What's the problem with electric cars?

[Whippy]

Anyone here know how difficult it is to put out a fire caused by a defective lithium battery?

[abdiel]

Don't multi-storey car parks have fire suppression systems?

[Whippy]

Totally great for the environment.

https://ctif.org/news/150-000-liters...e-electric-car

[93240se]

[QUOTE=Whippy;2917844]Totally great for the environment.
Wouldn't they be better using foam to starve the fire of oxygen rather than water, I think that is what is used on airport fire tenders. With the increasing number of EVs something fire brigades should consider?
Regards Richard

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by 93240se

Wouldn't they be better using foam to starve the fire of oxygen rather than water, I think that is what is used on airport fire tenders. With the increasing number of EVs something fire brigades should consider?
Regards Richard

The issue is if the battery gets too hot a process of "thermal runaway" sets in and it shorts itself out internally - heating up and often giving off flammable gasses. The amounts of water are to cool as as well as fight the flames. Even then battery in a small Tesla would have the capacity to run 70 1kw electric fires for an hour - that's the amount of heat given off as the battery decomposes. In the open air that's simply not an issue but in confined spaces, that's nearly as much heat as you'd get burning 7 litres of petrol !

I hate to break it to the EV bashers (of which I am sort of one) but you get probably 5x to 10x the heat from a petrol car burning out than a EV, and the battery doesn't leak gallons into the drains and spread the fire to the lower floors....


(calorific value of pump gasoline ~ 10kWh/l)

[Simmy]

a well known german manufacturer has just recalled there ev range as they can explode if the battery gets any water ingress . some have already failed in this manner I'm watching with interest if any others recall for similar reasons.

[Simmy]

Originally Posted by abdiel

Don't multi-storey car parks have fire suppression systems?

this one did not have a fire suppression system installed

[Simmy]

Originally Posted by Whippy

Totally great for the environment.

https://ctif.org/news/150-000-liters...e-electric-car

and the water runs off down the water courses and ends up in the rivers and the sea

[Whippy]

I recall seeing an article about the fire service somewhere in the Nederland's having tenders complete with a crane and towing a large container holding several thousand gallons, the idea was that the lithium battery fired were so next to impossible to put out they could lift the EV up and simply submerge it. Crude, but effective. Where's a ice car you deal with it using a fire extinguisher. But hey ho.

[Whippy]

And here
https://youtu.be/KzJ6LperQUk

And here

https://cfpa-e.eu/container-puts-out...electric-cars/

Thought I'd seen it somewhere.