What's the problem with electric cars?

[Thekilt]

I worked as an on call fire fighter for a while, never dealt with Electric car fire but did deal with a few car fires, and a tractor fire. The amount of water that went on the Tractor fire was ridiculous, and that was mainly down to when the tyres and hydraulics are alight.

With the Luton fire, as the fire service commented, they took a defensive position, which means you just let it go, and cool down the surrounding areas and prevent damage to anything else. If an electric car fire was out in the open, you would still cool down the battery to prevent explosions, but you could also set up a perimeter (100 meters for example) and let it burn. With gas bottles, it a similar scenario you stay clear due to explosions as the risk is too high but still try cooling as much as possible.

As whippy pointed out, there has been "electric car specific" methods like the container, but this is only ideal if each service has one or multiple units which can utilise this. Our station had a Unimog for forest fires (we are are in Dorset) and thats the only Uni-mog in the Dorset/wiltshire area. We even got called out to Hampshire and devon. A massive unimog which goes at 50mph max going any further than 30 miles isnt comfortable! at the end of the day its down to budget, and our fire services down generally have the budget for multiple assets, especially specific equipment. The fire service needs to provide evidence for spending the budget, and if there is no evidence (lack of electric car fires) then it wont be thought about, as any fires they may have encountered has been dealt with appropriately with the current equipment they have.

It may become more apparent when greater numbers of electric cars are present, however at present it isn’t really an issue. As I pointed out in a recent post in this subject, locally to me in the past year there has been 6-8 car fires, all of which are petrol or diesel cars, none of which are electric. When one single electric car fire occurs anywhere in the UK, it gains country wide news and the media puts extra danger against the electric car. Yet look at the BMW 5 series with the police and the dangers here? That isn’t getting the media coverage, even though the family are pushing it hard. The Sun are the worst offenders, they took a Youtube electric car enthusiast who has been on the scene since the beginning, stole his video and manipulated the story to make the cars look worse!

[andy_d]

Originally Posted by Thekilt

Electric cars didnt contribute towards the spread, the fact its a car park and all cars are parked in close proximity to each other is the main contributing factor.

Comment from the fire service on BBC news:

"Liam Smith, crew commander at Leighton Buzzard fire station, said that when he arrived, the fire was mainly on the third floor.

But it quickly spread down to the lower floors when the third floor started to collapse.

He said there were "lots of electric vehicles potentially involved quite early on", though the fire started in a diesel car.

"We decided to go defensive, which is basically where we decide to externally firefight rather than send firefighters in, for their safety as well.

"The cars were parked very close, next to each other.

"So unfortunately that was probably the reason for the rapid fire spread.""

Its a car park though....cars are always going to be parked next to each other so fire will easily spread. Do you think petro and diesel cars magically do not catch alight?

but the JLR hybrid caught on cell phone video footage ,,, you know the mild hybrid JLR landrover + range rover, that has had Recalls 1700+ cars for a fault which cause the car to catch fire,,
time you got into the real world

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by Thekilt

I worked as an on call fire fighter for a while, never dealt with Electric car fire but did deal with a few car fires, and a tractor fire. The amount of water that went on the Tractor fire was ridiculous, and that was mainly down to when the tyres and hydraulics are alight.

With the Luton fire, as the fire service commented, they took a defensive position, which means you just let it go, and cool down the surrounding areas and prevent damage to anything else. If an electric car fire was out in the open, you would still cool down the battery to prevent explosions, but you could also set up a perimeter (100 meters for example) and let it burn. With gas bottles, it a similar scenario you stay clear due to explosions as the risk is too high but still try cooling as much as possible.

As whippy pointed out, there has been "electric car specific" methods like the container, but this is only ideal if each service has one or multiple units which can utilise this. Our station had a Unimog for forest fires (we are are in Dorset) and thats the only Uni-mog in the Dorset/wiltshire area. We even got called out to Hampshire and devon. A massive unimog which goes at 50mph max going any further than 30 miles isnt comfortable! at the end of the day its down to budget, and our fire services down generally have the budget for multiple assets, especially specific equipment. The fire service needs to provide evidence for spending the budget, and if there is no evidence (lack of electric car fires) then it wont be thought about, as any fires they may have encountered has been dealt with appropriately with the current equipment they have.

