EV’s

[Snagger]

4 hours ago, bishbosh said:

Not that I have, or will, test it, but according to my ex neighbour's dad who was a retired fire fighter, you could throw a match into a bucket of petrol and it would go out too.

I am more than a little sceptical of this assertion but willing to have it disproved by someone wiser braver stupider than me!  

I tried it.  Perfectly true.  I have also used a blow torch to dry off parts cleaned in diesel.  It just boils away.

[Snagger]

2 hours ago, Daan said:

This article seems to state mainly factual figures. It does not look bad for EV, but it does say there is not enough data of EV fires, because there are so few EVs, to make a good comparison:

 Electric Car Fire Risks Look Exaggerated, But More Data Required For Definitive Verdict (forbes.com)

EV fire statistics are lied about wildly.  They said there were no EVs on the Fremantle Highway.  Then they admitted to about 50, then 500, but claimed all were on lower decks and unaffected.  The earliest photos from the authorities that boarded showed burned out Taycans, but they kept saying no EVs were involved.  It’s a fair bet that all hybrid fires are recorded as ICE, not EV.

[need4speed]

4 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

Done it with diesel, but not sure I am brave enough to do petrol! 

If you try that with petrol you’ll go boom because the Vapor will ignite well before the liquid does

[need4speed]

3 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

There was a picture posted online with the number plate visible - by that point people had already run it through the DVLA website & gotten back that it was a ~2016 SDV6 I think.

Yeah but what’s to say the rangie wasn’t an innocent bystander as it were? I’m sure there were dozens of vehicles absolutely destroyed that could have looked like the “culprit”

[Happyoldgit]

Is this the five minute argument or the full half hour?

😉

[Snagger]

15 minutes ago, need4speed said:

If you try that with petrol you’ll go boom because the Vapor will ignite well before the liquid does

Who hasn’t put a little petrol on a bonfire to get it started?

[Ed Poore]

5 hours ago, bishbosh said:

Not that I have, or will, test it, but according to my ex neighbour's dad who was a retired fire fighter, you could throw a match into a bucket of petrol and it would go out too.

I am more than a little sceptical of this assertion but willing to have it disproved by someone wiser braver stupider than me!  

It massively depends on how long said bucket has been sat there. It's the fumes on petrol that are the most flammable. I poured some on a bonfire to get it going but forgot to get the blowtorch ready and nearby.

Suffice to say that it was rather explosive when lit, done it previously immediately after pouring and it's not a nonevent but nowhere near leaving it sit for a few minutes.

[Bowie69]

There's been a few threads of similar ilk recently, feels like we are becoming a group of old men who can't wait to choke on their frothy brown beer in exasperation at the state of affairs.

[fmmv]

1 hour ago, Snagger said:

1 hour ago, Snagger said:

Who hasn’t put a little petrol on a bonfire to get it started?

 

As a kid I used to have to 'start a bonfire' quite often. I liked the whooomp as the ( leaded of course) petrol hit. And the fireball   Back to the frothy brown beer.....

Edited October 31, 2023 by fmmv

[smallfry]

Vapour ignition is the same for fuel gasses kept in liquid form under pressure. The liquid itself will not ignite.

[smallfry]

I am not adverse to have an EV, but for the moment its not a solution for me. Mainly on cost grounds, towing, and range.

I did think they were quick to blame the RR for the fire, plus that it was diesel too. The ICE hater crowd as usual jumped on THEIR bandwagon with the double whammy of ICE AND diesel. (do you see what I did there ?) In the footage I have seen, the RRs headlamps appear to be on, and the fire looks to be behind it.

If it was the cause, could it have been a faulty Webasto pre/parking heater, which I believe they are all fitted with, along with most high end ICE vehicles, both diesel AND petrol.

Also in my nearly fifty years of driving, and covering way more than a million miles all over the country, I have personally witnessed around (not seen on the news) around ten car fires over that time, and half a dozen trucks. I have witnessed two EVs on fire within the last six weeks.

[FridgeFreezer]

15 hours ago, Chicken Drumstick said:

In the RC plane and car world LiPo has taken over from Nitro glow engines. But there are also a lot more fires these days too too due to batteries

Sorry but a hobby market like that is rife with cheap batteries & chargers, DIY hardware of unknown quality and vast potential to intentionally or accidentally abuse the batteries beyond their design parameters. The stores are rammed with dodgy gear which claims wildly optimistic performance and cuts every available corner in the name of cheapness - all the way down to fake chips in the protection & monitoring circuits. It's the same reason I'm very wary of DIY EV conversions.

