“A number of buses have caught fire at a town centre transport depot. Heavy smoke drifted across Potters Bar after Hertfordshire crews were called to the scene on the High Street at 14:36 BST.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-61543634
“Paul Kirby, a BBC reporter who saw the fire, said he spoke to bus drivers who told him they were relieved the underground diesel storage appeared to be safe. It is thought that up to seven hybrid buses had gone up in flames and “you could hear several loud bangs which they said were tyres” he said.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-61543634
No idea, at this stage if the fire started in a battery; however, this quote also in the report: –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-61543634
“Eyewitness Shaun Cunningham said he heard an “unbelievable noise that sounded like a jet” and he saw a bus had “exploded into a ball of flames”.”
HT/Auto, Jim T, Jerome P and maybe others I’ve missed.
They’re hybrids.
Buses are more vulnerable on probability because of number of batteries and number of cells in each battery. If only one cell overheats or goes short during charging the whole lot will go up in flames.
p.s. Tesla car battery has about 7,000 cells, so total number in the bus system could be in dozens of thousands.
Every cell should be a meter away from every other cell. Oh wait…
Batteries practice social distancing?
What else are you going to do? You can’t put a mask on them! 🙂
Virtual connections!
(It worked so well for education.)
Maybe an experimental injection that will stop infectious explosions???
I use a hybrid bus quite often. They’re much quieter than the old diesels and pollute the air far less.
Except when they spontaneously combust, of course.
One of these things is going to blow up during rush hour, and if it’s a double-decker, a lot of people won’t be able to get out in time.
Nasty way to go.
And therefore carry a shedload of batteries.
Literally.
Which only means they have smaller/fewer battery packs than an EV bus but they still have Spontaneously Combustible Lithium Batteries
We have two hybrid cars which do get much better gas mileage than the ICE versions. Given the current price of fuel that’s a good thing. But I would not own a plug-in hybrid or EV because I don’t like the idea of charging unattended in my garage. If a hybrid battery lights up while driving, at least you can probably pull over and jump out. If your car bursts into flames in your attached garage while you sleep, you may never wake up.
I suspect that after a few payouts the insurance companies will refuse to insure your home if it has an attached garage and you charge your car in the garage. So, you will have to charge your car in the driveway or on the street. After the thefts increase with cars parked outside, the auto insurance rates will increase to cover their losses. It is a lose-lose situation.
If plug-in vehicles start taking their toll on insurance company profits, the feds will step in and make up for the short falls.The feds will never allow the insurance companies to “discriminate” against plug-ins. My $.02
If I remember correctly, GM makes the purchasers of the Volt sign off that they will not store their car in their home garage. It needs to be out on the driveway…unclear why though
If you can’t start it in your garage, then, you can’t put it into your garage unless it’s running and you don’t turn it off. Do I have that right?
I feel the same way. Besides the added cost of a hybrid, I didn’t want a battery in my garage, esp., not since it would be right next to my gas hot water tank!
Not anymore!
The news story said hybrids, but, if one can believe Wiki, the manufacturer has not sold any hybrid Metrodeckers. Furthermore, the company has recommended that its entire fleet of Metrodecker EVs be idled pending investigation. We’ll wait and see, but this looks like another EV bus calamity.
Thanks Tipster!
Here is a lithium battery roaring “like a jet”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqV6zEO7hEQ
And this one really “Jets”
I think the windows wind up and the doors are locked if there is an issue with the battery. If you are in an inferno can anyone hear you scream?
That’s one of the reasons that they have a separate conventional 12v system on HEVs and BEVs.
Which flummoxes the owners if the 12v one goes flat & the car won’t start.
I’ve yet to be flummoxed by a dead battery in my ICE vehicle, I just hop into my other ICE vehicle, drive over to the auto parts store, drop $150 and replace the battery.
Easy Peasy Lemon-squeezy
How many EV batteries can be easily replaced by the owner from the auto parts store for under $200?
If worse case happens and my other ICE is unavailable because my Wife is out someplace I can walk the mile to the auto parts store and carry the battery back. Try that with an 1,100lb Tesla replacement
The solution is to have the Li-ion battery packs held under the car by releasable clamps that are actuated by heat or a sudden voltage drop. In the event of a short-circuit, the battery pack will drop on the pavement like a bomb, allowing the car to coast to a stop a safe distance ahead.
It will also do wonders to re-train drivers who like to tailgate. After running over an incendiary battery bomb, if they survive, they will keep plenty of distance between themselves and the EV in front of them in the future.
