Surely these sort of incidents can be prevented or at least significantly reduced by requiring that EV chargers automatically stop charging when battery capacity is reached and/or after two hours.
Be a cheap Chinese one probably. But you wonder what happens with the insurance claim here, and what if one of the houses doesn’t have insurance… Will it’s start becoming an exclusion? Remember grenfell was a scooter/e-bike battery It’s the sheer way it tears thru things and the pace at which it does
Grenfell was a fridge/freezer that started the fire https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/new...inguished-but-then-returned-to-the-flat-59311 Professor Nic Daéid said that, in her opinion, there was “very, very strong evidence” that the fire started in “the base of the fridge-freezer”.
Everyone hates e-scooters, therefore they are a threat to life. Curiously EVs are more widely accepted although their batteries are way bigger and when they cook-off the consequences are just as serious, if not more. Human irrationality usually rules.
Not like a house has ever been set on fire by a petrol vehicle after all…… oh hang on a minute……. The reality, is that electric batteries are not as easy to ignite as some in the press would like you to believe. The fire in the car park last year that was initially claimed to be an EV (with no evidence but makes a good headline) was actually due to a diesel vehicle. And the most likely battery to cause a fire in ANY vehicle, including EV, is the 12v under the bonnet (and yes EVs do also have a small ‘normal’ car battery as well). What is far more of a risk is the small disposable type found in super cheap vapes. Part of my job is working on sites where there have been massive fires due to problems with recycling and the disposable vape batteries are very much the most worrying thing.
I agree, when was a house set on fire by a petrol vehicle? Equally is it actually possible to ignite diesel in the atmosphere?
https://commercialfuelsolutions.co....t=Diesel begins to form a,or spray, see below). Diesel begins to form a flammable vapour when heated to its flashpoint, which is typically 55°C. Precautions to prevent ignition of vapour should be introduced whenever it is possible for diesel to be heated to within 5-10 °C of its flashpoint (or when it can be released as a mist or spray, see below). This includes instances where diesel can be released within an enclosure, bund or vehicle tank, which could be, or is, exposed to extreme sunlight. Without adequate ventilation, this can create a flammable atmosphere, which can easily ignite and propagate its flame, igniting the remaining liquid, and resulting in an explosion. Diesel vapour is flammable when mixed with air in concentrations from 0.6% up to 7.5%; too low and the mix is considered lean and too high, the mixture is too rich to burn. These values are known as the lower and upper explosive levels (LEL & UEL).
It’s just oil, get a bit of heat from plastic burning/ electrical shortcut etc and it will burn more than happily. Mostly diesel and petrol fires start under the bonnet and consume all that nice flammable stuff there before spreading through the car and finally igniting the fuel tank at some point (unless the fuel tank has been ruptured e.g. due to an accident). Very similar with EVs where the car itself tends to be consumed before the main battery is an issue. The difference being that an EV battery doesn’t go like a fuel tank would obviously but can have other issues. I don’t work on the firefighting side of vehicles, so have only seen evidence on what happens after the fact with the sites and only end of life vehicles, not accidents etc, so may be different during road accidents but generally I would much rather be sat in an EV than either a petrol or diesel if the sh1t is about to hit the fan big time.
Useful info thanks, so hopefully someone can explain how diesel in a vehicle fuel tank met these conditions and then went up like a pyrotechnic. Surely a quick DVLA inquiry using the number plate says beyond doubt what the power train was. Has this happened? I just want to know the truth. Why is that soooo difficult these days?
