From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
And in yet more bad news for the EV rollout:
John Lewis has stopped offering insurance to electric car drivers amid fears over the cost of repairs.
The department store’s lending business John Lewis Financial Services has put a temporary pause on customers taking out cover or renewing existing policies on battery-power vehicles while its underwriter, Covéa, analyses risks and costs.
Insurers are facing rising costs for vehicle repairs, which are eating into profits. According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), vehicle repair costs rose 33pc over the first quarter of 2023 compared to 2022, helping to push annual premiums to record highs.
Electric cars can be particularly expensive to repair, costing around a quarter more to fix on average, compared to a petrol or diesel vehicle, according to Thatcham Research, the motor industry’s research centre.
Particular worries surround the batteries, which are commonly mounted on the floor of the vehicle. This placement can make it more likely that it will be damaged even in a minor accident such as mounting a kerb.
According to Copart, an auction platform, around half the low-mileage electric vehicles it has salvaged have suffered minor battery damage.
The battery is also generally the most expensive part of an electric car and can account for as much as 50pc of the vehicle’s value, costing between £14,200 and £29,500.
I suppose that EV vehicles should be plastic free.
Carbon fibre free?
That too.
Perhaps they should be exclusively made from Al-O-N?
Is that a relative of Al Gore (asking for a friend)?
It would be prudent to make the EVs plastic free since they seem to catch fire so spectacularly – wouldn’t want pillowing clouds of toxic smoke – one must take care of the environment!
Being as how the battery, wire insultation, relays, transistors, capacitors, resistors, printed circuit boards, and other components are at least partly made of plastic or other hydrocarbon compositions is going to make this difficult, if not impossible, or at least impractical.
Silicon used for semiconductor electronics starts out with quartz and coal as the reactants and coal as the energy source for the process. Might as well rule out the use of anything that is electronic.
Bring back vacuum tubes? 😉
Need to spin the vacuum pump somehow while making them.
Giant Hamster Wheels and Climate Sinner Runners, the new Green Jobs
Nah, EVs were always intended to run on brain farts.
(You know, the brain farts that have all forms of conveyance going battery electric).
When I was a kid, before circuit boards, we had a record player in our room. (All vacuum tubes.)
My brothers and I figured out that if we turned it at a certain angle and set the speed between 45 rpm and 78 rpm, we could pick up a local radio station! (WLW)
Vacuum tubes have become much smaller over time but I still think that a vacuum tube static drive and main computer for a car might still be a just little too large to fit in the EV’s drive bay. 😉😊
Imagine a dashboard, using nixie tubes
Actually done right it could look pretty cool but NO.😂😂
Transistors are not made of plastic.
To clarify “Although most transistors are made from silicon (Si), they can be made from other materials such as germanium and gallium arsenide (GaAs).”
A large number of discrete transistors have a plastic body. The semiconductor part is extremely small.
Transistors are encased in plastic or occasionally metal.
Integrated circuits are encased in plastic or ceramic, depending on application.
Look on the motherboard of your computer and there’s probably more plastic than there is semiconductor material.
Given how much toxic smoke is comig from the battery itself, a little more from the car itself won’t make that much difference.
EVs should be battery free, that’s the only way they’re safe
Battery free? I’m thinking Flintstones. Yabba dabba doo!
I’m thinking Suspended wires like Street Cars or perhaps something more enjoyable like Bumper Cars
“… Let’s ride with the family down the street. Courtesy of Fred’s two feet …”
WILMAAAAA!
A child and the driver were killed but what would have been the outcome if instead of diesel it had been an EV.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-66958251
I do not think it would make a difference. While doing a root cause investigation based on a picture might not get the specific problem, I can make some educated guesses.
Why did the coach hit the ‘motorway reservation‘ or guardrail as we say in the US?
When a large steer tire blows (22.5 inch, 120 psi) sometimes the coach veers in the direction of the blown tire and the driver is unable to safely safely stop.