“In the event of a short-circuit, the battery pack will drop on the pavement like a bomb, allowing the car to coast to a stop a safe distance ahead.”
You’d have to have pretty high clearance to be able to drive over an ejected battery pack, wouldn’t you? And your scenario would only work if you were driving in a straight line. On a curve, you’d have a problem.
What about the poor sap driving in the car behind the EV?
As we used to say in the military, “You gotta expect losses in a big operation.”
Fit ejector seats.
Car on fire? Then leave by the quickest way possible.
If a baby survives that, he’ll be a test pilot!
Next: do a passengers plane/bomber crossover.
The new Teslas have the battery pack integral with the frame. There’s nothing to “drop”. Early in their life Tesla envisioned batteries as being quick and easy to swap instead of charging them. That idea went nowhere as it’s not practical being that the battery packs are stressed members of the body and need careful alignment.
Kamala Harris is leading the Biden Administration’s charge to replace school busses with these fire traps. She gave a speech yesterday outlining her concerns with exposing school children to diesel fumes. Somehow that’s bad but incinerating school children is ok? What are these morons going to do when all these EV busses have to be withdrawn from use?
According to Real Clear Politics, 41% of Americans still approve of the Biden administration. Hard to believe that there are that many idiots. The good news is 54 percent disapprove.
Blimey!
Somehow I can’t see myself buying an electric or hybrid car now.
The commenters on that video are saying it’s not a Lithium battery but a LiPo, whatever that is.
LIPO = lithium polymer
State Governments in Australia now require Electric Vehicles and hybrids to display a blue triangle sticker on the front and rear registration plates to alert road traffic authorities and fire services to the potential fire hazard.
Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles are not required to display a warning sticker unless converted to Liquid Petroleum Gas or Compressed Natural Gas fuels, fully or dual fuel system.
I understand that the number of EV (plus Hybrid) are about one per cent of the global fleet of vehicles registered.
In the UK EV owners can have a green rectangle at the start of the reg plate (I think it’s optional but they all seem to have them). It’s really intended for virtue signalling, but it does provide a warning for the emergency services so does actually serve a useful purpose 😀
Putin can save his missiles
No sane person would travel in an electric bus.
Watch this by the UK’s leading expert on battery fires, starting at about 1hr 62mins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9B5M8qHQQ0
And there have never been gasoline-fed fires in IC cars …
“gasoline-fed” or “gasoline-caused”?
Have any stationary IC vehicles gone on fire just because the gasoline went on fire all by itself?
Certainly not spontaneous fires in diesel buses
Never one which combusted SPONTANEOUSLY
Didn’t look like there was any ACCIDENT involved
In response to all who reflexively clicked on the little negative symbol …
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) says that vehicle fires account for nearly one in every eight reported fires, so it’s worth knowing how to reduce some of the risk in your own.
Contents
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/accidents-hazardous-conditions/10-causes-of-car-fires.htm
Have a nice day.
The response of all who clicked knowingly on the little negative symbol underneath your earlier post at the start of this thread was based on . . .
The known fact that lithium batteries can spontaneous burst into flames even after being unused for a day or two, whereas the same is definitely not true of gasoline- or diesel-fueled ICE vehicles (which incidentally do have lead-acid batteries used for starting the engines).
You have a nice, reflective day also.
Mr. Speed: How very thoughtful of you!! Reducing risk, who could oppose that? I for one am all for it, and am surprised you don’t take your own suggestion. Eliminating #5 would remove the risk of fires you can’t put out, are you with me? Eliminate the hazard of EV fire, who could oppose that?
Are you willfully ignorant? The entire point is that gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles don’t just spontaneously combust, unlike battery-powered vehicles.
Was that a rhetorical question?
Only #5 has the spontaneous combustion feature! 😮
They’re not even safe as cargo on a ship/plane. Yet some lunatics want them to power
aircraft!
https://www.foxnews.com/auto/cargo-ship-4000-cars-sinks
I found a picture of you driving your EV car. Park safe!
🤣🤣🤣
I work for a very large aerospace firm and lets just say they are going head long into urban mobility and electric flight. It isn’t a pipe dream but moving into reality. I don’t think it will work long-term and there are inherently more issues with it than are currently known but this is the trajectory we are on.
However, the green beast is alive and well and the statement from the CEO was something akin to ‘doing this (electrification of flight) will ensure the future of air travel’.
So, regardless of what we think or know regarding the dangers associated with batteries and what not, they are moving forward. I can’t go into the design phase but I will say that initially, they will be more of a hybrid system than a fully electric system.
