age distribution per ICEs and EVs. (Otherwise you end up in a situation where the overall age curve is constant, but EVs are the majority of the young part of the graph, which makes them look good becaus…

Ah right, I think I get your point.

I tried finding the age distribution per power train, but the closest I could find was per brand, which isn't all that useful. Teslas is a decent proxy for EVs, being EV only and most popular for a long time, but not sure I can find a suitable, representative proxy brand for ICEs.

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#69

Post by thebruce87m »

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #67
thebruce87m wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://thedriven.io/2023/05/16/petrol-and-diesel-cars-20-ti... > Furthermore, fires in electric cars are declining. The MSB says the number of fires in electric cars has been around 20 a year over the last three years The number of fires should increase if age was a linear factor. Could be non linear of course.

> Furthermore, fires in electric cars are declining. The MSB says the number of fires in electric cars has been around 20 a year over the last three years, although the number of electric cars over that tie has almost doubled. Presumably, this is due to EV makers improving fire suppressing designs in newer models. article directly says that there's an exploding growth of new vehicles, thus "average car" hasn't aged y…

Every year the existing cars age by a year, and the number of cars has only grown, never declined. So you would think that the “20 a year” would increase with that if age was a linear factor, not stay stationary.

Re: Extinguishing the EV Battery Fire Hype

#70

Post by _ea1k »

lunias wrote: post #59
Tagbert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same tow trucks that would tow away vehicles after a crash would tow an EV to an impoundment yard where it could be monitored.

You tow it away while it's on fire? I'm wondering if that's even possible. You can spray the vehicle w/ foam and then cover it and then maybe you could move it w/o reignition? Seems kinda risky / might require enclosed tow trucks w/ on board fire suppression? Then there's the question of where you put them once you move them. It's my understanding that they basically need to be allowed to burn (off gassing toxic chem…

Gotta put them out first. But they really don't have to be that far away from other vehicles.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/20/23691743/ford-f-150-light...

The cars next to it were ignited, but nothing on the next aisle. Probably 10 feet is enough?

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