By Vijay Jayaraj
The electric vehicle (EV) is heralded as a cornerstone of the fight against climate change, with promises of a cleaner, greener future. As recently as July, the Biden-Harris administration announced billions of dollars of government support for EV manufacturing.
However, a growing concern lies beneath the shiny surface of electric cars and bikes: the safety risks of lithium-ion batteries, particularly their propensity to catch fire.
The rosy image of EVs as environmental saviors doesn’t align with their increasing reputation as flammable hazards.
Lithium batteries are designed to store a significant amount of energy in a compact space, which increases not only their efficiency but also their risk profile. When these batteries overheat, short-circuit or suffer physical damage, they can ignite and burn with alarming intensity.
New York is particularly notorious for the large number of E-bike fires. Entire shipments of cars on cargo ships have been burnt up in the middle of ocean due to fires from EV batteries.
Recently, containers holding 33,000 pounds of lithium batteries at Canada’s port of Montreal caught fire, prompting city authorities to warn residents to remain indoors. The fire, which occurred around 2:45 p.m. September 23, was not extinguished until 3 a.m. the next day!
“Due to the amount of energy that these batteries store, it took us quite a while to extinguish the fire,” said the fire department chief.
Chinese Properties Ban EV Cars
China is now witnessing more and more cases of dangerous EV fires — so much so that electric cars are now being banned from underground parking lots.
“Hotels and other buildings in Hangzhou, Ningbo, Xiaoshan and other places in Zhejiang have banned electric vehicles from entering underground garages for safety reasons, sparking heated discussions,” reports a Chinese source.
On August 25, an internet user uploaded a notice from the owner of Huigang Building in Yinzhou District, Ningbo City, restricting the parking of electric vehicles and making separate provisions for EVs due to safety concerns.
The fact that China, a leader in the EV market, is taking such drastic measures should raise alarms for the global EV industry. This is a clear acknowledgment that lithium battery fires pose a significant risk, one that cannot be ignored simply because EVs are touted as environmentally friendly.
Furthermore, it calls into doubt the EV crusaders’ assertion that electric cars are less prone to fires than traditional combustion engine cars. If that’s the case, why aren’t Chinese property owners restricting gas cars as well as EVs?
Child Slavery and Toxic Byproducts
Beyond the safety risks, the production of lithium-ion batteries presents a host of environmental and ethical concerns. The mining and processing of the raw materials required for these batteries—such as lithium, cobalt and nickel—are far from clean operations.
A significant portion of the world’s cobalt, a key battery component, comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where child labor is prevalent in mining. Children as young as 7 years work in dangerous conditions to extract the mineral.
The DRC is believed to contain the world’s largest lithium reserve, with more than 6 million tons located near the Manono region. The environmental damage caused by mining in the DRC is staggering. Large tracts of land are stripped bare, water sources polluted, and local ecosystems destroyed.
The majority of the global market is controlled by two of the world’s major lithium producers in the Chinese provinces of Jiangxi and Sichuan. The extraction of lithium from lepidolite ore generates toxic byproducts like thallium and tantalum and leads to serious water contamination.
Visible to NASA satellites are colorful patterns of toxic lakes several miles long, which have been produced by rare-metal mines in China’s deserts.
The Organization for Research on China and Asia says “the extraction of lithium has led to irreversible damage to ecology.” Chinese residents have reported health problems linked to pollutants released during production.
At least one issue remains conspicuously under-reported: Tire wear of the relatively heavy EVs and the resulting particulate pollution is significantly greater than for conventional vehicles. This inconvenient truth is frequently glossed over by both media and policymakers, who continue to extol the “virtues” of EVs.
The romanticization of EVs is one more fabrication of a green delusion that on balance presents more threats than benefits to public health and safety. It’s time to get real.
This commentary was first published at Townhall on October 12, 2024.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
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“”the fight against climate change””
These terms, like the fight against against drugs, or obesity etc etc are meaningless and in the end utterly useless and wasteful. But now something has changed in one of these so-called wars or fights..
Did you know:
“The latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control show that between 2017-20 and 2021-23, the prevalence of obesity fell by two percentage points.”
