Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t observa; Orbital space vehicle re-entry grade fireproofing technology is being deployed to prevent Electric Vehicle batteries from creating another Felicity Ace disaster. My question – when are fire blankets going to be provided to EV owners?
EV fires become hot issue
Maritime operators wrestling with solutions to EV fires as another car carrier burns
By John Mellor on 26th February 2022
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The cars on the ship burned with such intensity that parts of the hull above the waterline melted.
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According to data provided to Australian fire fighting services, these burning batteries reach temperatures of more than 2700 degrees celsius!
This latest fire on the Felicity Ace is the fourth since, in 2019, the Grande America, a roll-on roll-off vessel with more than 2000 new and used vehicles on board, sank in the Bay of Biscay after the cars ignited. The crew of 26 tried to combat the fire but, within hours, the heat was so intense that it weakened the structural integrity of the ship’s bulkheads and hull. There was little that any of the crew members could do but to abandon ship.
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As the industry searches for answers, some operators of car carriers are no longer accepting used EVs and some are also banning accident-damaged used EVs.
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One possible solution would be to cover each EV with a special fire-proof blanket at the time an EV is being loaded and tied down to the car deck.
These would have the fire retardant qualities along the lines of those used by Bridgehill car fire blankets which in normal use are unfolded and dragged over burning cars thus containing the fire under the cover.
Some car carriers and ferry operators have already begun equipping their vessels with these blankets.
The blankets are made from similar material to that used on space vehicles to protect them from the intense heat generated on re-entry into earth’s atmosphere.
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Read more: https://premium.goauto.com.au/ev-fires-become-hot-issue/
I have to admit I made a mistake in previous articles. I thought electric vehicle fires burned at around 2700F (1500C), but if this article is correct, the actual temperature is more like 4900F (2700C).
What house building material can withstand large fire emitting heat of that magnitude? Just looking at a fire that hot can injure your eyes, let alone trying to fight it.
Now that maritime transport companies have noticed the catastrophic risk of transporting EVs by ship, surely it is only a matter of time until home insurance companies wake up to the catastrophic fire risk of owning an EV.
Chinese video of an e-scooter catching fire, and burning with a white hot flame. An EV battery is much larger than a scooter battery.
EV’s are a hot subject right now….
Hahahaha
Sales are on fire
Really, electric scooters are a blast, even to ride.
A battery of jokes like this will get you fired by EV manufacturers.
Come to Florida’s Withlacoochee SP bike trail. Perhaps half of the many cycles on the trail are electric, and their riders are undisciplined obese porkers.
Recently I noted a covey from The Villages nearby, of high end $10K HPV go-fast recumbent trikes but equipped with electric motors – and shrieking grannies. Arrrgh!
Bingo. Still remember the first time encountered an e-bike a number of years ago, the idiot crossed in front and almost crashed me.
Then there are those electric “skateboards” with the wide single tire, these people are absolutely insane zipping around at 25+ mph.
In The Weekend Australia newspaper special EV section last weekend the EV fan club suggested ways to make EV worthwhile, like using them as a battery reserve of energy for use when homes are experiencing electricity supply problems.
Are they acknowledging at long last that the transition to unreliable wind and solar energy is heading towards an electricity grid disaster?
I think the new F-150 has an option that will let it act as a home generator.
Wonder how their capacity compares to the demand of a typical home.
Yes, it will. Ford has an all-electric F-150, and a hybrid F-150 that can be connected to a house’s electricity input and power the house.
I’m tempted to get one of the hybrids.
I would prefer the hybrid in an emergency since it will produce electricity as long as one puts gasoline in it, where an all-electric would eventually run out of electricity unless recharged, which might be problematic in a power outage.
It’s much cheaper and easier to buy a small generator. My F350 has an inverter on it, it comes in handy sometimes, but using it for even an hour costs about 6 bucks, and having a truck idle in the driveway is annoying. In contrast, a small Honda generator can produce 500 watts more output for the same hour for about a $1.50, and it’s pretty much silent.
I have two small generators and connect them together when I need more wattage. But still a pretty cheap backup.
“pretty much” silent?? Seems like an oxymoron… What wattage can this small Honda generator produce on a continuous basis, how long before it needs to be refilled, and what’s its decibel rating? Is it really quieter than an idling truck?
I’ve looked on and off for a portable generator equipped for tri-fuel, or even dual-fuel use, but it seems these are scarcer than hens’ teeth here in Canada since NAFTA. Even diesel or propane only generators are practically inaccessible up here.
Either of the latter two fuels would be preferable for any multi-day power outage, since many jurisdictions strictly limit the amount of gasoline one is allowed to store on a property, while bulk storage allowance of propane and diesel is relatively generous.
I read the electric F-150 can provide an average house power for three days.
So long as you don’t use the AC, heat pump, washer/dryer, dish washer or any other major appliance.
The fire blankets they’re referring to are made from ceramic fiber or Nomex often in combination. Such blankets work by smothering the fire by limiting oxygen while protecting surroundings by insulating and limiting radiant heating and ignition. I doubt they’d do much good with a Lithium Ion battery fire and they’d probably disintegrate after the first couple hours exposure. On a ship their use on an EV fire might just result in a deck melt down a la a mini- China Syndrome.
The video from earlier said they’re made from woven silica fibers that can handle temperatures over 2000F. They might only contain splatter and shrapnel but that’s better than nothing.
I had a Hispanic technician once who said that making him wear Nomex was discriminatory. He had a good sense of humor.
Watch out! Asbestos will make a comeback,,,Johns-Manville, where are you?
Yes, a new feature of the 21st Century home. Garage is 100% asbestos lined!
To test it properly you would have to use a car and not just a small sample.
Just pray that the deck isn’t also the hull.
A fire blanket might be useful if an internal combustion-engined car caught fire. They could use it to stop the spread of the fire to electric vehicles nearby, possibly.
I don’t see a cure for when an electric vehicle catches fire on a ship.
We get many posts and comments on posts here on the safety hazards of electric vehicles and lithium battery fires. It strikes me that many people here actually hope for failure of electric vehicles in order to spite the climate alarmists. I see no point in wishing for failure of anything all depending of course on some kind of cost benefit analysis. However, the concerns about battery fires are overloaded on the side of their unique fire hazard problem, which would be a cost in the cost benefit analysis. I am not expert in this in any way, but without that I can still observe the following:
Sounds like that big tobacco list again…….
Ever notice how those who are desperate to sing the virtues of electric cars always impugn the motives of those who point out the very visible problems with electric cars.
Similar reaction to wind and solar energy unreliables.
Only salesmen tout PV, windmills and EV.
I see Battelle is a completely unbiased source of information on batteries.
Ev fires make headlines because they are catastrophic and almost impossible to put out and off gas incredibly hazardous materials.
It is only a matter of time until one of these ship fires occurs in a multistory building and a bunch of people die.
Then there will be lots of wailing about why wasn’t this publicized which of course we know the answer to
Oh, there will be publicity when it happens. Heard much about the Grenfell Tower disaster lately?
The Green memory hole is very deep, and very dark.
#3: Like the FDA would never approve a dangerous drug?
#4: The Search for the Magic Battery continues…
The EV manufacturers are just gong to have to ask for the same liability waivers that government gave the vaccine manufacturers.
And the windmill builders.
EVs need to pay a “gas” tax. Eff the rich.
Australia governments have already warned that a road use tax to recover fuel tax that EV owners do not pay is being prepared.
However, are EV less expensive to own and operate than an equivalent ICEV, from accounting studies I have read the answer is no. That calculation taking all cost into account including the difference in retail price and break even point years after purchase. Add road use tax in the not distant future, depending on registration numbers of EV, and the break even point will obviously be longer.
The Eastern States grid barely survives summer how in hell do they think you would handle charging all cars on the road as well 🙂
Between lack of sufficient power and the horrendous environmental damage from mining and processing the materials needed to make an EV – governments will suddenly realize we can’t all have vehicles. Ownership will be restricted to ‘elites’.
