New cars are getting fugly..

[Slick]

It was a pretty extraordinary attack from nothing, Torq.

[Guy Smiley]

It was a pretty extraordinary attack from nothing, Torq.

It was straight out of his milk float.

[Sandstorm]

So I have a customer in Belgium who works at the VW facility where cars arrive from Germany. They had a Porsche Taycan EV catch fire last week. They quickly put the burning car in a special 30 ft tank and filled it with water for 2 days. Then took it out and put it into the warehouse for examination.

30 minutes later it caught fire again and burned down the whole warehouse, along with 60 other petrol-engine Porsche vehicles!!

[TB63]

There seems to be a recurring theme here, multiple car transportation ships have had fires break out..

[Sandstorm]

There seems to be a recurring theme here, multiple car transportation ships have had fires break out..

These cars are basically reactors that won't quit burning.

[dpedin]

So I have a customer in Belgium who works at the VW facility where cars arrive from Germany. They had a Porsche Taycan EV catch fire last week. They quickly put the burning car in a special 30 ft tank and filled it with water for 2 days. Then took it out and put it into the warehouse for examination.

30 minutes later it caught fire again and burned down the whole warehouse, along with 60 other petrol-engine Porsche vehicles!!

Never really thought about the EV catching fire risks. apparently very rare but as numbers increase then they will occur more and more frequently. Found this on t'internet - seems to confirm what your customer said?

Dealing with EV fires

Although electric car fires are very rare, they pose great challenges to emergency services – who are still in the process of learning how to tackle such incidents.

The big issue with EV fires is actually putting them out, as they are very difficult to extinguish and then to keep extinguished. In a piece reassuring residents in its county that EVs are not a greater fire risk and residents should have no qualms about buying one, Bedfordshire Fire Service did reveal that several EV manufacturers advise that an EV fire should be allowed to burn out by itself in a controlled manner.

Once the fire is out, emergency services have to remain vigilant as the nature of EV battery packs has in the past seen examples of fires reigniting after they were apparently extinguished – sometimes weeks afterwards. This has raised concerns among such bodies as vehicle recovery services, with increasing instances of fire engines actually following recovery trucks to their destination in case the fire starts again.

According to Bedfordshire Fire Service, an EV fire can generate more than 100 chemicals, some of which are highly toxic such as carbon monoxide. Fire service protective breathing equipment should be able to cope with such chemicals, but even a light wind can carry pollutants a long way. Of course, a burning petrol car will also release a lot of pollutants into the air as well…

Among the more remarkable measures for tackling EV blazes, a fire service in Denmark has developed a car-sized container which can be lowered off the back of a specially converted truck and a still-smouldering EV lowered into it. The container is then pumped full of water and taken to a safe storage area, where it is left for sometimes several weeks until it is deemed the vehicle is safe.

Certainly the issues of fighting EV fires has raised issues about EV batteris in other areas. Installing EV charging points in such places as underground car parks may need to be reconsidered, while one further worry for those researching EV-related safety is the re-use of lithium-ion battery packs.

End-of-life or written-off EVs will often have their battery packs removed and re-used, often ending up in classic cars converted to run as EVs. With much still to learn about how battery packs react in the latter stages of their life, people should be very cautious before going down this route – particularly as there are plenty of reputable classic car converters in the market using brand-new battery packs instead.

[Guy Smiley]

There seems to be a recurring theme here, multiple car transportation ships have had fires break out..

These cars are basically reactors that won't quit burning.

Ohmigod I’m driving a nuclear bomb



It may be that a better quenching substance than water is needed.

[Hal Jordan]

There seems to be a recurring theme here, multiple car transportation ships have had fires break out..

These cars are basically reactors that won't quit burning.

Ohmigod I’m driving a nuclear bomb



It may be that a better quenching substance than water is needed.

Beer?

[Guy Smiley]

Some inert gas was what I was thinking, to negate the chemical reaction.

[inactionman]

It would make me laugh is the answer is 'diesel'

[TB63]

There seems to be a recurring theme here, multiple car transportation ships have had fires break out..

These cars are basically reactors that won't quit burning.

Ohmigod I’m driving a nuclear bomb



It may be that a better quenching substance than water is needed.

Lucozade..

[Guy Smiley]

https://textechindustries.com/blog/how- ... tery-fire/

In the case of a lithium battery fire, there are several ways to extinguish it based on the size and type of battery.

Class D fire extinguishers are effective against lithium-metal battery fires. Lithium-ion battery fires are Class B fires, indicating the presence of flammable liquids, so a standard dry chemical or ABC extinguisher can put them out. Lithium battery fire extinguishers counteract the liquid electrolytes in the battery that create conductive pathways.

Small lithium batteries contain very little lithium, so they can be doused with water. To put out large lithium-ion battery fires, use a foam extinguisher containing CO2, powder graphite, ABC dry chemical, or sodium carbonate.