Recently this happened to a bus carrying kids to band camp and it went over the guardrail and down the embankment. Driver, one adult, and a few children
A few weeks before a motor home towing a big utility blew the divers side steer tire went through the guardrail and hit a semi pulling a triple. All 5 people were killed.
Because I drive a motor home I worry about blowing a steer tire. I also worry about fires. In some cases, two minutes is all you have to escape.
My research has found the risk of dying in a motor home is very small. I do not think more batteries will significantly change the risk.
Add an EV battery fire to it?
Big difference.
I agree with the root premise.
“Police said the coach struck a motorway reservation shortly after 08:00 BST.”
It seems like the root cause did not involve selecting optimal motor technology.
The driver had a medical emergency that precipitated the accident. The bus was on its side and there was little or no fire. Both of the fatalities were due to trauma. Children had to be removed from the vehicle by the fire service.
However, if the bus had been similar to the ones used local to me, there are battery compartments on the roof and under the floor, in a similar situation then damage to the batteries would have been inevitable with a fairly high probability of fire. If that had occurred then it would have been well alight by the time the emergency services arrived, and instead of two fatalities it could have been 50+ as approaching would have been all but impossible.
Trying to repair a battery pack? With unknown damage? I would think the liability insurance for anyone rash enough to try would be prohibitive.
Greens think they are bringing about a revolution in our society. Not to worry about little details like repairability. Mechanics are expendable.
Wanted: Electrical Engineers Trained in Auto Mechanics (Must be Fully Insured)
Not to mention, fully insulated
There are few specialists who could effectively repair a damaged EV battery, likely only the OEM – they would just ask you to replace for new at a cost of thousands
I don’t think there would be a way to determine its an EV battery pack is safe following an accident, at least without disassembling the entire pack and testing each cell, which would be cost prohibitive in most Western countries due to labour costs alone.
Perhaps they should be fitted with shock stickers and the entire pack written off of a certain shock threshold is exceeded. Combine that with battery pack designed to specifically withstand specified shock levels. These shock levels would need to be specified and monitored in multiple axes (a side impact may be totally different to a front or back impact).
The risks of continuing to use a battery pack that has been subject to an unknown shock would be significant.
Boy, pliers, electric wires
Blue flashes, boy ashes
There is no such thing as minor EV battery damage. That is why they stopped insuring EVs. ~50% with ‘minor’ battery damage. Hard to avoid given EV batteries are basically the entire floorpan to max range capacity.
And five years down the road, there will be no way to replace the batteries due to design shifts and lack of equivalent parts — instant total loss.
This is already reflected in the resale prices of EV’s, which are depreciating rapidly. No one wants them second hand.
No one wants them 1st hand, except company car drivers for lower tax (at present!)
And affluent urban virtue signalers.
I want a Tesla! (If it’s nearly free)
Prius first sold 20 years ago. I drove in several USA cars as a kid with names I think of like I think of the words “buggy whip”. What is a Pinto? A Plymouth? A Buick – I can’t even remember the correct way to spell Buick, but I’ve held the wheel of a “Buick Century”. Probably fewer than 10 humans who read this will remember what a “Buick Century” looks like.
Who in their right mind would strap their kids into what is essentially a mobile bomb?
Everyone who’s ever flown to Orlando to see the mouse?
Minor and obvious battery damage. How many more have taken damage that can’t be seen without a full diagnostic check? EV batteries just not worth the risk.
Sorry I can’t supply the link to the story.
A car was driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in an EV.
They heard a thump as the tires threw up a rock or something that hit the underside of the car.
A few miles later it started to smoke.
They pulled over and man and his daughter bailed out.
Moments later … well, you know the rest.
I’ve heard of auto drive features where cars can drive themselves. However having them drive other cars is news to me.
I’d like to see AI draw that.
I see where a computer-driven car ran over a woman yesterday. She survived but has multiple injuries and is in the hospital.