Even though the overall market penetration is still small, there is apparently a high level of acceptance of electric vehicles among consumers.
Not sure if this is just a poor choice of words, but to me it roughly translates as ‘even though everyone is eating their desert, there is still cake’.
If the acceptance is high, then why is the market small?
I did a quick ‘Independent Fact Chat’ and not only have I now banned you from Facebook, but http://www.iea.org seem to suggest that there are 10million electric cars (not sure if this is hybrids or pure EV, it was a quick check) and they make up approx ONE percent of the global car stock.
So… quick maths… 990 million non electric cars in the world?
You see, Craig, there is also a high acceptance of Ferraris, even though their market penetration remains low.
Anyway, I think “acceptance” in this context means, people no longer think that EVs are a silly pipe dream. Although, as profit-making capitalist ventures, they probably are. I don’t understand why so many people (including the directors of companies that manufacture cars that they can sell at a profit) believe that EVs will ever transplant ICE cars. When you buy an EV, you pay a huge premium in upfront price for a car that is nowhere nearly as reliable and convenient as a comparable ICE car. My guess: Almost all owners of EVs have second, ICE cars that they can actually use without the obvious recharging hassles and range limitations inherent in operating an EV.
What’s the evidence EVs are less reliable than IC ones? I’ve read the opposite; far fewer moving parts = greater mechanical reliability. I suppose they’re possibly more complex electronically than IC vehicles, but the general trend for the latter seems to be ever-increasing complexity in that department too.
They don’t yet make economic sense for most people, particularly in the US where people routinely drive very long distances. But if their costs keep dropping we’ll continue to see greater uptake.
The only place where costs are dropping, are those places where subsidies are increasing.
I’ve seen a lot of EV enthusiasts claim that EV’s must be more reliable because they have fewer moving parts, however most ICE’s last well over 100,000 miles. I’d love to see how many EV’s are still on their original battery after 20 years.
Rather shocked to see on eBay (UK sales on line) that a replacement battery for a Nissan Leaf costs £9999 and is marked ‘used’
“ICE’s last well over 100,000 miles” If i own an ICE vehicle and it does not get 200,000 + mile I would call it a pile of junk. My last one went 235,000 had I minor problem but I was on the road and could not wait for the part so I bought a used one on the lot 9 years newer. I had 1984 Chevrolet Nova(Toyota Corolla) that I dove to the junk yard at 405,000 miles. Body cancer was its demise.
I just filled my Income Tax. There’s a special tax credit for an EV.
Subsidies.
Wasn’t there a post here a year or so ago about a Pinwheel Farm in Germany being leveled by the owners because one the subsidies ran out, they couldn’t make a profit?
Regulations.
I remember a story where car companies were required in California to sell a certain number of EV’s or they couldn’t sell ICEs. One company (VW?) sold them there just above cost so they could sell real cars.
The IEA thinks that the world could face lithium and cobalt shortages as early as 2025. EVs are not going to be dropping in cost by much for the foreseeable future.
They also consume about 500 pounds of copper !!!!
Hello, Observer. EVs are grotesquely less reliable than ICE cars. I live in in a city in Canada. You can drive an ICE car 1000 miles straight north from the city where I live, in the winter,and have no worries about being able to refuel it along the way. You can’t do that with a 100 thousand dollar Tesla.
“If these costs keep dropping?” The costs must drop until EVs are equal in cost to ICE cars. This is impossible. In Canada, 70 percent of vehicles on the road were bought used. In Canada, you can buy a reliable, insurable, safety-inspected ICE car for $5000. Even less, if you hunt around and buy from a private buyer. The cheapest electric car available in my city is $40,000, and it has to be shipped from another city. It would have a charging range of less than 150 miles.
The New South Wales State Government introduced a substantial A$ millions of EV incentive rebate on retail prices to attract more buyers, the latest report revealed that only a small portion of the monies set aside have been claimed, EV sales well behind forecast sales.
During 2016 The Australian Federal Government set aside A$300 million for fleet leasing firms to use to attract fleet operators to switch to EV, I understand that most of the EV’s on our roads are company fleet vehicles including government fleets but even so the numbers are quite low six years later.
An explanation might be that senior company executives are often or mostly provided with a remuneration package and they can choose the components: eg a company vehicle of the executive’s choice but the cost is deducted from the package, in other words taxable salary component can be higher or lower depending on the package chosen.
Your numbers are out a bit.
The IEA published a commentary on EVs late January 2022 which estimated there were now 16m EVs on the road worldwide. This compares to a total number of ICEVs of over 1.4 billion the overwhelming majority of which will be cars.
They noted that the price of lithium carbonate for the EV batteries rose by 150% in 2021 alone. As more and more EVs are built that price is only going to go in one direction. They also said the world faces potential shortages of lithium, and also cobalt. as early as 2025
Interestingly, in Japan EV sales barely increased with the market share remaining below 1% for the last 3 years.
The idea that everyone will soon be using EVs is a pipe-dream.
https://www.iea.org/commentaries/electric-cars-fend-off-supply-challenge-to-more-than-double-global-sales?utm
I got to thinking about your claim that WUWT readers are actually rooting for vehicle fires. This is wrong. I’m hoping for wind turbine fires. I wish they’d all burn up.
For many of those, the setbacks from flammables in the environment aren’t enough. Particularly if they light up when there is a wind.
Wind turbines appear to be sending Siemens Power up in smoke. If it wasn’t for the profits made in the coal and gas electric generating segment, they’re bankrupt.
Surely Russia and China will soon stop using fossil fuelled power stations and swap over to unreliable energy wind and solar plus back up equipment?
/sarc.
I like the collapsing ones, like South Wales. More please.
If they EV’s were better than the competition and didn’t have to be forced on the population then no-one would care. It is the greentard attempts to ban ICE vehicles and force us to use a less than second rate option that gets up the nose.
I’m not “rooting” for lithium battery fires. But they happen and you rarely see them reported.
2# When the government keeps increasing mpg/kpl requirements for ICE vehicles, while also providing subsidies for EV purchases, you can see why manufacturers might start making more EVs.
4# I believe EVs have been around just as long as ICE vehicles , if not longer, so i guess we can also deduce that ICE are in their infancy and will all make improvements.
It will be a while, but the law of unintended consequences is going to bite the greens on the backside. They are going to push the cost of ICE vehicles at least as high as EVs. Many will be priced out of the new car market.
The consequence will be that the average age of a vehicle on the road will start going up. They will not have the latest fuel-saving features, pollution control devices, or even safety features. The number of oil-burners will increase, and clean emission cars, decrease. People in the lower economic brackets will buy an EV with a bad battery for a cheap price, and figure out how to replace the electric motor with an internal combustion engine. Don’t underestimate what some people can do with junkyard parts.
In the final analysis, air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions will increase.
So you’re saying they are safe and effective.
De je vu all over again.
You’re in denial if you don’t understand the clear emerging threat to property and life as we amass ever more incendiary lithium batteries in close proximity to each other but I’ll let the lawyers explain it to you-
EV fires: what the lawyers say (goauto.com.au)
I live in a single storey detached double brick dwelling with our cars in an attached UMR carport and we sleep at the opposite side of said home with smoke detectors. We’ll be the last to be concerned about these future compulsory incendiary devices but I am aware many are not so fortunate with their living and car parking arrangements. The Felicity Ace demise is a loud and clear warning that more Grenfell Towers await the deniers aside from the increasing threat to grid stability-
World’s largest lithium-ion battery is down, again – pv magazine Australia (pv-magazine-australia.com)
The lithium battery fans had best hope the hydrogen hype comes to fruition unless they can solve the explosive lithium battery risk quick smart.
Hydrogen is possibly even more dangerous.
Liquid hydrocarbon fuels occupy a sort of sweet spot between ‘not very high energy per volume and too easy to explode’ and ‘great energy density, but almost impossible to burn’.
The solution to ICE, EV and Hydrogen vehicles is simple.
Wind-up cars!
You could even hire someone to ride in trunk and wind it up for you every few blocks.
