Thread: EV general discussion

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

The truth is out there .. maybe not in here so much. The reality is they probably aren't much different to other premium vehicles. The other reality is there aren't teslas bursting into flames in repair shops all across the country. Yes Lithium battery fires are a problem, but at this point it's cheap e-bikes and scooters that are torching houses.

I don't worry about charging the Tesla - but I won't even connect the battery in the Lotus without a fire extinguisher handy.

electric car battery fires are very rare. statistically ICE vehicles are far more likely to burn. Even if its 1 in a million that torch themselves off.... is there 40million now in the wolrd? that is 40 fires every year that can sink container ships, destroy entire parking structure ... take out houses (hopefully not with the occupants in them). that NZ fire a few months back that they state was nothing to do with the car .... have videos showing the cars torching off in the garage and the rest of the house untouched. I cannot understand why this issue is ignored and hidden.

The only thing lithium batteries have in common is the burn ... little batteries burn, medium sized batteries burn, big batteries burn ... (don't google house battery recalls whatever you do), car batteries burn .... giant batteries hooked to the high voltage power grid burn .... its about the only thing that can be relied on.

seeya
Shane L.

Going off insurance statistics, what is rarely mentioned in the debate is that quite a large proportion of ICE fires are actually arson...

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

electric car battery fires are very rare. statistically ICE vehicles are far more likely to burn. Even if its 1 in a million that torch themselves off.... is there 40million now in the wolrd? that is 40 fires every year that can sink container ships, destroy entire parking structure ... take out houses (hopefully not with the occupants in them). that NZ fire a few months back that they state was nothing to do with the car .... have videos showing the cars torching off in the garage and the rest of the house untouched. I cannot understand why this issue is ignored and hidden.

The only thing lithium batteries have in common is the burn ... little batteries burn, medium sized batteries burn, big batteries burn ... (don't google house battery recalls whatever you do), car batteries burn .... giant batteries hooked to the high voltage power grid burn .... its about the only thing that can be relied on.

seeya
Shane L.

And the certainty of fuel burning is also a thing. It's a miracle that we don't have more ICE cars that catch fire. I have a Lotus.. of which there is maybe only 150 in the country. I'm aware of several of them have caught fire over the years, thinning the herd notably and providing for a number of post fire rebuilds. So probably greater than 1/50 had a fire event.

But.. as time goes on cars have generally gotten safer. It's probably reasonable to assume EV's will get better too, so this is probably the worst that it will be in this early stage.

As at up to the end of last year.
How common are these fires?

Australian firm EV FireSafe tracks passenger electric vehicle battery fires worldwide. From 2010 to June 2023, its database records only 393 verified fires globally, out of some 30 million electric vehicles on the road.
Australia recorded only four electric vehicle battery fires over the same period. One was linked to arson. The other three vehicles were parked in structures that burned down and destroyed the vehicles. So it appears these fires didn’t start in the batteries.



Electric vehicle fires are very rare. The risk for petrol and diesel vehicles is at least 20 times higher | Swinburne

For those bandying about figures of EV fires, look up the numbers for (CNG in particular) city buses, going down the barbecue route. Apologies for the pun.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

Just stop for a minute. You appear to think I'm attacking. I'm just laying out facts.



it is a 3 second google search to verify these batteries are at least $20,000 to replace.

Google 18650 cells. your capacity even it doesn't completely die by 8 years, will probably be about 30% of the original capacity. How long will that 30% last ? Will that even get you to the local supermarket and back

Here is some real world data, from the cars themselves:

Tesla Vehicle Batteries Degrade Under 65% of Rated Range After Only Three Years

A battery car is a throw away item. We are still running an old poogoe 407 here as the family car. my wife has done 250,000kms in it over the last 12 years. Its now 17years old. If we had purchased a battery car, that would be $40,000 -> $60,000 in batteries it would have needed ot continue to be a functional, usable car. It still will do over 1000kms from a tank while sipping fuel at about 7L/100. It will probably continue to do so for easily another decade with minimal upkeep.

See what I mean by electric cars just being nuts ? They are transport for the wealthy, and I'm betting 95% of them never purchase a 2nd electric car after being burnt by the first one (even if its just the horndous ... non existant resale of it.... in the scenario they are one of the few that can live iwth its limitations).

Please don't read this as anti-electric car. I reckon that are fascinating things. The problem is they are also just ridiculous, an environmental travesty due to their toxic battery and horrendously tiny life span. The only way you will get high milage out of an electric car ... is expensive battery replacements. or huge milage while the battery is very young ... eg Taxi work.

Well I guess if you tow it behind your ICE car it might?

Originally Posted by 4bee

Well I guess if you tow it behind your ICE car it might?

I haven't needed a tow or fuel jerry since my Disco Blown engine and the New replacement Disco fuel gauge being so difent to the first one (RIP)

It was very very close with my first EV when almost NO charging options existed Des So Close my old one went into limp mode a few km from Torquay option which didn't exist with my first few chemo express runs

I did run out of fuel twice in my life. New Motor bike both times.

In view of the worry about EV battery fires, it is interesting to look at the concern about petrol fires in the time motor vehicles were first appearing. I recall my father being horrified at the risk when houses with an attached garage first started to appear. And concerns about the risk of having the garage too close to the house appear in some of the early motoring books that I have.

Viewing the video above, I can only say that the bloke likes to live dangerously.
Storing those badly damaged Teslas next to each other is a recipe for disaster.
There are guidelines in UK ( which I couldn't find just now but recall seeing ) that damaged EVs should be separated by concrete blocks about 1 metre wide.
I guess the main time batteries go up is immediately after they are damaged as in the Tesla burning to the ground on the Hume Highway near Canberra so the bloke would not see those cars.
I recall a small rear end damaged Model Y being inspected by Rich Rebuilds a few years ago with a quote of USD31K from an approved repairer which was being written off. Now a model 3 with a rear end shunt would now be a write off in OZ seeing they are only worth about 30K (2019. 2020, 2021 short range) and insurance companies usually write off at 80% damage.
Regards PhilipA