Gunga Din, I think this may be the story you referenced. A couple and their dog were actually in the car and all escaped safely. The daughter you mentioned was not in the car, but apparently spoke to the TV newsies.
https://www.abc27.com/pennsylvania/incredible-photos-show-unidentifiable-tesla-after-pennsylvania-highway-fire/
I’m worried about Simon. He got in a minor accident driving his EV recently.
Don’t park it in the garage, Simon. Park it outside, away from any buildings.
floorplan ->roadmap I think.
Be very afraid U.S. taxpayer. Once this problem quickly transits the pond, over here to the good old USofA, Our Spend on Credit Congress (SOCC) as in SOCC it to ’em, will just subsidize the insurance industry by placing the future obligation of crushing debt onto your grandchildren. We are probably up to your Great Great Grandchildren by now, thanks to the past three Administrations.
Now tell us something we didn’t already know….
headline:””A couple paying £650 per month to rent a van say they haven’t seen it for seven months – as it keeps breaking down
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/couple-paying-650-month-electric-8794968
haha, love their picture: Moody by name but hardly by nature
(she’s got that ‘Mona Lisa‘ smile)
;-D
The simple solution to their problem is to write a letter to the rental company stating that since they haven’t had the use of the vehicle they refuse to pay the rent. Then demand their money back in small claims court assuming UK has one.
I am an un-interested bystander, while the woke, well-heeled, early-adopter lemmings drive their EVs from fantasy to a premature grave.
EV insurance, including collision, is about 3 times gasoline, but many insurance companies do not offer a policy.
The Marketplace is making a decision, and it doesn’t look good for lithium-powered EVs.
“…small claims court assuming UK has one.”
Yes we have.
We do….
No courtesy car?
Oh yes, a diesel van; meaning they have to pay for fuel as well, whilst not being able to use the £1,000 charging station they paid to have installed.
Priced AAA auto insurance for a Tesla a couple of years ago and the premiums were double my BMW X5.
It’ll now be treble
Keep the good news flowing. Please!
Lots of places (multi-storey car parks, Hotels etc) are banning battery cars from parking on site too
Personally, if I see one in a car park, I always park well away from it – paranoid some may say, but I’ve seen a battery vehicle fire and they aren’t pretty
Strapping a family into what is basically a mobile explosive device is akin to strapping astronauts atop a rocket, however, the increased risk from battery car fire collateral damage adds to the hazard of battery vehicles
They are a significant risk and insurers will continue to either deny insurance or ask for hefty premiums to cover that risk
How any Govt can sanction these on public roads is beyond decency or sense
EV drivers seem to be getting cranky. From The Telegraph:
Motorway service stations hiring staff to police surging levels of EV ‘charge rage’
Oh that’s such a shame. Isn’t it a shame everybody? Heh.
Nope.
Lots of gas stations back in the Carter days. Long lines. Just no gas. (We depended on OPEC.)
Biden is returning us to those days at both the gas pump and the EV charging stations.
PS The Government didn’t build any of those gas pumps. Why should they build EV charging stations?
Lithium-powered Evs are not ready for prime time.
Forcing these EVs on the public is having predictable results.
Those corporate executives ought to be reading WUWT. They would be ahead of the game if they did.
Never knowingly undersold – as the John Lewis partnership has it.
There was an article in the Guardian…
“”The quotes were £5,000 or more’: electric vehicle owners face soaring insurance costs””
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/30/the-quotes-were-5000-or-more-electric-vehicle-owners-face-soaring-insurance-costs
They pay no tax to speak of, but with an EV it’s one prang and you’re out.
Isn’t this the death knell of the EV scam?
Not quite. It’ll go on getting more expensive and less useful for a bit longer yet – not quite at rock bottom and still a lot of vested interests. There’s worse to come while the EV crowd are praying for a new battery design to save them.
the EV crowd are praying
How precious of them (and how hypocritical — as of the true God, the God of truth, would help them in their CO2-is-dangerous fraud scheme). “O Baal! SAVE US! Oooooooh! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYL! Send down some fire.”
Response: silence.