More “Green” jobs!
If you want to be green: don’t by electric. It really is that simple.
“EV and battery technology is still in its infancy.“
Might be a good idea to let it mature before putting millions of EVs in peoples attached garages.
Just remember Grenfell Towers type people when all your future EVs are charging at night in the basement that it’s important to maintain your lithium incendiaries-
Warning about maintaining solar panel batteries after Adelaide house badly damaged in fire – ABC News
My taxes actually pay for this stuff 🙁
Actually EVs preceded IC engines.Nothing about electric motors has really changed in a hundred years apart from the use of electronics to control them.
As far as batteries go, they too are very mature technology.30 years plus on lithium, 150 years on batteries in principle,
Its all about tryimg to dress really old tech as new and modern.
Ecobollox
Sort of like using wind mills, alias Wind Turbines, to generate electricity.
Maybe the owners of EVs would feel safer and would be willing to sacrifice fewer miles per charge if they knew they knew NIMH batteries were in their vehicles, eh?
Or listen to Toyota doing the sums-
“According to our calculations, those 240,000 hybrids have had the same impact on reducing CO2 as approximately 72,000 BEVs,” he said.
“Yet the volume of batteries we’ve used to produce these hybrid-electric vehicles is the same as we’d need for just 3500 BEVs.
“In other words, we can say that the batteries needed for 3500 BEVs have been used to achieve the CO2 emissions reduction effect of 72,000 BEVs.
“It means that HEVs are an extremely effective way of reducing carbon emissions today – and doing so at a comparatively affordable price.”
Toyota defends hybrid car emissions – carsales.com.au
Bearing in mind with small batteries required for hybrids the added weight of safe NiMh is not an issue. So let’s all go NiMh hybrid to placate the plant food doomsters until such time as they can address the lithium incendiary dooming.
Lets all NOT, and screw the plant food doomsters.
“So let’s all go NiMh hybrid”
That’s what I would do if I were going to get a hybrid. I would want batteries that do not spontaneously combust like the ones Toyota uses.
I wonder if Toyota has a hybrid model that can power my house in a power outage emergency?
Electric cars are only 1 or 2% of all cars on the road. Electric cars are only a few years old while there are many ICE cars on the roads that are decades old.
Just pointing out that there aren’t many ICE fires is meaningless and and a good way to hide the truth.
Beyond that, ICE cars almost never catch fire spontaneously, and when they do it’s an electric fire, and ICE cars have electric systems as well.
All major companies have plans to convert to electric cars because all major governments are talking about banning ICE cars. You make it sound like the auto companies are converting to electrics because they want to.
I love it when people declare that something must be safe because the government wouldn’t permit it if it weren’t. It smells of either delusion or desperation.
Batteries are new and the risks are still being discovered.
PS, there are only two types of people who declare what the motives of others are psychics and prosecuting attorneys.
Didn’t actually read the article, Eric’s commentary or any of the comments, did you?
Just assume everybody here has malign views, then post.
Then you post utter tripe like “EV and battery technology is still in its infancy” and “Government agencies such as NHTSA would not allow the manufacture or continued manufacture of automobiles that presented an unacceptable level of risk or were generally unsafe”…
Batteries and EVs are not in their infancy! They are at their engineering pinnacles without room to move upward.
NHTSA is only watching. EVs are still a niche business. Fear of being labeled dangerous ahs car manufacturers bending over backward, as Chevy’s volt recall evidences.
When enough people are killed or maimed, NHTSA will act, not before.
What will destroy EV manufacturers far quicker are when insurance companies start paying out massive amounts of cash for EV combustion effects.
If Democrats are in control of the government, the NHTSA will NEVER act against GREEN causes.
agree, and may i add that the nhtsa will respond exactly as the climate jackals demand.
There was a day when ““Government agencies such as NHTSA”, EPA, DOJ, FBI, CDC, IRS, etc. were not politicized.
Those days are gone. The Dems have weaponized them.
If the EPA can declare CO2 a pollutant, NHTSA can declare EVs safe.
Modern societies have developed and achieved prosperity including increased average age based on medical advances because of free enterprise, consumers free to buy products and services that that they believe meet their expectations and needs.
Therefore, it makes no sense whatsoever for governments to provide incentives not offered to buyers of the most popular by far, as in 98 per cent of the motor vehicle global fleet, being ICEV. And to even penalising ICEV owners to force them into so far luxury car priced EV that cannot match the convenience of driving including range of ICEV. The most affordable EV models at least twice the price of an equivalent ICEV and that’s for vert small models, not family cars.
The globalist left call free enterprise “capitalism”, and have admitted (see Christiana Figureres – UN Official address in October 2015 just before the Paris Conference in France) they intend to replace.
All the excuses for potential EV inferno or exothermic reaction does not solve that problem.
In Australia EV must display a blue sticker on the front and rear registration number plates so that road traffic authorities understand what they are dealing with in the event of an accident, regardless of fire being immediately a problem, or not.
“There are millions of electric vehicles on the road now and millions more being sold every year.”
Last year 535,000 BEVs were sold in the US — 4% of the total new car market.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/14/evs-dominated-super-bowl-ads-but-only-9percent-of-passenger-car-sales.html
“there is apparently a high level of acceptance of electric vehicles among consumers.”
Yes, they are very fashionable among woke white liberal urban rich people. People who need cars to work and live, not so much. So what? Fashion changes and conveys no information.
“The biggest impediments to people buying electric cars are mostly likely initial cost, and driving range.”
Needing a detached garage to keep the things out of the weather and rewiring your house are also items. The other big impediment is that BEVs are essentially toys. Its like buying a little roadster sports car. You still have to own a real car to use for real things.
“Obviously, the market could turn against EV’s and sales could dry up; I’m not going to try to predict (or wish for) that.”
I will. I think BEVs are toys for the rich useful only for status display. otherwise they are a deadweight loss to the economy.
“practically all major auto companies have plans to convert to electric vehicles. I can’t imagine they would be doing this if they thought the vehicles they were planning on producing would present an unacceptable level of risk to the driving public.They can’t not have considered this.”
Your imagination is dull and limited. The car companies are responding to tremendous pressures from politicians and the woke liberals who now run Wall Street. The pols and the bankers view BEVs a sacrament in the worship of Gaia. The car companies are hanging on for dear life. Praying, no doubt for this nightmare to end.
‘The largest car manufacturer by market cap makes nothing but EV’s.”
So what? The stock market is notoriously afflicted with fashions and bubbles. Tesla is fashionable. Its stock is a bubble.
“Government agencies such as NHTSA would not allow the manufacture or continued manufacture of automobiles that presented an unacceptable level of risk or were generally unsafe.”
What color is the sky in your world? You refute yourself with your next sentence. “Consider some of the problems we’ve had with air bags which have actually killed people.” Right you are. There is not a person in any goverment anywhere who gives a warm bucket of excrement whether you or I live or die. If the pols want us to drive around in bombs, the civil servants will make sure that it happens.
“EV and battery technology is still in its infancy. There will no doubt be improvements as the industry matures.”
Clearly you are as ignorant of history as you are of government. Batteries were invented more than 200 years ago. BEVs date back more than a century. Before WWI, about 1/3rd of the cars on the road were BEVs. My great-grandmother drove a Baker Electric. Mrs. Henry Ford drove a Detroit Electric. There is far less basic engineering difference between those BEVs and the newest Tesla, than the difference between the newest ICE vehicles and the those of the pre-WWI era.
The LiIon battery is a relative newcomer, it was invented in the mid-80s and first sold commercially30 years ago. It is not new technology anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery
“The industry that most understands risk, insurance, will have say in this through what it is willing to sell insurance for, if at all. It does cost more to insure an EV, but that is probably due to their higher cost and higher repair cost, not the battery fire risk.”
You understand the insurance business no better than you understand anything else, which is to say not at all. The insurance industry does not care whether the objects it insures are inherently hazardous or not. It only cares about whether it has priced the risk correctly. Automobile insurances are short term and in enormous quantities. Their pricing is pretty much cut and dried. Products liability may have some long tail pricing difficulty, but there are ways to deal with that too. Pharmaceuticals are a worse long tail problem and their manufacture and sale is insured.