The clown show is alive and well.
Why is it that every time the subject of electric vehicle fires come up, some troll drags out the same tired, irrelevant studies?
Cuz they, as with Rev “Net Zero” Speed, the head flock fleecer- I mean,
preacher- @ The Church of the CO₂ Climate Cult go with what they got-
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! 😮
Thanks for the reminder Speedy, I hadn’t yet know “knowingly clicked” on the Negative Vote to your post yet
The critical issue is relative numbers.
Gasoline powered vehicles generally only catch fire after a big crash.
Beyond that there’s the fact that electric’s are only about 1% of the fleet and are much newer to boot, yet the vast majority of fires are being caused by them.
Considering the number of gasoline powered cars on the road, they are very rare. I once drove my Corvette for over an hour with a leaking fuel line filter under the hood with the only downside being terrible gas mileage.
https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osvehiclefires.pdf
Look hard, you won’t find spontaneous combustion of the fuel store in there..
“about 1hr 62mins:” it’s not that long! It’s 1:42 in total.
Shhh! It’s a secret!
People with less money than others may have to rely on public transport. Travelling in a bus isn’t a matter of choice, and if the local buses are electric that’s not a choice either. Those people’s lives have just gone down a notch through no fault of their own, following the downward notch from the surge in electricity prices caused by renewables.
When they have been reduced to slavery, the next layer of society will be worked on. Best to stand up for them now.
I watched it on the BBC news. The explosion is just like the electric bus that blow up recently in Europe (France?). That isn’t a diesel explosion. It’s a battery lighting up. They need to withdraw all electric buses from operation.
I think Biden’s limo should be switched to an EV to save the planet.
I noticed on television on Saturday evening the Opposition Leader now Prime Minister getting into a car with Protective Service personnel vehicles following.
It was a Tesla S EV.
He made it to the victory party.
“The Prime Minister rolls “Luck” +19 and arrives at his destination.”
Can we consult the “Wander Damage Table” next time?
He should switch to a German or French bus to save energy.
Brilliant +10
Then you Kamala are you sure?
Yes. Whoever is pulling the strings on Biden will pull the strings on her and nothing will change except a larger percentage of people willing to use the 25th to remove the president.
Best to use second-hand batteries salvaged from wrecked limos to optimize the planetary savings.
Better yet, all school busses should be electric, too. The reaction from parents will be informative.
I would not wish such a possible fate on my worst enemy, let alone on school-age children.
I think everyone in Washington D.C. should use EV transportation
Diesel doesn’t explode as it is not volatile like petrol. It does actually have a lower ignition temperature than petrol as that just evaporates.
You can throw a match into a pool of it & the match will go out. Petrol will burn. Vapors from
either one are what explode.
They only explode if they have the correct mixture of air and fuel. And for both, the range of mixtures that will explode is quite narrow.
If it’s an enclosed container, the match will just go out from lack of oxygen.
Seems like they are taking action.
https://www.whtimes.co.uk/news/potters-bar-fire-tfl-removes-buses-8987492
The series of fires centred around electric and hybrid buses seems to be catching the attention of the operators of said vehicles.
The latest I read claims that it was the charger not the batteries that started the fire. Obviously this would only make E.V.s twice as dangerous as there are 2 major fire risks.
Anyone remember Mattel’s hot wheels?
Yeah, they were developed after Matchbox.
Not to mention Dinky and Corgi
Go and have some coffee…
Gee thanks man
He didn’t get it.
It’s all bogus.
The value of green tech is solely based on speculation of its future value. It relies on speculative interest (new investors). Any doubt about climate will directly impact valuation. The financial risks from climate denialism far outweigh real climate changes. The capex is over $5 trillion for green tech. Too big to fail.
$5 trillion annual investment today is riding on a real market of buyers ‘only’ $50 billion. It’s totally out of hand, speculative value exceeds the market 100 fold. It’s dangerous. This, where ordinary citizens now have pensions tied up in this scheme.
A significant flaw in climate science can cause global financial collapse. At $5 trillion would be equivalent to wiping a large country off the map. The financial marketplace now completely reliant on legislation by democratically elected governments. Where every lawmaker, every media institution, and every NGO ‘charity’ has skin in the game. Not good.
All it would take is a decade of global cooling to drive everyone nuts. Climate reporting is being driven to a catastrophism narrative not by science, but by financial market forces. This, under the guise of moral purity and ‘responsible investment’.
Preaching to the choir … hope you feel better.
Merely facts, chummy. Too bad you don’t like them.