Edit (sigh): hypocritical because they mostly are non-believers in God and His Word — and foolish because empty prayers to a god will never help them — in anything.
Another edit: as if
I also miss the “Edit” function.
I suspect, I don’t know, that dropping it had to do with making the site more secure.
(Glad they didn’t drop “spellcheck”. I’d rally end up sounding like an idioit!)
“edit” was probably dropped because it was broken.
Yes, the software update broke the edit function, and now it appears it has been removed altogether.
I suppose if you pay c £80,000 for the new Jaguar or BMW then 5K a year is chrckenfeed.
The more that spontaneously combust, the more they will be rejected
Battery cars are introducing new mental health issues – range anxiety, charge anxiety and how much anxiety are driving owners over the cuckoos nest
Slight bump anxiety? Can you smell smoke anxiety?
It’s a safe bet, as more insurance companies either raise insurance rates for EVs or stop writing insurance for them, that governments/politicians being so heavily invested in the Green New Steal, will subsidize EV insurance and force insurance companies to cover EVs as the insurer of last resort.
And, since those “governments/politicians” have no money of their own, we taxpayers are going to stop such a scheme by JUST SAYING, “NO!”
Vote Republican (not RINO)! 😀
https://electroverse.info/cool-australia-snowy-new-zealands-snow-clips-mt-rainier/
Battery cars don’t like cold weather either, you can wave goodbye to 60% of advertised range
When temperatures outside get below 0C/32F outside, you will not be able to charge your cars outside either.
That’s rather inconvenient.
DIE, ELECTRIC VEHICLES, DIE!
(heh, that was, really, an oxymoron, lol)
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Even more, the collision and the liability insurance products for EV’s will either *poof* disappear, or have a VERY high premiums.
You can see this on Youtube. There is a channel called Wham Bam Tesla Cam. They tell the repair cost after each of the crashes. They are shocking. I don’t think I have heard one under $10k.
Try the “Geoff Buys Cars” channel on YT. Geoff reveals the absurdities of EV’s most amusingly.
Another big battery fire at what looks like a grid-scale storage facility in NSW. Reported here.
BTW, if you drive a Tesla in Poland, 73 percent of its energy comes from coal (47% hard coal and 26% LIGNITE!). Zero emissions indeed.
Qld, not NSW.
Who’d have that next door?
“NSW”?
I often forget to spell out my acronyms. (“NWS” means “National Weather Service” for the USA.)
Dyslexia’s a bitch.
Just like the dyslexic agnostic, insomniac who stayed awake all night wondering if there was a dog.
For those without a Google lookup service, NSW = New South Wales, a state in Oz. Qld is Queensland, ditto.
The smoke however now belongs to everyone, since it is airborne.
I thought it meant Not Safe for Work.
The UK market will adjust, specialist insurers (perhaps with battery exclusion clauses/ excesses) and repair networks will appear.
The same thing happened with the twoking epidemic that afflicted hot hatches and Cosworths with the images of stolen cars swerving down the burning streets during the long hot summer riots of the early 90s.
My £15k pocket rocket lost 2/3 of its value but became unsellable at any price almost over night. They couldn’t give away the last of the Sapphire Cosworths.
Gradually specialist insurers emerged with immobiliser/alarm stipulations and reclaimed parts networks to keep repair costs down, after a few years normality returned.
All car insurance is going up rapidly in the UK at the moment, remember an ICE car can smash into an EV and be liable, their repair cost affects everyone’s premium.
Not an electrical engineer (mining and metallurgical + geologist), but could one set up an alternating magnetic field along an ‘EV highway’ to turn an EV motor remotely and eliminate individual batteries. The ‘highway’ would have to be designed as channels in the road and turn the field on ahead of the car and off behind as it passed. Certainly needing fragile $30,000 batteries for each car is idiot green unicorn stuff.
Similarly (and I get down-voted for saying so), why are expensive Li batteries the only kind the green crowd thinks about for grid storage batteries? A stationary battery doesn’t need to be light!