“The problem has been studied by experts with no finding of excessive risk due to battery fire.”
Experts! ROTFLMAO.
A little drop top sports car is fun. An ‘electric’ ( coal fired ) car makes you look stupid.
I forgot to add in my reply to “no finding of excessive risk due to battery fire.”
And that is why you a banned from putting your laptop or your cell phone in your checked baggage on an airplane.
Re Point 2.
Many countries have banned the sale of new Ice cars in future. In the UK that date is 2030. (Hybrid sales are banned too I think) Launching a new model takes years from initial design and concept. Any manufacturer not able to supply a range of EVs is doomed to fail or become a niche seller.
A government edict makes any other argument irrelevant
I think the hybrid date is 2035. But I also think that the politicians are going to backtrack on both dates when they realise the vast majority of their citizens have not gone electric so outright bans will mean electoral suicide.
We can only hope!
And not only that, but the grid will be in no shape to support large numbers of BEVs charging.
Even if we went on a crash program, starting today, the grid wouldn’t be ready for at least another 50 years. (It currently takes years to get delivery on some of the transformers needed for sub-stations.)
Tesla’s market cap is not a rational metric.
None so blind as those that will not see.
I think the responses to my post are about what I expected and generally confirm that readers here are using the battery problem as an excuse to dismiss new technology for reasons other than what one would be led to think based on a thoughtful analysis. You might think that this being primarily a science blog that people would come to the debate armed with some data, but you don’t see that. Here is a Forbes article that covers the pros and cons fairly well. It is more a problem of perception than reality. EV Battery Fires: What Consumers Should Know – Forbes Wheels
You mean you expected to get beat over the head with the facts of the situation as every single one of your “points” was mercisily shredded? If so, then the responses were indeed what you expected.
Ever notice how those who assume from the start that those who disagree with them start from malice rather than knowledge, never bother to actually read the arguments of those who disagree with them.
I think this response is about what I expected.
IE, you didn’t actually read any of the responses to you. Much like you never actually read the article that you responded to.
Not a single response to the many credible critiques of the points you made, just a claim that anyone who disagrees with you doesn’t want electrics to succeed.
While you have richly earned the snark heaped upon you, many substantive rebuttals appear in response to your claims. Try addressing those, why don’t you?
Its easier to let Forbes do all his thinking for him.
Mr. .1: Again with the concern for those who post here. Thanks, I can speak for all posters here when I say I’m so sorry we knee-jerked. (/s/).
The responses to your comment are exactly what gaslighters get when they come here and show they HAVE NOT READ ARTICLES POSTED IN THE PAST THAT ANSWER ALL THESE POINTS. Others break it down nicely (I can’t do better than Mr. Sobchak). You are a recent commenter here, but you’ve established yourself as the go-to guy for asking questions that have been answered. A sincere suggestion- read more and type less, then your ignorance won’t be so obvious.
I didn’t start out wishing EVs would fail, but I got there because fools continue to promote them after experience teaches that EV is not useful transportation. On this very subject, you and the other EV fans refuse to answer this question- without EVs on board, that ship fire is put out, and it reaches port with cargo intact (give or take a few ICE cars with fire damage). If greens were not pushing EVs into the market, there would have been none on that ship. Justify the loss of the ship!
Mr. .1: Again with the shade at commenters here. The responses are what you sought when you went gaslighting.
Your comment reveals that you are not interested in reading the many posts here that rebut your points above. You seem to think your brilliant thoughts must be published, we just can’t wait for you to inform yourself first. I didn’t start out hating EVs, but I tire of folks who promote them with lies that are so easily exposed. The “thoughtful analysis” you pretend to seek happened at this site years ago. If you go back, you’ll find articles that demolish the idea “battery tech is young”, real chemists will explain to you the limitations of the chemistry. You didn’t read it. That’s just one example. Please do better at hiding your ignorance, at this point you’re flying it at the top of the mast.
Sorry for the repeat, but at 11:30 the 10:05 still was not up. And I thought Mr. .1 needed this.
So if LiIon battery fires are not a problem, why are you a banned from putting your laptop or your cell phone in your checked baggage on an airplane.
So you dismiss all the counters to what said based on nothing more than they were “I think the responses to my post are about what I expected”!?!
New technology will sell when it works and is economical WITHOUT subsidies and Government regulations crippling the competition.
You are the one who has dismissed the data many had presented.
#4. A very good reason for NOT buying an EV.
#5. The silence of insurance companies, another VERY good reason for NOT buying an EV.
#3. Let me laugh!… Another very good reasnon for NOT buying an EV.
#2. The population of auto companies is not homogeneous. Some are bankrupt and must pay lip service to governments stay active (VW…). I did not analyse all their statements, so I cannot tell possible nuanced phrasing insinuating TOTAL abandon of IC production (again, lip service; of virtue signaling). For instance, Stellantis group clearly states that suppression of IC is not credible in the near future. So, very good reason for NOT buying shares of auto companies.
#1. OK, millions is an impressive word. But millions in hundreds of millions (of IC vehicles) is a ridicule percentage… mostly accountable by virtue signaling or social status signaling, by participation in real economy but as an (luxury) expenditure (not wealth creating).
“EV and battery technology is still in its infancy”
EVs and batteries have been around since *BEFORE* the first ICE vehicle was invented.
if EV and batteries are still in their infancy, then ICE is barely out of the womb, and yet ICE whooped EVs butt a century ago for all the same reasons that EVs remain a small niche of the market today (despite the massive governmental subsidies): Expense, range, and charging/fueling times.
But then for 100 years or more, there wasn’t any, so there is no connection between what may have happened then and what we have now. The modern EV industry is still in its infancy.
Again, you fail on your historical knowledge. EVs never really went away. They were limited to golf carts and other limited utility vehicles, but they continued to maintain a very small niche in the market.
In all that time, and even now, despite decades of government subsidies to the “modern EV industry”, the problems with EV/batteries have remained constant: expense, range, and charging/fueling times. And those problems aren’t going away no matter how much you wish and hope they will.
The government fantasy of converting the world to EVs started sometime in the 80’s to 90’s. Right about the time the global warming nonsense got started.
That’s some 30 to 40 years ago. Hardly yesterday.
Indeed, hence my reference to “decades of government subsidies”.
Even Tesla alone is almost 20 years old (will be next year). And Tesla wasn’t even the first “modern” EV – the Chrysler TEVan, Ford Ranger EV, General Motors EV1, Chevrolet S-10 EV, Honda EV Plus and the Nissan Altra EV (just to name a few) all came before Elon Musk ever decided to enter the scene.
As for batteries, the earliest Li-ion batteries were invented in the 1960s, over half a century ago, before the home computer, flat screen TVs, and other mature modern industries.
The claim that EVs and/or batteries is “in it’s infancy” is simply pure historical ignorance.
Given the lengths auto makers have gone to make cars lighter, one would think they would jump at the chance to replace lead/acid batteries with LiIon. Yet for some reason they haven’t.
Wrong on so many counts. were you born yesterday?
People never stopped building EVS. Beyond that, every ICE ever built includes a battery. Care makers care very much about cost, weight and reliability. Lead acid batteries are heavy and have to be replaced every few years. Anyone who could create a battery that was either lighter, cheaper or more reliable would have an instant market of 100’s of millions of units a year. Yet for some reason, despite this demand, nobody managed to beat the lead acid battery, despite looking for more than a century.
What you wish to be so, is not so. You really need to accept reality gracefully and stop making such a fool out of yourself.
I am touched by your concern for my embarrassment, but don’t bother. Realistically we haven’t had much of a lithium battery industry until the beginning of their use in computers. Cars only more recently started using them (for power, not starting). You can buy a lithium starting battery, but it costs twice as much, so why would you.
Folks, this is the guy who wants to see thoughtful analysis, and is disappointed we don’t come armed with data.