…
Reducing obesity, even by a little bit, would seem to be the least we could expect from an anti-obesity policy. But in ‘public health’ circles it is considered terribly gauche to judge anti-obesity policies by such an exacting standard.
…
The contrast between the medieval approach of nanny-state chancers and the rigorously evaluated, highly effective weight-loss drugs now available could not be starker. If semaglutide only reduces obesity rates in the US by two percentage points, it will still have achieved infinitely more than all the public-health policies designed to tackle obesity combined.””
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/10/15/ozempic-has-exposed-the-grift-behind-the-public-health-lobby/
The climate fight is every bit as nonsensical. The real genius, if you can call it that, of the EV brigade is that you cannot directly see the emissions generated in recharging it. But you can see them burn for an extended period if thermal runaway occurs. Similarly everything else – the dirty mining, child slave labour etc is well out of sight and completely out of mind.
Ozempic and Wegovy have pulled the rug from under public health nanny statists and shown them to be wholly controlling and totally ineffectual.
The simplest way to “fight the climate war” is to ditch the mediaeval tech and build gas and modular nuclear. Even Google gets that.
“the fight against against drugs”
There’s now more weed stores in Wokeachusetts than package stores. One empty factory building in nearby Athol, MA is now a weed factory. I think it’s one of the biggest producers in the Northeast.
Humans have taken drugs of one sort or another since before humans can reliably remember.
We can only be thankful that alcoholic beverages are not a recent discovery. You know what they would do.
I first tried weed in ’67. Still like it- but very tiny amounts. Too old to get bonkers. Bonkers enough without it.
Booze has given my domestic partner dementia.
Remember Prohibition? Seems we tried that and as a result created organized crime in America. RFK’s father made his fortune smuggling booze.
If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, the second-oldest is brewery.
According to Reagan, “politician” is the world’s second oldest profession.
I sold some livestock to a buyer from out of state a few years ago. Livestock
deals are always a cash deal. Always. This buyer had the cash but offered bitcoin
when we were ready to load out. I have never done any bitcoin so I declined.
I later called a personal legal contact and her do a personal background check
It came back a couple of days later that he
was a dope grower. I was told they only can use bitcoin and the banks
can’t deal with them over some federal law.
If had taken the bitcoin I would have made 6 times my money in less than a year…
Keep raising them cattle. Thems my favorite food 🙂
In the Yakima, WA area, the sellers of “weed products” seem to be in contention for “the most obnoxious” ad. A “feminine product” ad is a close #2. In contrast, an ad for pickups is entertaining and listenable – and I’m not in the hunt for a new one.
Back in the ’60s I imagined what weed ads might look like in the distant future- with a comedy slant. Like, the adman saying, “now here comes a random person- let’s let him try one of our cookies”. 20 minutes later, the cookie eater is flying 20′ off the ground- or something like that. 🙂
Ozempic – for weight loss? I can’t understand why someone would take a drug to lose weight- all you need to do is eat less (or better food- like more meat) and exercise more. You WILL lose weight. I know a psychiatrist who lost 75 pounds from taking it- he still eats crap and never exercises. I don’t expect he’ll be around too many more years.
“”Ozempic – for weight loss? “”
Up until now the go to has been gastric band surgery. Not cheap and not always successful.
the go to for fools who can’t stop eating like pigs and too lazy to exercise
Ozempic only works while you take it and there are some side effects.
As, I believe, with ALL manufactured drugs. Change of lifestyle works, with the only ‘side effects’ a feeling of well-being, and new energy.
My sister-in-laws father has been on Ozempic but not for weight loss, the primary side effect is weight loss but also your sense of taste is altered and so you no longer enjoy the foods that you previously did. As a result he eats like a bird further contributing to weight loss which he can ill afford.
Hmm, the next thalidomide?? (Or, perhaps, this one is truly safe and effective???)
Oh well, if it’s “safe and effective”, that’s all we need to know.
Oh wait . . . 😱
The next Fen-Phen, perhaps.