What’s the matter, Rev “Net Zero” Speed? Are the people here a lot harder for you to
fleece than yours at The Church of the CO₂ Climate Cult? 😮
Speed: Where is JCM wrong? Please tell us.
Anybody with a responsible attitude to humanity would carefully layout and counter JCM’s errors because his analysis has serious implications for the well being of the current and next generations who are, by and large, currently enjoying the benefits of prosperity.
In other news Stuart Kirk, the HSBC banker who said publicly that Global Warming was not a significant investment risk, and backed it up with slides, has been suspended….
According to the FT.
How dare he!
/sarc.
Now is the time to move against the GWPF…
“The Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate sceptic thinktank, has been reported to the Charity Commission by the Green MP Caroline Lucas and Extinction Rebellion.
The move comes after the Guardian revealed that the group received funding from fossil fuel interests.”
Green policies are so popular in the UK, there is one green MP, and that’s Lucas.
The claim from Lucas and XR is probably that some old geezer who contributed online once had a coal fire in his living room.
And, look at the environmental (emphasis on “mental” disaster of a constituency she represents, a truly delusional woman.
She is a retard. A very right on retard.
You do know what the title of Lucas’ PhD thesis was, don’t you? If you don’t….
“Writing for Women: a study of woman as reader in Elizabethan romance.”
Well that beats my very old BSc in biology.
Elizabethan Romance was hysterical…
I once visited Kenilworth Castle (somewhere near the middle of England)
It seems, without mincing words, that Good Queen Bess, despite being a virgin, was a bit of whore.
She ‘led men on’ – enticing them to build lavish houses, castles, mansions etc which she would visit (free hotel room innit) as she went about the country letting folks know who she was and what she was about.
(Raising taxes and spying on everyone = nothing new under the sun)
Kenilworth was one of the places she came to stay, after the guy had spent simply gobsmacking amounts of money – in the hope of wooing her when she came calling. ##
But while she was there, she politely ignored the guy’s romantic overtures.
Seemingly as her and her entourage were leaving, the queens carriage was ambushed by a ‘singing holly-bush‘ (a minstrel of the day wearing camouflage)
Apparently singing hollybushes were The Most Romantic Overture any man could make towards any girl – at that time. Damned expensive too.
History records that they fell out of favour
## Kenilworth had an epic garden which no-one officially knew about, it was soooooo lovely. The original plans were destroyed and anybody/everybody who did know what it was like were sworn to The Utmost Secrecy – so secret that even today what you see in Kenilworth Garden is no more than Climate Science = speculative guesswork
I should have guessed, Elizabethan romance…. prick teasing.
Missed the edit..
It was a bit sad actually. The guy who owned Kenilworth and so as to get over his sadness at hus failure of winning Queen Bess, went back to business of full time soldiering – he was pretty high ranking sort.
Got himself killed inside 12 months
Women eh, – how does that ‘living’ cliche go?
Wimmin: Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without them….
I think the correct cliché goes “Women, can’t live with them, can’t shoot them”.
Lucy Worsley did a reconstruction of the firework display Robert Dudley put on for Queen Elizabeth1.
The whole programme is not available but there is a clip from it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09cfwt4
A Pressie for Queenie….
The GWPF reports are cogent and clear in their reasoning – something that is absent in alarmist and green circles. The latter have to resort to name calling and the like because they have no solid arguments based on empircal observations.
The problem being that the main parties are themselves so steeped in greenery that we effectively have 600+ green MPs, all peddling the same cr*p.
CRU received funding from fossil fuel interests, lots of it. They should be defunded too.
Yes. When Hubert Lamb left the Met Office to set up CRU at the University of East Anglia the University agreed to match the funding he had already received from Shell.
CRU took tons of money from oil companies. Where was the Guradian’s expose on them?
Mythbusting the Oil Libel
https://bit.ly/3bX2YOC
EXCERPT
[The following emails come from a single year, the year 2000, which marked the start of a bidding war between Shell, Esso/Exxon-Mobil and BP for the ‘science’ of the CRU.
Mike Hulme and Tim O’Riordan……If the dangerous-AGW hypothesis is the main selling-point of the wind-farm industry, it’s the very raison d’etre of the energy-indulgences anti-industry: carbon credits, carbon capture, carbon sequestration, emissions trading.
2. Shell’s interest is not in basic science. Any work they support must have a clear and immediate relevance to ‘real-world’ activities. They are particularly interested in emissions trading and CDM.
