Watch: Lithum is highly toxic. Total environmentally hazardous. How many more? Li Ion batteries = weak point, once ignited, won't stop burning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYKTTCNUV3o
I would say that the fact this battery reignited is barely news. Its a well known "feature" of lithium batteries. Petrol is at least as dangerous from the perspective of a fire hazard. Diesel is probably the least likely to spontaneously combust.
I agree with you 100%- there should be a protocol for handling this situation. I have know idea what that should be, but seems like there needs to be a way to encapsulate the battery with an insulator and prevent any further shorts/fires.
Putting the car in a large, fire-proof steel container (specialty engineering, they exist) for a few weeks (so you are at least somewhat sure it won't start catching fire RFN). Then dismantling the battery by hand, inspecting each cell individually.
You can't really put anything around it (like a nitrogen atmosphere) that prevents fires, because the oxygen is already in there in the cathode. And so is the energy to ignite it.
Removing any heat source, to prevent further damage and lithium leakage, would seem to be priority. Pulling the battery fuse should be involved.
A non-flammable chemical to make lithium inert would be ideal. Mineral oil or another oil could be poured into the exposed battery, but these could make the situation worse.
Maybe lithium could have something else poured onto it, with the end-product of petalite (LiAl(Si2O5)2) or lithium chloride (LiCl).[0] The lithium could later be recovered from these molecules.
> The NTSB's report into that crash noted that after the fire had been extinguished and the car was taken to storage, the battery "emanated smoke and audible venting" but didn't ignite. However, five days later it reignited and had to be extinguished again.
Do regular cars ever catch on fire 5 days after being hosed down and junked?
Petrol or even propane doesn't bring its own oxygen and ignition source and doesn't require perfect structural integrity of its container to prevent them all from mixing. A dented or punctured gas tank or propane tank won't catch on fire (in earthly conditions) without an external ignition source. Lithium batteries on the other hand will catch fire if damaged. There's hundreds of videos on YouTube of people catching old cell phone batteries on fire by puncturing or denting them.
It seems from TFA that the speed limiter had been set to 85 mph, yet the data recorder showed the car traveling at 116 mph three seconds before the crash. Did the speed limiter fail too?
The father claims that he set his son's car to have a speed limiter. However we have no reason to believe that the son didn't try to remove the limiter. Given the son's previous behavior, there is every reason to believe that the son would have noticed the limiter and tried to turn it off.
It would have been some sort of aftermarket modification (the only speed limiter available to end users at the time was part of “valet mode” and had a limit of 70MPH) so it’s not too surprising if it failed.
Just like you can get a patent on anything by adding "with a computer" you can get traction for any news story by adding "in a tesla" to it. A fire in any car would be horrifying, but it's not really that newsworthy. Gas cars catch on fire all the time.
There are several 'criteria for newsworthiness'. One of them is novelty. Another is general public interest. And there is substantial general public interest in Tesla as a whole, since it is doing new things. Additionally, many of the things Tesla is trying is also novel. So that is two things right off the bat that make basically anything that happens there newsworthy to some degree.
I get that people like to say "oh the media is just reporting on this failure because it's Tesla and they want them to fail," but to hold that view is to misunderstand the nature of news in general. Pieces like this aren't inherently "anti-Tesla", (which is what I am admittedly inferring you're getting at with your comment). But the fact that this is a new thing that humankind is experimenting with makes it newsworthy, and that includes its failures and successes.
Then reporters should emphasize baselines. Otherwise this type of reporting misleads people and reporters are to blame for it. It is a "fake news" tough not necessarily any single report is false.
Investigative and traditional news journalism will still focus on unusual deltas or events — and in this case, those deltas should be in Tesla's favor. A good example of newsworthiness might be if firefighters failed to put out a battery fire or if the NTSB (edited from NHTSA) focused on a particular incident for some reason, e.g. to learn and see how this event is being handled versus others.
Then would you call the NTSB investigation a "clickbait" investigation? They are the ones who initiated the investigation that is being reported on right now.
How unusual/newsworthy is a NTSB investigation? You can look at their list of major highway investigations right here:
By my informal count, Tesla seems to have the most NTSB investigations of any individual automaker right now, given that many of the NTSB highway investigations involve bus and train accidents.
Honestly, I would expect the NTSB to investigate any kind of accident involving rare or new technology. I'd expect to see them investigate a higher percentage of accidents involving electric vehicles and self-driving vehicles until those technologies are safe enough and proven enough that you get diminishing returns from the investigations.
Tesla probably also has one of the higher counts of deployed electric vehicles out there too, so the absolute number of units involved in anything unusual should be expected to be high too. The interesting context would be relative numbers to number of units and miles travelled for both regular vehicles as well as other makers electrics.