I’m glad to see more attention paid to the child labor (AKA exploitation/abuse) issue, as that is particularly hideous yet rarely gets much press. Between that and the enormous toxic pollution happening in China, I have to restrain myself whenever I see an EV. Hoping this EV ‘fad’ will be short-lived.
Congo, too.
At least one issue remains conspicuously under-reported:
All these items remain conspicuously under-reported. That is what happens when you have a media that has become a mouthpiece for the progressive line, climate change, climate change, climate change. Ask what climate change and you are looked at like you need to go to school again because you are uneducated. Talk about some of these issues and they change the subject. The demon-crats support it, the UN supports it, most of Europe supports it, it is therefore a) a fact, and b) correct.
The goal is to reduce the population, control the economy, and create a One World Order.
it’s not just EV battery fires, they’re now saying cell phone charging can cause
serious fires.
” Why firefighters are urging people to stop charging their phones overnight”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZLxTiOUp_w
I’ve not seen that first hand but who knows. I have no interest in a EV.
Laptop fires, too.
Lithium battery fire brought down an airliner or was it a military aircraft, can’t recall.
Someone managed to drive a Tesla into a new apartment building ~36 hours ago. It promptly ignited creating a two-alarm fire and forcing the evacuation of the entire building. Per the PulsePoint app, there were 14 fire trucks on scene as well as many police department vehicles and personnel. Ironically, this all about half a mile from the Tesla factory in Fremont.
“… managed to drive …”
https://sfist.com/2024/10/15/driver-dead-after-tesla-crashes-into-fremont-apartment-building/
The someone was 46-year-old Kamleshkumar Patel of Fremont, now deceased. The fire was extinguished within 20 minutes, …
So, I don’t think this qualifies as a random Lithium event.
Additional ugly truths about EVs: They suck as transport. Their range is less than ICE vehicles and they take an eternity to ‘refuel.’
And that range gets WORSE at high speeds. So exactly when you need the range to be the longest, it is at its worse. ICE cars get their best range on long highway trips, matching the need.
Claiming gas cars burn more often than EVs is a red herring. They rarely catch fire unintended in a garage unless there’s an electrical fault that ignites it. Usually it’s due to an accident and the fires are comparatively easy and quick to extinguish. We’ve all seen videos of busses/EVs/scooters spontaneously combusting while untended or charging.
There are three reasons for the claim that ICEVs burn more often than EVs. There are so many more ICEVs in the fleet that of course you will have more fires, the average age of the ICEV fleet is about the same as the oldest (and rare) EVs and most fires start in older, poorly maintained vehicles and finally, there was a report by an EV insurer that is quoted all the time that EVs are less likely to burn. The report is incorrect because the authors divided the number of fires by the number of vehicles of each type sold that year, not the number of vehicles in the fleet. Obviously fires don’t start only in the first year after the sale of a vehicle.
Environmental catastrophe is permitted when it is preventing environmental catastrophe and approved by the Synod of Climate Change High Priests.
Is that clear?
Research reports indicate a future (7 to 10 years) less relient on Lithium based batteries. If so, current EVs will be go to “junk status” unless there is a re-fit that is also economic. Still, there will be no effect on atmospheric temperature. And, I still won’t want one. [I’ll likely be in a 3-tired senior living community.]
The author, Vijay Jayaraj, might want to investigate the “Child Slavery and Toxic Byproducts” because future battery technology may change these factors as well.
Criticism of EVs should be fair and balanced.
That’s tough to do because there is very little good news about EVs. So far one good news item is they have caught fire much less often than ICE vehicles. That avantage is offset by the fact that the fires are much harder to put out and can start at random with no vehicle crash.
Sweden is the only nation that keeps accurate records on vehicle fires by type of engine
Although the U.S. data doesn’t identify which fires are in gasoline vehicles versus EVs, data in Sweden does. Based on that data, analysts at MotorTrend estimated that gasoline and diesel vehicles were 29 times more likely to catch fire than EVs and conventional non-plug-in hybrids.
You’re Wrong About EV Fires (motortrend.com)
Do you have data on how many EVs and ICE cars are on the road in Sweden?
The percentage of EV vehicles that have had fires does not depend on the total number of EVs.