Next, “Esso”—which is UK English for “Exxon-Mobil”—also sees the investment opportunity. Mike Hulme writes (Climategate file 959187643.txt):
I would think Tyndall should have an open mind about this and try to find the slants that would appeal to Esso.
The Tyndall climatologists grow so accustomed to the attentions of the fossil-fuel giants that by year’s end they’re taking it for granted that Beyond Petroleum will be another suitor. The scientist Simon Shackley writes:
Subject: BP funding…
dear TC colleagues, it looks like BP have their cheque books out!]
OT
HSBC has reportedly suspended a senior executive ahead of an internal investigation into a presentation he made that accused central bankers of overstating the financial risks of climate change.
Stuart Kirk, the global head of responsible investing at HSBC’s asset management division, attacked climate “nut jobs” during the speech.
Britain’s biggest bank had faced calls to sack Mr Kirk after he hit out at climate activists and asked “who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years?”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/23/hsbc-suspends-banker-nut-job-climate-remarks/
P.S. if Mr. Kirk is dismissed from HSBC he is unlikely to be employed by another large institution, in which case he might set up his own investment fund.
I will follow this case and if Kirk’s investment fund comes to being, I will put a bit of my own money in it, since I think this guy knows what he is talking about.
I feel sorry for Kirk. But he should never have taken the job with HSBC, a bank which is better known recently for bending the knee to China – “to hell Hong Kong and the Uyghurs”.
As a former unpaid non-executive director of one of HSBC’s subsidiaries, I was invited to a one day investment seminar where the goody for all attendees was Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. The bank has been woke since before the term was even invented.
So you’re saying HSBC hates their employees? Couldn’t they have at least given everyone a t-shirt or an inkpen?
😉
Recent headlines:
Mar 29, 2022 — California’s Modesto City Schools ordered 30 Blue Bird All American Type D electric school buses to convert nearly half of its fleet…
Apr 8, 2022 — New York State legislators have agreed a budget that includes committing the state to 100% electric school buses by 2035.
MAY. 20, 2022 — The Biden administration announced Friday it’s making $500 million available to school districts and other eligible operators and contractors to replace their fleet of diesel school buses with electric ones.
What could go wrong? If they can’t abort them, they’ll find another way to reduce future generations.
I’ve heard that roast kid is very delicious.
Very like lamb!!!!
No, more like goat.
Or “long pig”
and when one goes up and kids get fried will joe label himself a domestic terrorist for forcing the cruddy things ON schools?
Unlikely to catch fire while driving, cells are discharging. Up to now all fires started at bus depots while they are on charges, voltage at ends of each cell is higher than operating one, so if cell is suspect it’s more likely to go off then.
But total damage would be higher since number of bus on charge at same time. High temperature from fire on one bus would trigger off batteries in one parked few feet away regardles if on charge or not.
The other dangerous situation is damaged battery in case of a crash.
What does this mean for an average EV motorist?
If you by a second hand EV with high millage, that has been charged/discharged hundreds of times (or you have reconditioned batteries, if there is such a thing) and you are at an extra-fast charging station, don’t sit inside your vehicle regardless how could might be outside, best stand some distance away while your EV is charging.
A 50L petrol tank will always hold > 49L
.. except for the two that went up in France recently:
https://insideevs.com/news/583324/paris-suspends-149-bollore-electric-buses-after-two-fires/
There were on a top up induction charging spot.
Buses need lot of power to run smoothly during the day which single charge can’t provide so they have induction charging top up points.
Here what is done in London:
“IPT provides a flexible and reliable wireless charging solution to this project with minimum visual pollution and noise. The buses in London run their service with en-route opportunity charging. The buses were charged wirelessly at either end of the route, where they stopped over a 100kW charging plate during scheduled layover periods. The charging system starts automatically charging the bus every half an hour during the day for charging at 100kW for 6-8 minutes. Also, the batteries were charged by overnight plug-in charging at the bus depot.”
It seems that failure of the separator between the cathode & anode inside the cell
causes a short circuit which causes the cell to heat up & catch fire. Since charging
raises the voltage between the two puts more pressure on the separator making it
more likely to fail. If I’m correct, fast charging would apply even more voltage
differential- thus pressure- for more current to flow heating the battery even quicker
Obviously, they need to redesign it and/or increase production quality as each battery
contains 1000s of cells. With electric grid batteries, weight & size would be less of a
consideration so they may need to use other materials vs lithium if they can’t find a
fix.
The Democrat Infrastructure and Jobs Act has $5B in it to subsidize electric SCHOOL BUSES!