People spending billions on EV battery factories and car manufacturers doing R&D & safety evaluations are not taking wild stabs at this with whatever's cheapest on AliExpress today, they're running incredibly tightly controlled supply chains with huge amounts of QC just as they do for all the other components in a car.

[fmmv]

8 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

.....they're running incredibly tightly controlled supply chains with huge amounts of QC just as they do for all the other components in a car.

Just wondering why Britpart and JLR don't seem to do that. Back to the beer...

[Chicken Drumstick]

21 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Sorry but a hobby market like that is rife with cheap batteries & chargers, DIY hardware of unknown quality and vast potential to intentionally or accidentally abuse the batteries beyond their design parameters. The stores are rammed with dodgy gear which claims wildly optimistic performance and cuts every available corner in the name of cheapness - all the way down to fake chips in the protection & monitoring circuits. It's the same reason I'm very wary of DIY EV conversions.

People spending billions on EV battery factories and car manufacturers doing R&D & safety evaluations are not taking wild stabs at this with whatever's cheapest on AliExpress today, they're running incredibly tightly controlled supply chains with huge amounts of QC just as they do for all the other components in a car.

Then why are there so many EV related fires? 🙂

[Snagger]

26 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Sorry but a hobby market like that is rife with cheap batteries & chargers, DIY hardware of unknown quality and vast potential to intentionally or accidentally abuse the batteries beyond their design parameters. The stores are rammed with dodgy gear which claims wildly optimistic performance and cuts every available corner in the name of cheapness - all the way down to fake chips in the protection & monitoring circuits. It's the same reason I'm very wary of DIY EV conversions.

People spending billions on EV battery factories and car manufacturers doing R&D & safety evaluations are not taking wild stabs at this with whatever's cheapest on AliExpress today, they're running incredibly tightly controlled supply chains with huge amounts of QC just as they do for all the other components in a car.

I agree broadly with this.  I would add that electric bikes, scooters and “hoverboards” are synonymous with fires - hoverboards were quickly banned from all air cargo and the others followed suit when they became a popular product.  They too are cheaply produced with scant regard to safety.  That leads me to share the same scepticism over EV conversions, usually using second hand parts of unknown history from broken up cars.

However, the same appears (unsurprisingly) to be true of Chinese built EVs, with huge amounts of video footage of EVs burning in China despite the CCP’s draconian restriction on the internet.  So while I agree that the majority of western built EVs will have vastly better QC than the cheaper grades used in models, toys, bikes and scooters, it doesn’t follow that all  factory built EVs are of the same higher grade, and we still see a fair few seemingly undamaged and unabused western built EVs self-immolate randomly, especially when charging.  I think lithium batteries are dodgy AF and won’t have a vehicle fitted with them.  I do cross my fingers that something better is developed soon - I think there is a place for BEVs, though better batteries still won’t solve the lack of grid capacity or charging spots for many (but if they charge fast and have great range, frequency of chargers will be less of an issue).

[fmmv]

Never mind grid capacity or charging points, there isn't enough generation capacity. Faster charging just frees up the car and charger more quickly. The energy needed is more or less the same . That said we all ( ok maybe not all) knew it has to be a gradual transition. 

As regards DIY conversions there has to be room for kits, for example, like we have crate engines today.

[Chicken Drumstick]

14 hours ago, monkie said:

I asked for some facts because you are talking about EVs catching fire, seemingly more so than ICE... maybe so, maybe not, I wondered if you could point to some facts and numbers to back your conviction on this.

I think there are something like 33 million cars in the UK excluding things like lorries and buses. ICE cars have also been around for over 100 years. And every single day cover huge distances. A quick Google suggests 323.8 billion miles a year in the UK. Car fires are and have been relatively rare if you look at it per car per mile basis. And ICE cars are not limited to the UK, they are used globally and have been for over 100 years also. Therefore with a high degree of certainty, that despite the volatile nature of petrol. Car fires have not been a common or major issue in the history of the automobile. As you have access to Google too, if you want more info, please feel free to look it up yourself. But there really is no other conclusion to be drawn.

Google also suggest there are currently 850,000 EV cars in the UK, although the vast majority are only from the past few years. With 265,000 being registered in 2022 alone. This means the number of hours or miles an EV has spent on UK roads vs ICE cars is miniscule. If they had the same ratio of fires per car per mile. You'd expect the EV numbers to be so small that they would effectively be zero. Again it is clear to see that there is a disproportionally high number of EV fires occurring. This can be seen in the news and simply by searching for photos on Google. If it was a rare thing, then such photos would be hard to come by.