As of 2023, Sweden has over 300,000 registered electric vehicles (EVs), which is a 65% increase from 2022. In September 2023, the market share for EVs in Sweden was 42.7%, up from 33.5% in the same month the previous year
EVs in Sweden have an advantage of being relatively new vehicles. Reliability should decline as they age. The average age of a car in Sweden is 14.7 years, according to DiVA portal. This is about one year longer than the average age of cars in the United States
MY BS meter went off on this one. The only purported study in the past by AutoInsuranceEZ (after throwing out their conclusions and doing the math) shows that EVs burn much more often.
Either the article you are quoting is completely wrong, or the Swedes added 1.4 million gas and diesel vehicles to their fleet in the last 2 years. I don’t read Swedish so I can’t say where the discrepancy comes in.
There is no agency in the US that tracks vehicle fires, but the National Fire Protection Association study from 2020 shows that most vehicle fires are in older vehicles (older than all but the oldest EVs) and most are caused by mechanical failures or malfunctions and electrical failures or malfunctions, and had nothing to do with the fuel system.
https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/nfpa-research/fire-statistical-reports/vehicle-fires
AutoInsuranceEZ data were found to be unreliable. The Swedish data has not been refuted. Your BS meter is broken.
Please stop sharing anything that cites AutoInsuranceEZ’s rates of fire incidents : r/RealTesla (reddit.com)
I tend to not go to reddit for my information. The AutoInsuranceEZ conclusions and math were wrong, not sure where their data come from. As I pointed out, the Motor Trend numbers were wrong and I don’t read Swedish so I’m not sure what that report said. That and the fact that fires vs. battery fires are two different animals makes the Motor Trend article and Swedish report completely irrelevant to battery safety.
Criticism of EVs should be fair and balanced.
Ok. Fair enough.
I will never willingly own one or drive in one.
I know too much about lithium batteries and have studied batteries since the early 1980s.
It is not the frequency.
It is the cost-risk-benefit analysis.
When one of those puppies goes off, it takes more than 29 times the manpower and time to get the fire under control and the toxins released remain for much longer.
Not to mention the burn temperature is much greater than the heat from an ICE fire.
Do you carry a mobile phone?
Yes but I’m more wary of charging the missus e-bike battery than our mobiles or my cordless tool batteries although they’re all bricks and mortar shop purchases with recognised brand names along with their chargers. Now I also have a 10L can of petrol for the mower whipper snipper and genny and sometimes a 20L Jerry can too. Also an 8.5kg LPG bottle or two.
However there’s different strokes for different folks at varying levels with me my local servo its delivery tanker and the distributor/refinery. Then there’s gelignite I don’t have and we’re all in the process of working out where these new EV lithium batteries fit within the big picture. Can I respectfully suggest it’s a race between the Regulators and Insurance Underwriters at present and if I know private enterprise I know who’ll be well out in front with risk return.
If lithium batteries were truly prone to spontaneous combustion as a “unacceptably likely” event as many people here believe, there would be many more instances.
The fact is that there are millions of EV cars and billions of phones, tools and appliances with lithium batteries.
There are lithium battery fires and they get huge amounts of coverage for the clicks. There are petrol fires that are ignored by the media because they’re ignored by the public unless exceptional.
People here love to hate anything that threatens their world view. Most of them do so irrationally.
“they’re ignored by the public unless exceptional.”
That’s an important thing to note: the lithium fires are exceptional. They are higher risk and take much more work to just keep under control. A gasoline car fire isn’t that hard to control.
But my biggest issue with EVs, and why I recommend against them, isn’t necessarily the fire risk, but the problems you face if in a wreck. Extrication if you’re stuck in an EV can be difficult to impossible, and even when it can be done it is more time-consuming than with ICE vehicles. Same goes for hybrids BTW. Even more so if the vehicle is inverted and the top can’t be accessed.
It is not “spontaneous combustion” it is thermal runaway often caused by a dendrite penetrating the polymer between plates (think jelly roll). Some of the best have failure rates in ppb, but many are ppm (usual suspect is China). It is not the probability of failure that drives the concern, it is the consequences of failure. Lithium Ion and especially Lithium Ion Polymer Organics produce flame then the fail, very hot flame.