https://www.essex-fire.gov.uk/news/essex-firefighters-adapt-new-hazards-electric-vehicle-fires “The issue is not directly with the vehicle itself, but the lithium-ion batteries. When the integrity of a lithium battery is compromised, the energy they store is released as heat, this reaction is known as ‘thermal runaway’. This can cause fires which are extremely difficult to extinguish while releasing an extraordinary array of nasty toxic gases. The dangers posed by electric vehicle fires do not end with putting out the flames. There have been many cases of electric vehicle fires reigniting sometimes even days after being extinguished.“
Yeah - that is the difficulty with them. Once the conditions for ignition have being met e.g heat & damage as when in a rubbish dump, they can be buggers to put out - they are inherently flammable as the thermal runaway creates it's own oxygen. Fans it's own flames so to speak. Just down the lane from me a guy pulled up & parked a Tesla. It was a hot day & even a couple of hours later you could hear the fans working, cooling the battery I'm assuming. Which got me thinking, if the car runs out of drivable charge is there still sufficient charge to work the cooling fans?
This might be why https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/... the temperature in,charge level is above 20%. In addition to cooling the interior, the air conditioning compressor also cools the Battery. Therefore, in hot weather, the air conditioning compressor can turn on even if you turned it off. This is normal because the system’s priority is to cool the Battery to ensure it stays within an optimum temperature range to support longevity and optimum performance.
quick Google shows Tesla having max output of 504kw, whereas a cooling fan would be 50-100w, so the fan could run for 5000-1000 hours for the same usage as an hours driving off the main battery. In addition many ( most?) EVs run the fan directly from the 12v battery which tend to be approx 1.5- 2kwh or 15-40 hours run time for the fan. All that said there is a massive difference between the point at which the battery needs to be cooled to be at max efficiency and where they are in danger of thermal runaway. A lot of the stories I hear at work border on the ridiculous in terms of scare mongering, but on the counter side Lithium needs to be respected as I have seen some truly sh1t scary footage when things do go wrong - buts that’s true of any waste site when stuff goes wrong. Like anything, there are dangers that need to be considered but overall the number of car fires related to EVs is far less than ICE according to all industry research I have seen. It’s all seems another part of the scare story brigade that announce the end of the world at every opportunity, EFi will mean you can’t work on a bike, computers will kill a bike in no time and cost three kidneys to fix, etc etc. And the papers love a good click bait/ headline of impending doom to shift copies/ increase hits, even if the truth is a little skinny. In reality the world just moves on. Having been involved in electric bike racing when it was in it’s infancy I see huge potential, massive instant torque, total adaptability, far lower service costs etc etc, I will miss the Brum Brum noises but would be happy to have an electric bike once they sort the range/ price.
I remember reading an article a few years back where it compared the advent of electric vehicles and their impact on ICE vehicles to the advent of motorised vehicles and their impact on horses. In the latter case horses weren't made extinct but people still continue to own, enjoy and use them but now as a minority pastime/leisure activity. And in the former case the article concluded the same would happen with ICE vehicles - they would continue to be owned, used & enjoyed (and possibly still made?) as a minority leisure activity.
I think that will be spot on, I don’t plan on selling my bikes anytime soon and as the vast majority of emissions come from commuting/ public transport/ commercial, then the pressure against ICE will reduce. No one is advocating a ban on pre cat cars for example. I have an EV as a a work car and love it, 0-60 in 5 seconds, range of 350 miles summer and 320 winter is more than enough for me and costs me £7 for a full charge at home and 20 minutes for 300 miles on a quick charger at the services. Not for everyone yet but they are improving all the time. Bikes are still a long way off I think and I wonder if the age diminishing market in Europe will make any massive changes in infrastructure for bike makers financially viable. Time will tell…..
This article should be more about the lack of fire breaks in the terrace roof space being the direct cause of collateral damage, than a cheap Chinese scooter battery and charger. Modern fire regulations ensure this shouldn’t happen in a modern terrace but there are still thousands, if not millions, of houses out there that don’t meet modern safety standards which have not been retrospectively enforced …….. until you get a disastrous loss of life. Lithium chemistry batteries are part of modern life, reputable manufacturers use the latest and often safest iteration of the technology. Less scrupulous manufacturers, continue to pump out the cheapest going, least safest shit which people knowingly buy, because it’s cheap. Andy
