EV opposition in the media is ramping up

[salty]

Yep, without data all we have is non factual based opinions. Adding up all the incidents, it appears that 201.7 vehicles carrying flammable fuel caught fire for every EV fire.

Unsurprisingly, first I've heard of that.

 

[GaryMG4]

Ignorance, Stupidity, Shit stirring Media and amateur, not a got a ******* clue,
you tubers. Who are seemingly all believed.

Sadly it's what people want to believe. I was reliably informed by a couple I know that my new EV would need a new battery in a couple of years, leave me stranded on the motorway if I was caught up in a tail back and I would spend half my life queueing for the only working charger in the county. They got all this information from someone called MacMaster????, needless to say 18 months later they are very quiet.

 

[Rolfe]

Here's the picture of that toasted Merc from the BBC site. What a mess.

I can see now it's actually the entire wheel that has come off, nit just the aero cover. Something pretty damn violent has happened at the back of the car. It's a pity the picture doesn't show all the front of the car, I think I can make out that the bonnet is sprung and there's trouble under there too, and is that front wheel also off? What the hell has happened to this car? What can cause a car to explode loudly then burst into 20-foot-high flames in an instant?

 

[jackois]

Sadly it's what people want to believe. I was reliably informed by a couple I know that my new EV would need a new battery in a couple of years, leave me stranded on the motorway if I was caught up in a tail back and I would spend half my life queueing for the only working charger in the county. They got all this information from someone called MacMaster????, needless to say 18 months later they are very quiet.

Ah! My brother's favourite YT channel... along with the scruffy, unwashed oik that has the EV Carnage propaganda, sorry YT channel... My bother is still convinced that my MG5 will turn out to be my worst ever purchase, in spite of it being quite economic and pretty much faultless for the last 2 years... he's also a Farage fan, so there's little hope for him, I should think...

 

[JonnyG]

What the hell has happened to this car? What can cause a car to explode loudly then burst into 20-foot-high flames in an instant?

Perhaps they were carrying something flammable in the boot (petrol cans / gas cannisters etc..) .... who knows for sure ?

 

[Rolfe]

Perhaps they were carrying something flammable in the boot (petrol cans / gas cannisters etc..) .... who knows for sure ?

I did wonder about that, but when you look more closely at that photo the front appears to be damaged as well. I can't make any sense of it.

 

[SteveRW]

The video footage seems to show flames initially flaring out of the rear and then engulfing the front offside underneath. This after the initial explosion. I’m not sure I can’t see a faint smoking just before the explosion. The front end is completely burnt out.

 

[siteguru]

An interesting snippet buried at the bottom of that BBC article (my emphasis):

Neil Sadler from Northamptonshire Fire Service said: "We are not experiencing an increase in electric vehicle fires, but when they do occur, they can behave differently to other vehicle fires and require a different response.

"We continually assess the risks associated with electric vehicles, to learn and enhance our operational tactics."

In the last year, the service logged 277 fires in road vehicles, three of which were categorised as electric or hybrid.

Only 1.08% of such fires were vehicles which included a high(er) voltage battery pack. So how many were actually pure electric (BEV)? Is nobody concerned about the 274 (98.92%) of ICE vehicle fires?

 

[tsedge]

Not only that but the sample is inevitably biased by older EVs with weaker battery management solutions - who have been around long enough to have a problem - and the prevalence of safer chemistries like LFP is making the pool of EVs progressively safer.

 

[LenEV2016]

I did wonder about that, but when you look more closely at that photo the front appears to be damaged as well. I can't make any sense of it.

I do know that emergency services are told to be careful with EVs in crashes, maybe they were popping the bonnet of to try and isolate something prior to getting closer

 

[Rolfe]

The front looks burned though. That front wheel/tyre looks a mess.

It's the loud explosion followed by huge flames almost immediately that gets me. What could do that?

 

[LenEV2016]

I remember the electric viking did a you tube video on the mercedes EV that went on fire in the multistorey car park in Korea, the footage of the car going up was on it, it took out about 70 other cars



Quite the boom when it went!!

 

[decrep]

there's a lot of energy in a battery if it all gets released at once, anything could happen. I'm thinking a direct short circuit, may be in the CCU. But batteries have internal fuses to prevent that, right? So leaky gas bottle in the boot, small spark, big explosion and battery catches fire? Will there be an open investigation, so we all know the facts, or will this be hush hush to conceal the facts?

 

[Rolfe]

I remember the electric viking did a you tube video on the mercedes EV that went on fire in the multistorey car park in Korea, the footage of the car going up was on it, it took out about 70 other cars

That does look very similar. Mercedes Benz really needs to put out some sort of coherent statement about this.

 

[Gadget Geek]

I think you all might find this paper interesting:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X24008739

Thermal runaway produces a number of gases, some of which are combustible. If the battery pack is sealed, pressure will build up until the pack seal fails and if the temperature is at the ignition point of the combustible gases, then . . . BOOM!

 

[Rolfe]

Indeed. Complex issue.

There's a Twitter thread here with some speculation. Someone saying that Mercedes use something called pouch cells which can be more susceptible to thermal runaway. Some others speculating that the battery hasn't gone up, but I think that may be due to the front of the car not being fully in the photo.

 

[salty]

To be honest, who cares? EV fires, happen, and always will. As of course so do ICE fires. Be nice if they didn't, but they do.

 

[Rolfe]

Scientific curiosity.

 

[Gadget Geek]

I think the fossil fuel industry cares. The more FUD they can spread with rare EV fires, the longer they can make obscene amounts of money and damage the climate.

 

[salty]

S'pose you will always get the Morons believing the Anti EV propaganda. But I think folk are gradually realising it's utter,
Cobblers, and thinking for themselves.