Monday, January 16, 2023

When Your EV Goes Up in Flames....

Your intelligent fire department will keep its distance.

Ace's Place got a note from a reader/volunteer firefighter:

 As a volunteer firefighter I just took a class on how to handle EVs on fire.

1) Let it burn. It will take 10K gallons of water and four hours to mitigate.
2) Buy a $35K device to slide under vehicle which punctures battery cells and inserts water to mitigate fire under less than a half hour.

Key highlights:

1) If the batteries' relatively fragile cell barriers become damaged during an accident the fire will commence.
2) White smoke will emanate from the bottom of the vehicle which means you need to vacate the area immediately.
3) Once fire happens it can burn up to 6,000 degrees and flames can shoot out up to 20 feet per side of the vehicle
.
Cool.

Or hot, depending on your POV.

In the same essay, we are told that the value of used Teslas is dropping fast.  That's probably true, but the value of ALL used cars is dropping fast at this time.  That said, if you've paid attention to the news over the last year or so, you know that an EV battery has about an 8 year lifetime and a $10K ++ replacement cost.

That's a factor.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I bet this fire was from batteries catching fire

2 New Jersey Firefighters Died Battling a Blaze Deep in a Ship Carrying 5,000 Cars

https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/2-new-jersey-firefighters-died-battling-a-blaze-deep-in-a-ship-carrying-5000-cars_5377881.html