Auto companies are making EV cars because gas etc for cars is being outlawed. Why else would a company make a fire hazard?
In The Netherlands certain indoor parking spaces are forbidden because of the fire hazard and the type of fire an EV produces.
EV’s and battery tech are not new by any means. EV’s are 150 years old and still a gigantic failure on every imaginable measurement.
EV’s are worse than ICE specifically on the “problems” they were supposed to address.
The only reason EV’s are selling is because of perverse government incentives.
WINNER!
You wrote:
My Reply:
I can imagine they would be building these things even though there is a risk to the driving public. I am thinking Ford Pinto right now. It all boils down to MONEY, lots and lots of MONEY.
IN ADDITION:
You wrote:
Consider some of the problems we’ve had with air bags which have actually killed people.
My Reply:
This is a perfect response to why NHTSA continues to allow harmful additions to cars and why they will continue to push the safety of EVs. It is their leftist ideas that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. A few deaths to perfect an imperfect addition or product is perfectly acceptable because the outcome outweighs the process where people die. I’m thinking driverless cars and auto-braking features that cause lots of accidents.
So, let’s agree to disagree on what the NHTSA will or will not allow.
Your car has an airbag, doesn’t it? And, even if you disapprove of it having one it’s still there. Maybe you are clever enough to turn it off. In the future, your government wants you to drive an electric vehicle. They don’t want you to have a choice. I’m not really in favor of that, but when the day comes, and I need a new car it may just have to be an EV, and so will yours be. I think, as someone recently said here, if it can’t happen, it won’t happen. Such may be the case with EV’s.
Yeah, I am smart enough to figure how to disengage the airbag and so are a lot of other people.
I think this puts me into the clever class that will figure out how to circumvent the “government” and their wishes for my life including driving an EV.
Nice try though … using a “squirrel” to not respond to the NHTSA’s real purpose – to get tons of money from the car manufactures for things that will kill drivers until they are perfected.
Someone told me on another thread that most of the negative comments on EV’s etc., are mostly snark and sarcasm. Even if that were true, it amounts to nothing more than a feel-good exercise. There are plenty of places on the internet to engage in polemics and ridicule of those with whom you have political disagreements, but this, I think, is supposed to be primarily a science blog. Criticisms should be science and data oriented as much as possible. Willis and many others provide plenty of ammunition if you need to have your views on climate change reinforced, and they do it in the right way.
If you can’t see that there are many posts that give solid answers to your questions, then you are going out of your way to avoid seeing them.
Concern noted.
I see my negatives are well into griff territory; I think I may even have him beat.
When you ignore the answers to the questions you ask and then insult everyone who disagrees with you, it’s hardly surprising when the reactions to your nonsense get negative.
Mr. .1: And that doesn’t make you wonder at all?!
Those, combined with the threat of spontaneous combustion and resulting fires that are near impossible to extinguish, are fairly massive impediments to everyone but the wealthy who can virtue signal by adding one to their portfolio of far more useful ICE vehicles.
Only because they are anticipating more government force-feeding of EVs through ‘climate’ policies, and they can’t wait until they see what happens when their product lead time is about 5 years. They aren’t doing it because consumers are clamoring for BEVs, nothing could be further from the truth.
And I hope every woke auto manufacturer who ramps up production of these worse-than-useless things ends up with lots full that they can’t give away. I want continuous improvement of ICE vehicles, not a downgrade to BEVs.
LMAO – unless they’re appointees of the Eco-Nazi loons like the ones currently controlling the White House and House of Representatives. You seem to forget that government mandates dictated the use of airbags – what does your second sentence say, again?!
So they’ll move from “completely unacceptable real-world range” to “Better but still sucky?” Oh, and the more energy the batteries can store, the bigger and more intense the fires will be, see what started this whole thread…
If the “market penetration” ever grows by much and the insurance industry sees what a massive hazard these worse-than-useless things are, they will become damn near uninsurable – as will any home with a garage containing one.
Brought to you by the people trying to sell you and/or promote BEVs, no doubt. How many cargo ships have to be melted down at sea due to BEVs spontaneously combusting before your so-called “experts” will admit they’re wrong?
Said “experts” immediately bring to my mind the old transmission repair shop commercial where the guy at the counter assures the customer that “Our mechanics are EXPERTS!” while in the background, a bunch of monkeys in lab coats are beating on transmissions with sticks.
Salute!
As with others’ comments, the means of minimizing battery fires are well underway. But still a concern – like the phobic concern about nuke plants.
The fire hazard is not the long pole in the tent. It is the infrastructure and the source of all those volts and amps.
The electric vehicles minimize the visual impact – no bad smoke or haze where you live. But the greenies do not seem to unnerstan that those volts and amps are produced someplace else. They do not unnerstan the infrastructure required for each neighborhood – you know,bigger wires, tearing up the roads, new electrical panels in your home….. oh! then those living in mass housing with 100 neighbors above and below your level/apartment. Big wires and many charging stations in the parking area, and…..
The folks in Europe do not grok the suburban culture of the U.S. and surely not the culture from Virginia to Utah where driving 30 miles to the grocery store is routine. Oh! No charging stations if I get low on amps.
Make no mistake. I like the EV models I have seen and talked with the owners. My only problem is making the servicing infrastructure like the one supporting the ICE vehicles we already have.
And then one day overcast skies and calm winds, no nukes or coal plants. Many dystopian books about that scenario and they are not pleasant.
Gums sends…
ICE cars haven’t been putting out much in the way of smoke for decades.
When a car company like GM sends out a service bulletin that your electric GM car SHOULD NOT be inside a garage while charging due to the HIGHER than Normal batteries fires that have taken place with their EV lines. Then maybe there is a problem that needs to be reported to all.
GM also stopped production of their EV’s till they can come up with an acceptable risk removing solution to these unexpected battery fires. I am sure that GM will find a solution to it present battery fire problem to prevent anymore class action law suits in the future.
“EV and battery technology is still in its infancy. There will no doubt be improvements as the industry matures.”
There is a fine line between Acceptable risks and Consumer confidence for a product. If we look at some of the developing technologies in the past like the Jet airliner and the development of the de Havilland Comet by the time the reason for the failures of these planes and the loss of live associated with those crashes was found and fixed the reputation of this product never recovered. The world wide sales never reached what they could have if problems had been found and fixed earlier. Just because a product is NEW and supposed Green it should not get a pass when it comes to the safety of the user.
The GM car was a recall, so it was a manufacturing defect. That does not mean that all EV’s have the same defect.
You would think it would be easy to come up with the statistics on EV battery fire incidence which would make the case that they are unsafe. I have not seen anyone post such statistics in response to what I said. That would be the simplest rebuttal. What about residential fires due to EV’s or even Powerwalls? There must be data on that.
As has been pointed out many times, the number and age of EVs is too dissimilar to ICE to make such comparisons easy. There is also the nature of such fires.
ICE fires tend to only happen after major collisions, whereas EVs have a nasty tendency to spontaneously combust whenever they feel like it.
Data please?
Recognizing that an EV battery fire is difficult to put out, and that a fire could spread to other vehicles or structures, In the future parking garages and buildings with underground parking may have to be retrofitted with fireproofing to retard the spread of the fire. More cost to be sure, but if the batteries cannot be made to never fail catastrophically, then this might be one solution.
And once again, the EV enthusiast spends other peoples money in order to solve a problem that wouldn’t exist if he and the other enthusiasts weren’t forcing electric cars on everyone.
Part of what’s at work with the lithium battery battering here on WUWT is our old friend, confirmation bias. We criticize the flawed climate science and the reporting on it and justifiably so. The reason so much of it is flawed is that those in the climate change industry are really only looking for things that prove climate change is happening, that it is manmade, and when they find something, they stop looking or look for more of the same. They never try to falsify their own theory. The belief (theory) of most readers on WUWT is that lithium battery powered EV’s are intrinsically unsafe. They only look for things which support that belief. They are not looking for that which contradicts, nor are they thinking about how it might be made to work better it the future. It’s just more confirmation bias. Now, as the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. Likewise, just because you’ve tanked into confirmation bias doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but if you are, you’ll have a hard time recognizing it.