A disaster just waiting to happen!
Just wait until a school bus goes up in flames at the depot and takes out a whole bunch of buses. Parents will bring the school districts back to a state of sensibility.
Multiple buses burning in a garage is much better than multiple children burning in a bus.
We were at Imperial War Museum Duxford, in Cambridge that day, and could see the smoke plume from there.
Diesel doesn’t explode does it?
Not unless mixed with ammonium nitrate
Only when vapourised and under very high compression in a cylinder in an engine.
But if it leaks out of a tank or from a fitting (or during refueling) it can catch fire and burn lots of stuff including busses and buildings.
It’s very difficult to start diesel burning. I had a broken injection pipe once, diesel was spraying all over the engine, including on the exhaust manifold. No fire.
Diesel does not catch fire easily.
Gas can ignite from a burning match.
Diesel can extinguish a burning match.
I have seen many times diesel spilling. Never one case of a fire. Plese show us a couple of examples. (I’m not holding my breath!)
Speeds knowledge of the world seems to come from Hollywood movies rather than experience. Here’s a quick demonstration of the flammability of various fuels. After putting a blow torch to diesel it almost burns for a second!
And yet it just doesn’t seem to happen, does it?
Absent an accident, leaks from the fuel system are very, very rare.
Probably/possibly an electric bus fire.
“The depot is home to Metroline, which runs buses in London.,,
“It is thought that up to seven hybrid buses had gone up in flames…”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-61543634
And here’s a youtube press release(?) from January, showing how proud they are of their new electric bus.
A simple thermodynamic issue with increasing energy density of current batteries is that they will move from a fire risk to an explosion risk. We may well already be close to the maximum as far as safety is concerned.
Fossil fuels are controllable insofar as they are not premixed with all the oxygen required for combustion. Batteries do not require external inputs to release their energy.
Better keep your iPhone in a fire and explosion proof box — not in a pocket or purse. And they are certainly too explosion and fire prone to take on an airplane,
Small number of cells in hand held devices reduces probability of one going wrong and setting battery on fire.
Not to mention, they do, on occasion, catch fire.
The large number of phones in circulation increases the probability of one going wrong and starting a fire in someone’s pocket or purse or desk or car or house.
… or on an aeroplane.
Speed, it’s also a question of scale. A digital watch is never blamed on starting a fire. But you can’t run a bus that way. Heat dissipation and all that.
Are you saying it has never happened? I imagine that if anyone who usually carries their cell phone in their hip pocket were to experience a spontaneous fire, they would find another way of carrying their phone.
People carrying their phone in a hip pocket quickly learn that is a bad idea.
Phones have a low crush tolerance.
Most of my pants now have a pocket sewn in just below the front pockets. A pocket just right for normal size phones.
Battery shorts must reach lithium’s ignition temperature before the battery combusts.
Small devices dissipate heat quickly, thus preventing most small device batteries from igniting.
Once lithium reaches decomposition temperatures, they are almost impossible to extinguish.
I know you take great pride in your ignorance, but cell phones were banned from planes when they were new because of the fire risk. The phone manufacturers did a lot of work on the batteries to reduce this risk.
There was less investment made in reducing the fire risk of the cheap battery power banks. They have done and still do regularly cause fires.
Only if damaged or sometimes during charging
Not only …
The reason for your phone overheating will vary. Physical damage—the kind sustained from a fall or excessive bending—can disrupt the inner workings of the battery. Leaving the phone out in the sun for too long, malware overworking the CPU, or a charging debacle can all cause short circuiting within the device.
Or it could be something outside your direct control. Batteries degrade over time, so if a device has been used for several years, it’s possible for the internal components to fade, leading to swelling and overheating. Or an issue with the phone’s production may be to blame, which you can’t really account for.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/why-phones-explode-and-how-to-prevent-it-from-happening-to-you
Mr. Speed: Thanks again for giving us the unvarnished truth about how great EVs are.
Sure makes a great argument AGAINST placing 7,000 – 14,000 of them charging in your garage overnight.
Handheld electronic devices require tiny currents compared with vehicles. Even so, there have been many lithium battery fires in laptops and PC’s.
Funny you should mention aircraft – a number of Boeing 787’s have burned due to lithium battery fires.
Different technology, as well as only one or two cells instead of thousands.
Finally, how often do you charge a cell phone when on a plane?
Or you actually as desperate as your posts make you sound?
Yes an no..