You might get enough energy from such a system to power the head lights As for getting the car to move, forget about it.
Beyond that, you would be lucky to get 10% of the power put into the coils, into the cars. 1% is more likely.
Another point is that your idea of turning the “field” on and off as the car moves down the roadway. Let’s assume that each “segment” is say 10 feet long. That would mean you would need 528 high power, fast switch time and high reliability switches, per mile, per lane of roadway. There are approximately 4 million miles of roadway in the US alone (https://blog.midwestind.com/how-much-road-in-the-us-in-miles/) these range from 2 lane roads, to 12+ lanes in a few larger cities.
That means a minimum of 4 billion such switches and probably well north of 10 billion such switches, plus the sensors and control logic needed to control the whole system.
Then there is the cost of ripping up millions of miles of road in order to install these “segments”.
Then there is the copper needed to to wire up these 4 to 10 million miles of roadway. Currently there are about 240,000 miles of high and low voltage distribution. Where do you think the copper is going to come from to build the system you envision?
So, Mark, from this I gather my musings are only a modest improvement over a $30,000 Li battery car with Cu a couple of of orders of magnitude greater abundance than Li. Li-carbonate, is also $35k-$40k ton. Copper at very high prices now at $8k
Would changing the configuration so the motor travels in a slot through thru the core of the field?
Mr. Layman here.
Where’s the electric power going to come from? Who’s going to pay for running such a line from the street to my detached garage?
If a weather event or even an earthquake breaks the electric line?
At least with an ICE I can go as far as the gas in my tank will take me.
PS Before I retired, we had announced drills for electric power conservation. When such a drill was scheduled, we’d fill up our clearwells (water treatment plant) so we’d still have enough to supply about 750,000 people with safe drinking water.
ARGGG!
We’d fill our clearwells before we shut down our pumps to the minimum to conserve energy.
Have you thought of an overhead catenary? Much cheaper and more effective than an alternating magnetic field under the roadway, and already exists all over the World. It’s called an “electric train”.
Cars are going to have to be standardized more than they already are to make this work.
Let’s say the wires are high enough so that a big rig can pass under them safely. You also need to make sure there is enough clearance so that even in an accident, the trailer won’t hit and short out, those wires.
Now image a boom from a sub-compact, or say sports car that has to reach all the way up to where the wires are. That boom is going to have to be very tall, and will represent a lot of wind resistance. Just imagine the handling problems whenever there is substantial crosswind.
Beyond that, you are going to have to create some kind of automatic disconnect feature for when a car changes lanes. Can’t rely on the driver remembering every time and there is also the situation when you have to swerve in an emergency.
You are still going to need to find enough copper to wire up at least the major roads.
Finally, how are you going to handle wear and tear? With trolleys and high speed trains, there are only a few vehicles a day. Many roadways handle hundreds of thousands of vehicles a day.
No – the type of induction drive you reference requires thousands of amps per quota of vehicles – on public roads worse than self combusting batteries – slow city centre trams use overhead power line pantechnicons, but millions of cars running as trams won’t fly either
Li ion batteries are selected for storage systems due to high energy density, the fact they self combust regularly, is a risk / reward decision
Two friends had minor accidents in their EVs. Nothing more than “fender benders”, cosmetic, and able to drive. Both were without their cars for over 3 months while waiting for repairs. Both had the same story about their experience. Neither could get any collision repair shop that wasn’t “EV certified” to do the work, and they tried because of the wait times they were given and both shops blamed the delays on parts back order. I saw one of the cars and it had a crease in the driver side door about a yard long. Didn’t think any parts were needed, just sheet metal/plastic damage. That one was $7,000 US to repair. Maybe $1500 for a normal car.
Even if they had found a non-certified shop that was willing to do the work, they still would have had to wait for the repair parts.
Now imagine driving into your local kwikfit with a dented battery and asking for a repair whilst they do your MOT!!