Once again, not a single attempt to actually refute the arguments presented by others. Just another proclamation that everyone who disagrees with him is arguing in bad faith.
Confirmation bias is not a bad faith or dishonest argument; it is a person accepting that something is true or more likely to be true because of a predisposition to believe something. People who accept something because of confirmation bias do not realize they are doing it. This is ever present in the arguments and much of the science that is done to support the theory of manmade climate change.
You have not demonstrated confirmation bias or anything else.
You simply reject that anyone who disagrees with you has a valid reason for doing so, and you keep inventing ever more fanciful excuses for why you do so.
Mr. W.: Seems Mr. .1 can’t help but analyze commenters here, based on the assumption that we are wrong. He’s so busy on that, he can’t be bothered actually responding to smoking guns. Now we suffer from the same bias as AGW acolytes, the confirmation one. He ain’t gonna get it, he’s here to gaslight. I should be done with him, but I do enjoy giving him the horselaugh.
“EV and battery technology is still in its infancy. There will no doubt be improvements as the industry matures.”
umm EV’s and batteries have been around for about the same length of time as petrol powered cars have. 1st land speed record was held by an EV…..
Except for political influence, banning BEVs from tunnels or indoor parking would seem advisable.
In Scotland there are numerous ferries to get to the islands. Although you’d have to be a certified loony to drive an electric car in the Highlands … because they just can’t do the distances between places. Sooner or later, some eco-nutter is going to put an electric car on a ferry, it’s going to go up a flames and people will be killed. And to avoid being one of them, I’m not going on any more ferries.
And the salt spray onto the batteries should help those short circuits. Just parking them at the beach or quay on a windy day should be enough.
And they want to power passenger airliners with batteries…
LMAO. Talk about mind-numbingly stupid – they have to lift the plane, the “load,” AND the weight of all those batteries!
I imagine the flight to be short and the landing hard…
8-ish months ago, this YT creator put out a video about the future of electric planes, entitled “Why Electric Planes are Inevitably Coming” and then in the video itself tries to keep saying that despite all the data he presents which refutes the claim. Was an interesting cognitive dissonance to watch.
Why Electric Planes are Inevitably Coming – YouTube
I thought the holy grail in managing hazards was elimination?
Yes. Remove the hazard, problem goes away.
Slightly OT – but PPE is the LAST resort in hazard reduction. It is saying you have no ability to remove or reduce the hazard, so just wear this and try not to get hurt.
Any location that requires you to wear PPE is basically admitting there is a danger that they cannot control.
Masks are PPE.
4T’s of risk management, treat, tolerate, terminate, or transfer.
Didja ever wonder what happened to our power walls?
Use asbestos car bags, that will help.
Are the cars shipped fully charged? Would that make a difference?
Charged at 30%, apparently. They can’t be discharged so they have a fair amount of potential energy sitting there. Once they go into thermal runaway though the only way to slow the reaction down (which doesn’t need O2 btw) is to cool the battery, which essentially means douse it with tons of water. The other alternatives are to bury it or stand back and let it run its course.
Letting it sink to the bottom of the ocean qualifies as yet another effective way to put out an EV fire.
Don’t they have battery cooling systems that could be left on for transport? If necessary, run a trickle charger from ship’s power.
“Douse it with tons of water” – scuttle the ship!
Or have a big “claw” like the vending machine in ‘Toy Story’ to grab any cars that start to smoke and drop them over the side.
The best fire blankets are made of asbestos!!!!!!
One of the problems with asbestos is that when its resistance level is exceeded, it explodes.
Many decades ago I and my building associates solved the problem of fire-proofing the under-floor ceiling over a car-parking space. We simply doubled-up the thickness of the gypsum ceiling panels. It also avoided the issue of safely cutting the boards to fit, as we already knew that cutting asbestos sheet with wetting and a hand-saw was very slow, and using power tools was unwise.
Gypsum is just another fuel for a lithium fire.
I wonder what kind of pollutants these EV battery fires/explosions are putting into the atmosphere? Maybe some greenhouse gases?
Your “carbon footprint” is largely determined by the cost … and with electric vehicles costing more over their lifetime, they clearly create more CO2.
Lithium oxide and other products of lithium combustion are toxic. More likely, the white smoke blocks sunlight.
At lithium combustion temperatures, CO₂ decomposes and supplies oxygen and carbon for the fire.
oops.
the best bombs and rockets carry their fuel along with their own oxidizer
…gonna need a bigger blanket
A fire blanket can’t cover the underside of the car—how is this a solution?
As the owners of the Titanic said: you don’t need lifeboats on an unsinkable boat. That’s not because people won’t drown, it’s because there are enough people who are gullible enough to sail of a boat without enough lifeboats, if they think it is unsinkable. What matters, is not whether the boat will go up in flames, only if they can persuade the crew that it won’t.
One might draw a parallel…“What matters, is not whether the car will go up in flames, only if they can persuade the buyers that it won’t.”
Interestingly, Matson ships a lot of vehicles between US mainland and Hawaii. Their preparation guide specifies fuel tanks should be between 1/8 and 1/4 full, auxiliary propane tanks must be inspected and certified empty, but EV batteries should be fully charged. Once a Li-Ion battery fire starts, I suspect the charge state is pretty much irrelevant.
Also interesting: fire extinguishers must be removed: “Federal regulations do not permit fire extinguishers to be shipped with your automobile.”
Well, an extinguisher inside your automobile on a ro-ro is pretty much useless, isn’t it?
In the middle a fire, anything that is under high pressure is an explosive hazard. So, one rule that actually makes a lot of sense.
Think of parking garages filled with EVs, much like the boat …. will take a while to get there but it may happen. Fire departments need to get up to speed with available chemicals that snuff LiIon fires dispersed with quick installed attachments at the end of the fire hose.
The problem is that there are no such chemicals.
There are several if you looked.
Many companies issue parking passes depending upon a number of things.
Where I worked, issued the most desirable parking spaces, near the elevator into the office building, around the elevator’s entrance.
A substantial EV fire in the garage will turn a lot of the garage, that it doesn’t directly burn, back into lime and sand.
Just wait until the Insurance consequences flow through to Domestic Batteries and EV’s.
How about your battery cannot be within 50 metres of the House right about where you park your EV??
Based on finally getting Bushfire (Wildfire) Cover for a business I am involved in I could easily see an excess of $10,000+ per claim as well or worse – cover denied!
And just think, most “big city” buildings have parking in the basement.
Heat up concrete to those high temperatures destroys the structural integrity, especially if it has post tensioned cables.
And the WTC shows what happens when steel reaches it’s failure temperature.
So, you park by the neighbor’s house.
Quite right. Every neighbour stores his battery in the neighbour’s property and then everything is ok. I think we could sell that to the Insurance people!
A couple of problems I have with all this here. Are EV fires common? No. Do they happen? Yes. Let’s not make mountains out of molehills based on one ship or one bus disaster that may not even have been EV initiated.
EVs are slowly coming. Too many auto companies saying so to just deny that fact. Whether they eventually displace gas and diesel ICE vehicles depends. For big trucks, never. For commuter cars, depends on range anxiety plus future cost and supply constraints on lithium and cobalt and RE.
I generally find an argument against warmunist zealots is best won on reasonable and supportable grounds (which they seldom have) rather than extreme but shaky counter grounds.
Rom a guy who has owned a hybrid since 2007. NOT because of global warming. Because it has saved me a lot of money.
Rud- all good points but it only takes 1 EV to have a thermal runaway in the wrong place and there’s a disaster with many lives lost. Given that the owners of the Felicity Ace have now lost 2 ships and 5 crewmen dead caused by EV fires in under 5 years they might argue the point about rarity.
Rud,
Could you respond to this comment?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/26/climate-change-an-emergency-or-not/#comment-3464435
Already did if you read that thread fully. Post Fig. 13 is just wrong. By a lot. Already said dunno why or how, and will not waste my time trying, Just is.