It may become more apparent when greater numbers of electric cars are present, however at present it isn’t really an issue. As I pointed out in a recent post in this subject, locally to me in the past year there has been 6-8 car fires, all of which are petrol or diesel cars, none of which are electric. When one single electric car fire occurs anywhere in the UK, it gains country wide news and the media puts extra danger against the electric car. Yet look at the BMW 5 series with the police and the dangers here? That isn’t getting the media coverage, even though the family are pushing it hard. The Sun are the worst offenders, they took a Youtube electric car enthusiast who has been on the scene since the beginning, stole his video and manipulated the story to make the cars look worse!

I would say from a firefighting perspective (and I'm not a expert) a multisory carpark full of petrol and diesel vehicles, each with a plastic tank containing anywhere between 10 and 100 litres of petrol or diesel, is a far riskier problem than the same carpark full of EV's.

[Whippy]

Except, you can put a car park full of burning ICE cars out using foam. Simply won't work with EV's. Also I rarely see any ice cars spontaneously bursting into flames whereas you do where EV's are in high usage. It's not a real problem at the moment,but it will be, especially once the tidal wave of Chinese import hits us.

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by Whippy

Except, you can put a car park full of burning ICE cars out using foam. Simply won't work with EV's. Also I rarely see any ice cars spontaneously bursting into flames whereas you do where EV's are in high usage. It's not a real problem at the moment,but it will be, especially once the tidal wave of Chinese import hits us.

You might not be able to extinguish a EV fire with foam but you could control it. The video from the Luton fire clearly shows flammable liquid leaking from the Range Rover and travelling across the floor, the fire envelopes the front of the vehicle. You don't get that with EV's and they don't have petrol/diesel tanks that will melt and leak significant quantities of highly flammable fuel.

I travel on motorways 2-3 days a week and the only EV/Hybrid I've ever seen on fire was a Prius some years ago. I frequently see normal cars burned out.

I'd not accept that argument unless someone shares some insurance claim figures that would say EV's are statistically more likely to self combust. And by Chinese imports do you mean Polestar?

[Whippy]

No, I mean the Chinese EV market (like MG) who are churning out cheap (affordable) cars for the mass market. I have never, ever seen a burnt out car here in all my travels (unless it's been in a severe impact) As people get herded towards the inevitability of buying an EV the less affluent will be looking for cheaper, more affordable options, probably in the S/H market, how will they be able to pre diagnose cracked battery housings, faulty high voltage circuits? Catastrophe in waiting.

And don't write off the "everybody should buy an EV" message from the government only to find ten years down the road the some new tech is now 'the thing'. Remember labour telling us all how we should go out and buy a diesel?

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by Whippy

No, I mean the Chinese EV market (like MG) who are churning out cheap (affordable) cars for the mass market. I have never, ever seen a burnt out car here in all my travels (unless it's been in a severe impact) As people get herded towards the inevitability of buying an EV the less affluent will be looking for cheaper, more affordable options, probably in the S/H market, how will they be able to pre diagnose cracked battery housings, faulty high voltage circuits? Catastrophe in waiting.

And don't write off the "everybody should buy an EV" message from the government only to find ten years down the road the some new tech is now 'the thing'. Remember labour telling us all how we should go out and buy a diesel?

Just so you know, I'm no fan of EV's either.... and I do think like the old compact fluorescent light bulbs in 20-30 years time we will all be moving to hydrogen fuel cell and ICE cars.

[Whippy]

The lizard alien overlords will be landing soon. They'll have an answer.

[baggy798]

[Whippy]

Following on from wot I wuz sayin,

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/n...-co2-reduction

Ice ain't over till the fat lady songs.