A Complete Muppet Issue in reality
If they’d used LiFePO4 batteries, instead of Li-Ion, nothing would have happened
We have all heard the Urban Myth of the female bus driver who constantly had to be rescued while out on her route and if she actually made it back to the depot, her bus was a flat-battery and out-of-diesel wreck.
It seems she misunderstood the concept of Regenerative Braking, where upon The Battery is recharged when you press the brake pedal.
So she rode around all day with her foot on the brake, safe in the knowledge she was ‘Saving The World’ and ‘Thinking of the Children’
Funny you should say that. Two days ago a female driving instructor voluntarily joked to me about female drivers when her female pupil had stopped at an embarrassing point at traffic lights.
I offer no opinion, other than risks between drivers are different.
On a more technical note, explosives are judged partly by the energy density, and also by the specific mass density of the compound.
Some years ago I watched an excellent lecture by the person responsible for making Octanitrocubane.
The shape of the molecule delights chemists, mathematicians, and generals. But the crystal structure didn’t demonstrate the density required for military use, despite the computer modellers forever shifting the result in the desired direction. It’s not just climate science that plays these funding games.
I just looked up the price of electric busses:
“To buy an e-bus today you can expect to pay around $1,000,000, as compared to $750,000 or so for a diesel bus, or about 30-40% more, but over the life of the bus, e-buses are about 25% cheaper due to the reduced operating costs”
Haha Haha!
As long as the EV buses are operated for many more years than internal combustion engine buses to reach break even on cost price.
Do they factor in premature retirement from fire and explosion?
Once the insurance companies get some experience with battery fires, I would anticipate that the insurance premiums will easily eat up the savings in operating costs. Not only does a defective battery destroy its bus, but it will probably take several others with it and damage the parking facility and chargers.
… and I can imagine those behind the curtains pushing and profiting from this “green” ($$$ not Health) energy disaster are laughing into their martinis and Dom. They’re only sad that there were no dead burned bodies smoldering in the carcasses of those buses.
I would think the insurance will become prohibitively expensive for electric bus fleets
They will mandate cheap insurance.
That will mean mandating bankruptcy. The city will have to self-insure, which means increased taxes on those who don’t use the buses.
Mass transit is already heavily subsidized, Last time I saw a study, less than 10% of operating expenses comes from the fare box in most cities.
They will not need to. Most municipal fleets in the US are self-insured by the government entity that operates them. Any losses will be borne by the taxpayer.
Schadenfreude
All parked side by side, that is a no-no with e busses.
South Korean automaker Hyundai just announced that they are going to invest $5.5 billion in an EV car and battery production facility in Georgia….
Hyundai Motor Group Will Build Big EV Plant And Battery Facility In Georgia (insideevs.com)
“Hyundai Motor Group announced a major $5.54 billion investment in new electric vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities in Bryan County, Georgia (as part of a $7.4 billion investment planned in the US by 2025).
It will be the company’s first site dedicated to electric vehicles, with an annual capacity of 300,000 units of a “wide range” of models.”
**********
Although the Hyundai plant will make EV cars and not buses, this still seems like a rather bad time to be making such an investment anywhere given all the EV battery fires we’ve seen.
Especially since Hyundai already has problems with fires from traditionally-fueled cars.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/04/hyundai-recalling-390000-cars-over-fire-risk/
True but it’s got to be better than trying to ship the finished product by sea!
Roll on Lithium/Sulphur batteries which do not have an exothermic runaway tendency.
Stabilization of gamma sulfur at room temperature to enable the use of carbonate electrolyte in Li-S batteries | Communications Chemistry (nature.com)
Hopefully there aren’t any solar panels on the bus station roof…
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/solar-panels-on-roof-cause-fire-at-%c2%a31000000-home/ar-AAXCvfX?ocid=IE11FRENTP&OCID=IE11FRENTP
Mr. Layman here.
If a lead/acid, NiCad, alkaline battery develops a short, that heat source won’t start a fire without fuel and O2.
A lithium ion battery short has both fuel and O2 built in. That’s why they are so hard to put out.
These catastrophes in the making for transport, renewables power, hydrogen ‘economy’, etc. are due entirely to lack of proper feasibility studies being done to determine reliability, affordability and safety. The crash test dummies are the citizenry!
This has been fun. Commenters responding to my earlier comment enjoyed themselves so much I thought it would be interesting and a public service to put a little more fat on the fire … errrr … facts on the fire.