Other batteries, including lithium primaries (Li_SOCl2 for example) build up pressure until an integrated pressure release mechanism (usually a glass frit seal) pops. You get heat, glass shrapnel (I have a scar) and noxious chemicals in the air for a brief time, but no fire.
I have had 2 Lithium battery events. No injuries, minimum damage. I have had 1 lead acid battery literally explode. No fire, minimum damage. I have been involved with batteries of all types for over 50 years.
I spilt oil on a hot manifold in my car. It flamed. 2 minutes later with extinguisher in hand it was out. That is not the many hours of a lithium fire, which by the way does not require atmospheric oxygen to burn and even when extinguished can reignite “spontaneously.”
Cost-risk-benefit.
You might want to look up what spontaneous combustion is.
For example, the wiki describes it as
Yes. And if I could replace the battery with NiMH I would.
However, that battery pops and I get a burned leg and have to throw away a pair of jeans. The cost-risk-benefit analysis is different.
Our friends had an unstoppable surge of power in a Nissan Leaf and had to drive off the road up a bank, turned over, couldn’t open the doors, rescued by a youth who got the boot open and pulled them out. She says she’s not going to buy another EV
Far too many battery fires are being ignored by the MSM, nothing contrary to the narrative allowed.
Lol, yes all EVs should have a hazmat placard on them. Different battery types likely present different hazards.
Story Tip: A retired Belgian man discusses why he thinks EV sales have fallen off, even in “EV friendly” Europe — http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/10/ev-inflection-point.html
10 years amortisation for rooftop solar is reasonable as that’s the average life of inverters (my indoor Fronius lasted a creditable 14 yrs 5 months). By then with tech change and economies of scale it made economic sense to scrap the 2.2KW system for a 6,64kW nameplate one I can now view output on my phone app to see it’s working as it should.
So his circumstances and analysis are spot on before accounting for awful EV depreciation and the opportunity cost of funds for the solar and additional EV cost whereby young working families can’t even dream of the opportunity cost of increasing their home mortgages. Ipso facto Skoda join the voices with the obvious-
Czech Skoda warns EU car emission targets will not be met, calls for policy rethink – Euractiv
Very nice Vijay. EVs are not a substitute for internal combustion vehicles. They are expensive, have very limited range, are less likely to operate in very cold and very hot environments, are prone to spontaneous fire, when burning can not be put out, when burning emit toxic gasses, do not have adequate recharging infrastructure and would be impossible to build or sell without massive government support. They are a bad, bad deal.
Just a little nit to pick, as untruths hurt the arguments of both sides of the climate change grift – tantalum is not considered toxic.
Tantalum comes in various forms.
Pure tantalum metal is sufficiently inert as to pose no risk if ingested.
Tantalum oxide is a different matter. It can cause respiratory problems.
Tantalum salts are generally ok if ingested. Not sure what happens with the salts dissolved in water.
Tantalum dust is an irritant (skin, eyes, and lungs if inhaled).
Based on the definition of toxic, some forms of tantalum are toxic.
Exposure will not kill, but it can make you sick.
Tantalum is not a carcinogen.
“Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives” by Siddharth Kara, just read it
Then search w/ Google “Cobalt Red”. The first result I get is:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/cobalt-red-siddharth-kara-democratic-republic-congo-book-review/
Just ad homimem fallacy
Despite everything mentioned in the above article, Tesla Motors is “doing so well” in selling their Cybertruck EV that they recently made the entry-level price for that vehicle a whopping $99,990, thereby screwing all those people that were awaiting delivery of their pre-ordered $61,000 list-price rear-wheel drive version.
— https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-cheapest-cybertruck-now-100k-2024-8
Thus, one can only wonder how much of the Biden-Harris administration’s “announced billions of dollars of government support for EV manufacturing” will be fed directly to Tesla.
Meanwhile, Tesla Cybertrucks appear to be no less susceptible to battery fires than other EVs
— https://bridgehill.com/news-insights/tesla-cybertruck-fire/