Wow. I agree that evs are a poor economic decision now but the complaints remind me of people saying online banking was too dangerous and nobody would meet strangers for dates using the Internet. All change is not bad. Technology problems get solved. No its not the same, but if evs work they will (eventually) win despite dumb rules intended to help or hurt them.
So you are dismissing the many problems being discussed, just because people in the past were wrong about online banking. I’m not sure which logical fallacy that is, it may be several.
PS: Online banking is more dangerous than offline banking. Just because the banks security officers are successful in blocking the bad guys most of the time, doesn’t mean online banking is safe.
Hundreds of people are attacked and some killed every year by people they met online.
A grand total of nobody, has said that all change is bad. What we have said is that EVs are no where near as good as their advocates are proclaiming, and we are objecting to the mandates requiring people to buy them, as well as being forced to help pay for them.
Ben Franklin recognized some of this a long time ago. We are currently in the process of losing democracy for sure. Why? NOT because of Trump for sure. As a society we are letting government seize control of our lives via mandates and telling everyone how to live. Read Animal Farm and 1984. It can happen if people give up liberty in order to obtain security from the government.
Big difference between online banking (software and computer upgrades) and EV’s (Physics).
“but if evs work they will (eventually) win”
The crucial word is “if”. That should be for the market to decide, not the government. Despite some state governments threatening to outlaw sales of ICE cars by 2030, many more people are buying ICE cars than electric cars now, seven years ahead of the deadline.
Internal-combustion engines are a relatively old but well-proven technology, with many manufacturers in the market, and if such cars are not involved in accidents, many of them can last 15 to 20 years and travel over 150,000 miles, meaning that some ICE cars sold now will still be on the road in 2035 or 2040. All-electric vehicles don’t yet have such a long track record, so that reports of batteries catching fire after only a few years of use can scare people away from buying electric vehicles, no matter what the government says.
There may be a future niche market for electric vehicles, such as in major urban centers where people drive a few miles to work every day and charge the cars at home at night. There have been electric-powered golf carts (short range, low payload) for decades, and no one complains about them. But there will probably always be a need for ICE vehicles, where a long range and/or heavy payload is required, particularly for freight transport by truck, and in rural areas.
Kevin, battery vehicles will never be as technologically safe, efficient or economic as the simple, yet far superior ICE vehicle
i agree something has to be available to prepare for the day the oil runs out, but it ain’t Li ion battery mobile crematoriums
You have to wonder if any group looked at the entire EV market holistically. How many who would buy a used EV would buy one from a private seller? The seller may not realize the battery case was cracked. Many would know but pretend otherwise. That alone shifts the used car market. Now consider those small used car lots on the corner. How much faith do you have in them being able to assess the condition of an EV battery? So you are pretty much left with the large dealerships, who likely aren’t thrilled with having many used EVs on their lots. I wonder how much THEIR insurance costs will go up.
Now factor in other real scenarios. How many young drivers are going to do something stupid, like drive over a curb, damage the battery, and say nothing when he returns the car to his parents? Yeah, no chance of that happening, huh? For that matter, how many owners will know or suspect that they have damaged the battery but do nothing because the car still drives and they can’t afford to fix the problem, even if insured (there’s the deductible, if the car is written off there will at least be taxes to be paid if the insurance provides a replacement, and of course your insurance premium will go up).
I could easily see states requiring annual battery safety checks for EVs, and a certificate of battery inspection to transfer the title of ownership on an EV. The batteries are going to be a never ending problem.
Large dealerships are unhappy enough about the NEW EVs on their lots. That they aren’t selling, even in new condition.
Want home and contents insurance?
Q1. Please list all lithium based batteries that would usually be kept at the premises-
E-bikes explode in fireball after they were first extinguished at Seaford Meadows | 7 News Australia – YouTube
Q2. Please list all lithium based batteries that might occasionally be on or visiting the premises
I am against EVs, I am not against people buying EVs. There should be zero mandates for EVs, no subsidies or tax preferences, no cut rate pricing for recharging the and no bailouts for anything related to EVs.
Correct, let the market drive the market, not self serving politicians and globalist shills