Depending on your source and calculation details, the no feedbacks CO2 ECS is a bit over 1.1C (Curry 2010, AR4), about 1.2C (Lindzen 2011) or exactly 1.16C (Monckton’s later equation). NEVER less than 1.
CO2 was proven experimentally a greenhouse gas in 1849 by Tyndall. So it’s no feedback ECS effect MUST be positive, not negative. To assert its zero feedback effect is now significantly negative is REALLY bad ‘science’. I have no patience for it anywhere. Those are the sorts of bad ‘arguments’ that give ‘climate deniers’ a justifiably bad name in the eyes of warmunists.
No I beg to differ, you didn’t reply and give a substantive logically reasoned response, you just waved your hands and used smoke and mirrors BS with an appeal to “other scientists” with more knowledge. A specious lazy argumentative position.
I’m a retired 76 year old chemical engineer. If you had walked into my office with that attitude and approach you’d have been pounding the pavement looking for employment before you could even say HR department.
Thanks Old Mike.
The references to other scientists doesn’t bother me. I think they all did good work. It just seems like Mr./Dr. Coe did it even better. I also don’t mind a little rude (no pun) hand waving.
The only problem I have with Rud’s statement is that it seems to be wrong.
Where did David Coe propose a negative ECS or a negative feedback for CO2? It’s not in Figure 13, nor anywhere else in the article that I can find. The word negative doesn’t even appear the article.
“So it’s no feedback ECS effect MUST be positive, not negative.”
My question, and I think it is *the* question in climate science, is what happens *after* the feedbacks? Negative or positive?
The fire may not have been started by an EV, but once it spread to an EV it became unstoppable.
Are EVs coming? Maybe, Maybe not. Lets wait until all of the subsidies and mandates and subsidies are removed before concluding that EVs are the inevitable.
BTW, It’s easy to save money when other people are covering many of your costs.
Well EVs don’t seem to be coming in Japan
In early 2021 the IEA noted that EV sales in Japan declined by 25% in 2020 and had fallen in absolute and relative terms every year since 2017 when they peaked at 54,000 registrations, just over 1% of sales. In 2020 they fell to 0.6% of sales.
In their recent communication they say sales barely increased in 2021 with market share remaining below 1% for three years running
https://www.iea.org/commentaries/electric-cars-fend-off-supply-challenges-to-more-than-double-global-sales?utm
Rud,
Would you buy a condo in a high rise building with basement parking under the structure that allowed the parking of lithium battery powered cars?
Just asking.
Rud: think of hazard (“danger”) and risk.
IC vehicles also are dangerous. But the risk of self igniting … let me put it another way: the risk of on their own damaging life or property is minimal. Up to now, there is a very few million EV circulating: the proportion of such events seem to be several orders of magnitude higher (this is vague, I know; I have not good statistical data). But when a sinister happens, one must think not only of the direct, “self” injury but also that caused to third parties. When EVs are circulating everywhere, there is a lot of people and property involved that can be injured and are not responsible for the decision of having those vehicles circulting.
That said, I understand your rationale, and agree with it in abstract terms. But in real life I think that, as with mRNA “vaccines”, the technology is not yet improved to the point of the risks of EV being equivalent of those of IC vehicles. I think that, before pushing to the immediate replacement of transport fleets, or establishing deadlines after which no more IC vehicles will be manufactured or sold, are mesures too much premature in relation to the state of the art. Good ideas, but not yet fully functional; even considering the enormous proportion of vehicles which can never be EV, as you said.
There are any number of rational arguments as to why EV’s might not make it. Tesla has experienced some strong growth, and still has pretty good sales volume, but they may be in the process of saturating a niche market. It is a luxury car in many respects and a lot of people are not going to want to pay for the privilege of showing how green they are. The battery fire problem is not insignificant, but there is a lot of time to solve that problem if the demand continues to grow. I think it’s going to be a very slow process of getting people out of gasoline powered cars. I have no plans to have an electric car, but it’s not because I’m worried about a battery fire.
The Big Conflagration Theory: Catastrophic Anthropogenic Green Warming (CAGW).
Willis, is that boat loaded? Riding pretty high in the water
Not Willis, but a long time serious boater. Yes, the vessel is likely design laden. It was carrying cars. Could be designed to also carry something cubically heavier than cars. Say, semi trucks. So the laden waterline will be always a bit variable.
The picture at the top of the post shows the ship in a loaded condition, they always look high, the blue/white color line is not even close to the loaded waterline that is also shown by the existence of a service opening in the side of the hull amidships, safely above the watertight waterline, and the bow “bulb” still underwater. I see these RORO’s going in and out of Narragansett Bay all the time.
The vessel has been on fire for awhile. That is likely to have reduced the weight of many of the vehicles that have been burnt by quite a bit.
Carbon ceramic ablative shields?
A) They’re not flexible.
B) Ablative shields erode and carry away excessive heat from friction.
C) An extremely reactive metal burning at temperatures sufficient to ignite metals and decompose normally very stable molecules, e.g. CO₂ is not going to be fazed when the alleged fireproof barrier is neither fireproof or a barrier.
Burning lithium is more than hot enough to decompose those car fire blankets, which more likely work by suffocating the fires.
Unmentioned is that fact that anything thick over lithium batteries will insulate them and prevent heat buildup from conducting/convecting away. More batteries are likely to reach thermal breakdown.
“Special fire-proof blanket”? Special? A meaningless word as used.
Blanket? Whatever it is made out of, is not meant to withstand burning lithium temperatures.
The buyer of those blankets jumped to conclusions without researching the dangers, along with the author of the article.
Felicity Ace’s replacement will probably include measures to dump burning autos into the ocean. A quantity of water that might be sufficient to cool the fire below lithium combustion temperatures.
There is a fast easy way to put the fire out. Sink the ship.
And burn up the ocean 🤓
As if the fire isn’t bad enough, it’s made much worse by its unpredictability. There seems to be nod precipitating event, which means that you can’t take steps to prevent the fire in the first place. It just happens, for no apparent reason.
That scooter owner was one lucky fella, as he could have been sitting on the scooter when the God of Hellfire decided to make his presence known.
Here’s a video of a man riding a scooter that catches fire. He jumped off in time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqwh4yUyJuE
Here’s an example in the Bronx where there was one death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9WQk6kh5es
Many more scooters catching fire videos online
Scooters have been banned from London’s tube trains and stations after three spontaneously ignited, fortunately with minimal casualties.
Maybe EV manufacturers and shipping companies could check with Hong Kong motor vehicle thieves who steal cars to order and ship them to mainland China underwater, towed behind fishing trawlers and similar vessels sealed inside rubber tubes normally used to transport molasses to avoid detection by sea patrols.
/sarc
Place each EV on a large Medieval catapult. At the first sign of ignition trip the mechanism.
Problem solved.
Also of use if the car AI gives the wrong answer to a question.
Put all the Ev’s on a barge towed behind the ship. Cut the barge loose if it catches on fire.
Just transport EVs on a tiltable metal tray. If they catch fire dump them in the sea.
That’s a new form of electronic warfare!
I don’t see how a “fire blanket” would help. Batteries by their fundamental nature put the reductant and oxidant in close proximity. Putting a blanket on a battery will have just as much effect as putting a blanket on a bomb.
A better idea would be to completely discharge the batteries before putting them on the boat. No stored energy = reduced fire hazard.
Suggestion, fully discharge the batteries ? Reload after arrival? Ground the vehicle poles to the ship?
They have very real problems with lithium battery storage and its increasing adoption yet here’s where they’re coming from-
Lake Pedder was dammed 50 years ago for hydro power, but could it now be time to drain it? (msn.com)
Not to worry as the brains trust are into internet electricity now and who needs pesky storage?
How to balance renewable grids WITHOUT energy storage! – YouTube
Warning: You’ll likely only take that in very small packets.
This in Enron on IOT – Internet of Things.
Enron, the Ranch at the Crooked E, an energy trader, spectacularly imploded in 2001.