National Fire Protection Association
The leading information and knowledge resource on fire, electrical and related hazards
Search Results For “Lithium-ion batteries”
https://www.nfpa.org/standard_items/search_results?term=abe8b098-782f-40a4-a19f-44a8c1598a4a
Those commenting on the wisdom of putting Lithium batteries on airplanes may find this interesting …
A Look Back: How Boeing Overcame The 787’s Battery Problemshttps://simpleflying.com/boeing-787-battery-problems-overcome/
Enjoy.
Boeing “solved” the problem of overheating lithium batteries by upgrading the fire suppression system.
It’s not quite that simple or straightforward … this from the simpleflying.com article linked above …
“Design feature improvements for the battery include the addition of new thermal and electrical insulation materials and other changes. The enhanced production and testing processes include more stringent screening of battery cells prior to battery assembly. Operational improvements focus on tightening of the system’s voltage range. A key feature of the new enclosure is that it ensures that no fire can develop in the enclosure or in the battery.”
And yet still there are NEWS stories about burning Busses and burning Cars. Buses that are parked and recharging overnight https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/12/electric-bus-inferno-in-hanover-germanyexplosive-fire-causes-millions-in-damages/
To Busses spontaneously combusting
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/01/electric-bus-catches-fire-after-battery-explosion/
Even cars on cargo ships during transport overseas are burning
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/18/was-the-felicity-ace-fire-caused-by-electric-vehicle-batteries/
1) Not certain where you got Boeing from (The link is to a WUWT article about the burning electric Busses in Germany)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=T71cVhxG_v4
2) But we do know that the Battery exploded as evidenced from the video
3) Yep convenient for the EV manufacturers that the Felicity sank with all cargo aboard and now rests on the sea floor under 2 miles of water. Very difficult to proclaim or even investigate to determine the cause with certainty. But all those burning Lithium Batteries certainly doomed the vessel.
To electrify the world’s cars will need global production of lithium, cobalt and other metals to increase about a thousand times.
Can you remind us where this is all going to come from? Which planet, for instance?
O sorry I forgot – politicians and celebrities can now snap their fingers and new technology appears to fulfil political demands. The legal profession could sure use time travel – what’s the time-line on that?
I have no knowledge or opinion with respect to the earth’s lithium stores … but … it has been predicted many times that we would soon run out of oil.
… historical projections suggest that the world has “almost run out of oil” at least five times in the past century. Here are some examples:
“The world will run out of oil in 10 years.” – U.S. Bureau of Mines (1914)
“The world will run out of oil in 13 years.” – U.S. Department of the Interior (1939 and 1950)
“The world will run out of oil and other fossil fuels by 1990.” – Paul Erlich, Limits to Growth (1973)
“The world will run out of oil in 2030, and other fossil fuels in 2050.” -Paul Erlich, Beyond the Limit (2002)
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/marcellus/node/826
Prediction is hard — especially about the future.
The way peak oil becomes / has become self fulfilling is where establishment activists divest from, legally attack and otherwise lynch fossil fuel companies. Then say “o my word – fossil production is declining”. And why have fuel prices gone up so much? Nothing to do with us! Russians I guess
This was probably why America precipitated the war in Ukraine. To allow Russia, not climate activism, to be blamed for rising prices.
How exactly did America precipitate the war in Ukraine?
And how many times has the Earth “Run Out of Oil” since the first prediction in 1914?
Hint…
ZERO
The ACCC gets worried-
ACCC warns consumers of storage battery fire risk – Utility Magazine
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/transport-for-london-tfl-buses-fire-taken-out-service-b1001775.html
I’ve dug a bit deeper, amazing what you can find!
The most trustworthy evidence is a tweet, a high resolution photo from the local fire brigade (https://twitter.com/fire_PottersBar/status/1528528518283415556/photo/1). This shows all 6 damaged buses.
Two of these are the new all electric Switch Mobility MetroDecker EV (https://www.switchmobility.tech/en/current-vehicles), the one on the far right, still burning well, and the one third from the left that is just a smoking shell. This is also the one seen exploding in the video’s online (https://twitter.com/i/status/1528371914267402240) and is clearly the bus where the fire started.
The 2 on the left are Volvo’s diesels from 2011 (confirmed by the Bus Audit from March this year – https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/bus-fleet-data-and-audits – who knew such things existed!), I think the remaining 2 are ADL Enviro 400 Hybrids, from about 10 years ago.
Interesting little investigation into the London bus fleet! Discovered that they now have 785 all electric buses (9% of total) and have started to introduce Hydrogen Fuel Cell buses too (22 as of the end of March), also not without fire risks!
Interesting that this news did not make it into the Daily Mail. Just like vaccine injuries, it is “disapeared”.