There have also been a number of high profile fire risk recalls too:

Which suggests there is a known risk by the industry.

 

There is therefore plenty of evidence to suggest that EV fire risks are much higher than ICE. so to bat the ball back to you. Are you able to provide stats for how many ICE car fires occur? Preferably on a per car per mile basis and how does this compare to EVs for you to make the assertion that EVs have no greater risk? I don't see you providing any stats, your only claim is you own an EV and it hasn't caught fire.

 

14 hours ago, monkie said:

I do have a drive way with a charger, so I accept that point, however I did state that I spend a lot of time away from home in the week with no access to overnight charging.

Yes, Tesla supercharging is for Tesla (a Tesla at least will direct to a choice of nearest charging points). This however isn't the only type of supercharging available. Colleagues and friends of mine have other EVs such as Volvo, VW, Hyundai and they use other types of supercharging no problem. 

I use public chargers 3 or 4 times per week and they are without exception en route to where I'm going or at my destination. So I don't recognize your point about chargers not being where I want to be.

New cars are not at all cheap, EVs more so I agree. But now many people like me who use an EV for work, they will in time filter down to the secondhand market.

 

Let me state it again for clarity. I'm not against EVs......

Some EV's do have good range. The Mustang Mach-E I had recently would have done well over 300 miles on a charge. But it is an expensive car. And not really a viable claim for most people to be able to afford. The MINI Electric I tried is more affordable, although still rather "Premium". But the MINI only did 100 miles on a full charge. The official claim is slightly higher, but real world was only 100 miles to be safe of not running out of power. This is not enough to go many places and is highly restrictive. The car drove great and if it could have done 200-250 miles would be a different story, but 100 mile range is pathetic.

As for charging. Home charging is the game changer, as I suspect in every instance you where able to leave home with a full or nearly full charge. So if you have a 300 mile range, you are only needing a top up to get home, even with an overnight stay. If you didn't have home charging you might have been leaving home with only 10-20% charge. As many people might leave with only 1/4 tank of fuel, with the intent of filling up on route. If you have a time constraint to get to a destination, you really don't want to have to have a 40min - 1hr+ pitstop on your way there. Of course you can plan differently, but that is then a compromise you are making. You personally might be fine with this, but it is still a compromise. Lots of people will never ever have home charging solutions. Anyone with shared parking such as at flats or street parking. There is no viable or practical solution. Many people can't even guarantee to park outside their own house even.

As for charing points. It is highly variable. One of the main offices I go too has only 2 charge points. For an office that holds several hundred people. This is a modern, multinational technology company. I have also been to lots of places that have no EV charging facilities. A nice hotel in Cheddar and several places I've stopped in Wales and that is only this year. An EV would have been a real PITA for any of those uses. As you really would have had to go off and waste your time finding a charging point. Instead of going to the places you actually want to when on holiday. If you personally find no issues, then you are fortunate, but that hardly typifies that every other person in the UK would be fine too.

[monkie]

@Chicken Drumstick No point batting the ball back to me, I'm not making claims about numbers. I simply don't know what the numbers are, which is why I asked. I do however think various people in the press are keen to jump to conclusions to fit an agenda (either pro or anti EV/ICE).

I still think that you are coming from a point of view of assuming what it is like to run an EV on a day to day basis. I too once held these views, but now my (plus many colleagues) experience of using an EV day to day (no they don't all have home charging) totally contradicts these views as simply wrong. Like any car, irrespective of what powers it, you have to look at what works for how you want to use it and what fits within your budget.

I'm more than happy to admit that my once anti EV views were completely wrong and based on a bunch of assumptions. 

 

[landroversforever]

I think a huge difference in the charging experience with Tesla vs Non Tesla EV. I've got various friends with various EVs and those with Tesla's seem to have a massively different view of charging away from home compared to the others. The Tesla owners having minimal issues and non tesla EV owning friends having lots of issues with public charging. My parents ID3 is a 'nice' car albeit rather more like a white-goods appliance, but they've only charged it at home so far and mostly from their solar, so they've not really tried the public charging side of things. If you've got something other than a Tesla it would really seem like you need to have home charging option or stick with hybrid or ICE.

[Gazzar]

It's a great debate, my perspective is that until we've a circular resource economy, we are not doing the right thing for our descendents.