In battery pack fires, each cell may burn on a different timeline. Place the battery pack in a protected outdoor space to allow it to completely burn out.

If a fire cannot be extinguished, let the battery burn out in a controlled way. Prevent the fire from spreading by soaking the surrounding area with water.

[Sandstorm]

So an EV burns for a week. What does that do to its carbon footprint?

[TB63]

Sideshow Bob type footprints..

[BnM]

Saw a Roll Royce today that looked very much styled like a range rover. In plain grey. Just a mid gloss grey, not metallic. Just wrong.

[Guy Smiley]

So an EV burns for a week. What does that do to its carbon footprint?

I imagine it brings it somewhere up around that of a standard ICE vehicle’s weekly use.

[SaintK]

So an EV burns for a week. What does that do to its carbon footprint?

I wonder what caused this last night?

All flights at Luton Airport have been suspended until the afternoon after a huge fire ripped through a terminal car park.
Flights have been halted until 15:00 BST after the fire at the multi-storey caused the building to suffer a "significant structural collapse".
Up to 1,200 vehicles may have been in the car park and subsequently damaged, the fire service said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england ... 67073446

[Sandstorm]

So an EV burns for a week. What does that do to its carbon footprint?

I wonder what caused this last night?

All flights at Luton Airport have been suspended until the afternoon after a huge fire ripped through a terminal car park.
Flights have been halted until 15:00 BST after the fire at the multi-storey caused the building to suffer a "significant structural collapse".
Up to 1,200 vehicles may have been in the car park and subsequently damaged, the fire service said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england ... 67073446

Well it's now inevitable that EVs will have to park in an open gravel patch a 5 mile bus-ride from the terminal. More Heathrow POD parking spots for me.

[dpedin]

So an EV burns for a week. What does that do to its carbon footprint?

I wonder what caused this last night?

All flights at Luton Airport have been suspended until the afternoon after a huge fire ripped through a terminal car park.
Flights have been halted until 15:00 BST after the fire at the multi-storey caused the building to suffer a "significant structural collapse".
Up to 1,200 vehicles may have been in the car park and subsequently damaged, the fire service said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england ... 67073446

Well it's now inevitable that EVs will have to park in an open gravel patch a 5 mile bus-ride from the terminal. More Heathrow POD parking spots for me.

Same thoughts went through my mind as soon as I heard the news of the fire.

If the subsequent investigation finds that the fire was started by an EV self combusting and that the nature of fire in that EV and other EVs involved caused the resulting damage then I cant see insurance companies agreeing to insure any building where EVs are stored in an enclosed area or if they are there would have to be hugely financially exorbitant safety features built in. They reckon 1500 cars were in the Luton airport car park at the time, assuming 750 are written off and each has an average value of just £10k means the insurance bill for vehicles alone could be £7.5m!!! If the average insurance value for each car is £20k then that is a bill for £15m. I suspect the insurance companies will be all over this asap and regardless of what folk think they will be unwilling to carry the sort of risk involved in insuring buildings where EVs are stored and/or charged. I expect insurance companies will respond pretty quickly to this huge loss.

I live in a relatively nice small development with an underground carpark and 3 of our 14 residents have EV cars which they charge in the garage overnight. I can see out building insurance company thinking again about allowing this to happen and to be honest I would be quite happy for them to insist that garaging and charging only takes place in outdoor parking spaces.

PS Ironic that the piece I quoted earlier used info from Bedfordshire Fire Service and they are the ones dealing with the Luton airport fire. At least they know what they are dealing with! How on earth do you follow EV manufacturers advice and let the fire burn itself out when car is parked indoors in a multi storey car park or underground garage?

[inactionman]

I think insurers are already pretty nervy

‘The quotes were £5,000 or more’: electric vehicle owners face soaring insurance costs

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/ ... ance-costs

We've got an older ev, 2016-plate Renault Zoe, but the battery is under lease. I've not worked out if that means Renault would be liable if it caught fire......

[Sandstorm]

We get visitors all day long turning up in EVs and asking to use our multi-story car park. Fuck 'em, they can use Waitrose up the block now!

[dpedin]

BBC reporting it was a diesel car that went on fire

[petej]

It would make me laugh is the answer is 'diesel'

As lithium is a group 1 metal a tank of cool diesel might well be a better than a tank of water.

[Sandstorm]

BBC reporting it was a diesel car that went on fire

Fake Leftie news

[Hal Jordan]

You mean another ICE caught fire and caused a conflagration? Not en EV? Just like the recent EVs cause massive fire stories that actually turn out to be caused by ICE?

Well, colour me surprised at the bullshit. Almost as if there's a concerted effort to discredit them, run by the same media sources that gleefully ran Windmills Give You Cancer shite.

[Guy Smiley]

BBC reporting it was a diesel car that went on fire

Awkward…. Handbags easy, you fucking benders.