But hey, why let the resulting CA-sized budget crater get in the way of millions of household budget craters?
Exactly like cashless chip wallets, at any moment your spending or energy use can be vetted for green targets for your age, health, family size, number of pets, car type, and WUWT comments.
The Crooked power!
Anyone know what exactly started the fire?
climate change, of course.
Well, I am now completely convinced that I do not want an EV within 50 miles of me.
What causes me to pause upon reading this is the fact that just placing a fire retardant blanket over the EV before it is BOLTED DOWN TO THE METAL DECK won’t be enough. The fire can melt through the deck and if below the water line, melt through the hull of the ship, especially since the heat from the fire is approximately 4,900F. I think something more should be done but what? Heat resistant tiles like the space shuttle on the decks of these ships that carry these mini-bombs?
Only a Class Delta fire can melt steel like that.
Rushed in and bought yourself an NMC battery EV did you? Perhaps you shouldn’t have been a pioneer/guinea pig for battery cars and waited more cautiously to see how they pan out-
BYD blade battery – What makes it ultra-safe and comparison with ternary batteries • EVreporter
Oops! We don’t really want your dangerous incendiary on our ferries and charging in the basements of our Grenfell Towers etc as they’re just too damn dangerous. Same deal sticking such batteries on house walls or trying to make the power grid reliable with them. They’re clearly not fit for purpose. This needs Regulation that either your lithium battery passes that BYD nail test etc or it’s clearly labelled and severely restricted as to where it can be housed parked or charged.
What’s in your garage?
My new drone has an optional fire prove bag to allow these Lithium batteries to be transported on a plane. The bag is supposed to snuff and limit the fire if it breaks out. The manufacturer suggests that the batteries NOT be fully charged until they are going to be used and should be stored at 65% charge for long term storage.
i think we really need to stop the mindless removal of gasoline driven cars from society until these batteries are a little more reliable and not s prone to catching on fire.
Notebook/laptop computers are all allowed on planes without restriction and many other devices that have lithium batteries.
Different formula
Here is an article on “RO-RO” ship accidents from AutoWeek. That is a lot of accidents and lost cargo, mainly cars. The last one is the Felicity-Ace, which was loaded with EV’s. The presumption is that the fire either started because of or was made dramatically worse by the presence of the lithium batteries. Seems reasonable. Volkswagen is apparently going to eat the loss, but it’s nothing to them according to the article. The article also points out that fires are less likely with an EV than a conventional vehicle (admittedly, the EV fires can be much worse). This is something to be sorted out, but it is not the end of the road for EV’s. Felicity Ace Fire is Out | Why Do Car Carriers Have Such Trouble? (autoweek.com)
Nobody said that the is accident was going to immediately cause the end of EV cars.
To many political jobs on the line for that to happen.
BTW, I see you are still ignoring the many credible responses to your various claims.
Mr. W.: IMO Mr..1 does not respond out of a tender concern for the commenters here who don’t bring data and mock him. If anyone here predicted the immediate end of EVs from this catastrophic fire (ooops, there I go again) it was jsut wishful thinking. Mr. .1, you seem to think that “the end of the road for EVs” is a bad thing, but if not for AGW kraziness, there would be NO EV fires AT ALL. I think that the loss of this boat (the latest is, sank) would lead rational actors to make sure not to put another EV on a RORO, period. You seem to think, ah well it’s insured and we’ll learn from this. So no, I don’t predict the end of EV, only that it would be the end of EV if reason/risk assessment prevailed. You think we should keep going, how many ships you want to lose?
When I shipped my car across the ocean I had to have the gas tank under a quarter tank. I can’t believe they would allow fully charged EVs that can burn for days? They should drain them completely.
It’s the battery itself that is burning. The charge in the battery is only a small portion of the available energy.
Looking at pictures of Russian Army convoys I am trying to imagine the scene if the armoured vehicles and support vehicles were EV.
And considering the fleet probably of almost as many back up generator vehicles and diesel tankers to refuel them.
No wonder the people chose Henry Ford’s Model T internal combustion engine cars and stopped buying the lead acid battery electric cars, they couldn’t carry liquid electricity in cans to extend the range for trips outside of cities.
I think the real question is if any of the EV religious zealots are ever going to wake up.
In the 1980s the Pontiac Fiero gained a reputation for catching on fire, even making it to the national news. That very obviously damaged sales, even though very few caught fire. Imagine if GM had legions of radical fans threatening and cajoling anyone reporting on Fiero fires the way EVs do today.
Why, the Fiero might still be on sale as a baby Corvette (though obviously no longer a Pontiac).
It’s dead Jim.
Massive cargo ship carrying cars sinks in mid-Atlantic – ABC News
That’s going to make determining the cause of the fire a bit tricky.
Problem solved! Burning ship full of luxury cars adrift at sea sinks in the mid-Atlantic : NPR
You’re probably trying to be funny, so I’ll keep it light. EV fire stories will kill EVs. If people are aware that they can’t be parked inside, the market disappears. I don’t need to fluff the story at all by claiming that EV fires happen all the time, just let people know about what happens when it happens. EV enthusiasts understand this and clearly are on a mission to downplay the risk. You come here to downplay it and accuse commenters here of somehow inflating the risk. No need to inflate it, just let buyers know that it can catch fire spontaneously and can’t be put out. So why do you think the story should be downplayed?
It’s possible that if people become sufficiently afraid of them, then what you say could come to pass. I just can’t predict that. To the extent that the problem is there, or the perception of the problem is there, I’m sure the companies making EV’s and the government wanting you to buy an EV will do what they can to alter the public’s willingness to accept the risk, whatever it is. It might depend on instances of sufficiently bad fires ignite a public reaction. We’ll have to wait and see on that. It may be that underground parking where you have an occupied building above it will have to have much more aggressive fire detection and suppression systems. You may never be able to be able to totally engineer out the risk, but you can manage it. You also have the reality that fire rate for EV’s is very low, and it will probably improve over time. IMO, if EV’s die it will be from other causes, not the fire risk. I worked in oil refineries all my life and every one I was ever associated with had significant fires. That risk is always there; you manage it, you don’t just decide you’re not going to have refineries. And if you think the fire risk is awful, look into what could happen with an HF (hydroflouric acid) loss of containment. It could be a disaster, but we still have HF units.
Mr. .1: I get that EV manufacturers will “do what they can to alter the public’s perception”, what I don’t get is why you are doing it. Do you manufacture or sell EVs? “[B]ut you can manage it.” No, you can’t, or the ship would not be destroyed. Did you ask somebody for data above? Give us data on managing these fires. Fires at refineries are a problem, and have been for awhile, right? If we had a choice, we could get rid of refinery fires, right? If EV’s were fit for purpose, we could have built them after WWII and saved alot of refinery fires. We have an alternative to EVs, and they should be ashcanned before somebody gets fried- it could be you!!!
Nobody here is talking about “perception” of risk. We are talking about actual risk. You have always been the one trying to down play the risk.
PS, I love the way you keep making proposals that always involve other people spending even more money, in order to somehow mitigate the increased risks caused by EVs.
PPS: You have claimed that the fire risk for EVs is very low, you have not demonstrated it.
1)The total number of EVs are only about 1% the total number of ICE cars, yet you insist on comparing absolute number of fires.
2) EVs are new, most are less than 5 years old, many ICE cars are over 10 years old with many up to 20 years old. Until you account for age in the fire risk, you aren’t dealing with real numbers.
3) Almost all ICE fires are the immediate result of collisions.
4) The few ICE fires that are spontaneous are almost all the result of electrical shorts, EVs have as much if not more electrical wiring than do ICE vehicles, so as they age, the risk is as great or greater.
5) The vast majority of EV fires come from the batteries spontaneously combusting. ICE cars simply do not do that. This is a unique threat that only exists for EVs, no matter how hard you try to spin this otherwise.
6) At least you finally stopped trying to claim that batteries and EVs are an infant technology. I guess even you were eventually overwhelmed by the data presented.