 Consuming hydrocarbons for energy production isn't their best use. 

 

And I'm a hypocrite, as I've a petrol V8.

 

[FridgeFreezer]

3 hours ago, Chicken Drumstick said:

Then why are there so many EV related fires? 🙂

Are there?

Daan posted some actual stats, do you have some better ones?

20 hours ago, Daan said:

This article seems to state mainly factual figures. It does not look bad for EV, but it does say there is not enough data of EV fires, because there are so few EVs, to make a good comparison:

 Electric Car Fire Risks Look Exaggerated, But More Data Required For Definitive Verdict (forbes.com)

[Chicken Drumstick]

2 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Are there?

Daan posted some actual stats, do you have some better ones?

Not so much stats. An interesting article. But it says they don't have enough data, not that they are actually safer or less prone.

Also worthy of note, the article first talks about fires on a car transporter ship. So very obviously cars that aren't running or being driven. So oil, petrol or diesel is unlikely to be the cause of such a fire such as dripping onto a hot exhaust or similar. The fire will 100% have been an electrical fire. Showing that the electrical component is the most risky part. As all EV's also have 12v lead acid batteries, they must logically be at least the same risk of fire in this situation as an ICE car. And as they then also contain a large capacity high voltage battery, the risk profile must increase. There is no other logical way to look at it.

The article also cite some other conclusions from another party, although logically they don't make sense. As this claim is Hybrids are the most dangerous with regards to fire, petrol then EV. Logically if EV is safer than petrol, then adding a hybrid system to a petrol should make the hybrid safer than the petrol. But they are saying adding a motor and batteries makes it less safe. Clearly this is conflict with the conclusion that batteries and motor in an EV is safer. It doesn't cite the source data, although I'm willing to bet the conclusions are likely based on poor assumptions and/or bad data.

The article also says this about EVs:

"What is clear is that the fire is more difficult to deal with, the energy release during the exotherm of the electrolyte takes a lot of cooling to extinguish"

So even if there was a minuscule less chance of a fire with an EV (which I'm not implying there is....  ). It is certain that any such fire would be more dangerous, costly and risky.

[FridgeFreezer]

54 minutes ago, Chicken Drumstick said:

....It is certain that any such fire would be more dangerous, costly and risky.

True enough, but bad enough to ban all EV's or give up on the whole EV idea? Or just a problem like any other safety/reliability problem that manufacturers work on improving just like they did over many decades with safety, reliability, etc. etc.?

Would you be more or less happy with a big tank of high-pressure hydrogen for example?

ICE cars have had 100 years of R&D, EV's may benefit from a lot of modern tech but fundamentally there's been well over a billion ICE vehicles made, sold, crashed and repaired over the last 100 years that have provided quite a lot of feedback on how to do it better. EV's are still about, well, a billion vehicles behind on that curve so not doing too badly all things considered.

[need4speed]

3 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Are there?

Daan posted some actual stats, do you have some better ones?

I can’t help you regarding stats. But I will say is this, speaking personally I’ve never seen as many cars by the side of the road in flames since the uptake of EVs kicked off. Especially now as some are starting to age a little.

Which brings about another debate. Anyone want to mention how non existent the used EV market is going to be. It would be a braver mofo then me to buy a 3 or 4 year old EV…

My hat? Oh my coat too……..

[sean f]

With regard throwing a match into a bucket of petrol, I suspect it would ignite the fumes before it actually landed in the petrol so not something I would want to try.

I have heard that if you are fully inside the vapour cloud then you can flick a lighter and there wouldn't be enough oxygen for it to ignite (not sure how that would work with breathing?) and frankly you would have to be bonkers to try it.

I do think that at the moment the figures on EV fires have to small a base and age range to analyse effectively, particularly most EV's are relatively new so they should be in good condition, I would suspect (but admit I have no figures) that most vehicles fires of all types are for older or badly maintained vehicles. Loose cable fitting were mentions as a potential fire point, at the moment most EV's will be on original power packs and any replacement or tinkering is likely to have been done by qualified or at least very knowledgeable amateurs (due to costs of parts if nothing else), as prices drop and more home mechanics get involved issues would likely increase, I appreciate this is true of ICE vehicles as well but it won't be showing up much yet in statistics. I would also add that I expect as things move on better fittings, batteries etc will improve both safety and reliability, the technology is constantly evolving I am still not sure it is there yet for me personally but its definitely getting better.

Since I work in drilling for oil or gas I do have a bit of an interest in people continuing to use oil!.