The focus is on the response because the fire isn't the kind of fire most response teams are used to dealing with. It's not necessarily focused on the car.
Clickbaiting is a legitimate though devious tactic. Per my comment referencing one of the same examples you cited, I wouldn't consider it clickbait to focus on the investigation when the investigation's true intent is highlighted. "NTSB investigating response to Tesla crash" and "NTSB investigating Tesla crash" are vastly, vastly different.
I went ahead and edited one of your examples into my post. Thanks for finding it; I was wondering why I wasn't able to dig it up while searching for NHTSA.
This is newsworthy when you consider that this is extremely unlikely to happen with gas fires.
And considering that my comment may have appeared to critique the story itself (even though my comment was a critique of its parent and not of the actual story), it's a fair point to make, so thanks.
Tesla on fire might or might not be newsworthy by your criteria. Is this fire in some way worse than a normal car fire? Is this fire significantly more likely than a normal car fire? Either could be true (I don't know if either is), I want my news to tell me.
But news needs to sell something everyday, and real investigative work takes months.
While true that Tesla is attempting novel things — and sometimes falling short of success — there is nothing particularly novel about a car fire. They aren't particularly widespread, but neither are they incredibly rare.
I think without another element to the story that's notable, novel or otherwise interesting, I think it falls short of the criteria for meaningful reporting and falls into the realm of sensationalism. It may not be specifically or deliberately "anti-Tesla", but that doesn't mean it's not sensationalist.
Electric cars are a different beast in terms of fire. Fire crews know how to put out a conventional fire. Remove the fuel and/or source of ignition and fire is out. Drain the tank, disconnect the battery terminals, and it is safe to haul away. A battery fire is different. You can never really remove the energy potential without discharging the batteries, something that cannot reasonably be done at an accident scene. So the wrecked Tesla is a different animal, something more newsworthy, than a standard wreck.
I read about a concept car that was going to integrate capacitors into its carbon fiber frame. High electrical potentials, encased in a mesh of carbon, doing 100kph down a public road. What could possibly go wrong? I think more boom than burn.
I think that isn't being very truthful to the fact that Tesla owns a huge market share of electric vehicles and that these are problems that affect the big player. If Ford, Honda, Chevy, Suzuki... had problems that made people questions the very keystone of the technology that their product was, the possibility of an unsafe product, you're wrong that it wouldn't be in the title, and doubly so if it was such a key player in their niche.
I like Tesla, but everytime something bad happens to Elons company people fall in line of saying well this wouldn't happen to x or y or talked about in the media the same way.
Without ever considering it isn't a problem if the companies referenced were all considered on equal terms. This is the price Elon is paying for not having a dedicated marketing team and also being innovative.
> Moreover, you don’t see “Mercedes-Benz” or “Range Rover” ignites twice in a title.
However, I think one might if it were just a bit more exotic, like a Ferrari.
More importantly, if, e.g., Mercedes had recently been making headlines (arguably through their own efforts) about their new [1] hydrogen-fuel-cell technology, and it was that technology that was catching fire twice, I'm pretty sure we'd see their brand name in the title.
[1] fictional/hypothetical, for the purposes of this thought experiment
That's fair. It still seems like the media like putting Tesla in a negative light, if for nothing else for eyeballs. So even though a particular issue is not statistically abnormal, they'll print away either for eyeballs or to slight Musk because he doesn't play by their expected rules.
Err, most cars don't catch fire days after they were in an accident. That's the scary part.
Electric vehicles require additional specialized handling after a crash. Who provides that training? Who provides the equipment and consumables for that special handling? Who covers that cost?
Very important factors which play into the lifespan of an electric car, factors which need to be discussed.
Except it does happen, eventually. It doesn't happen to teslas much either. Web search found this stack exchange article "Catalytic converter - ... and as he was driving down the hill a few days later it caught fire"
> The report notes that Fort Lauderdale Fire and Rescue Department found the Tesla "fully engulfed in flames" at the crash scene and extinguished it with 200 to 300 gallons of water and foam.
Water + lithium fire, smart. I'm surprised it was put out successfully to begin with. Probably it died on its own, and got restarted with the water.
> USE WATER TO FIGHT A HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY FIRE. If the battery catches fire, is exposed to high heat, or is generating heat or
gases, use large amounts of water to cool the battery. It can take approximately 3,000 gallons of water, applied directly to the battery,
to fully extinguish and cool down a battery fire; always establish or request an additional water supply. If water is not immediately
available, use dry chemicals, CO2, foam, or another typical fire-extinguishing agent to fight the fire until water is available.
That much water is probably enough to react with all exposed lithium, while removing enough heat to prevent damage to other batteries or battery cases.
There isn't enough lithium at play to worry about water+lithium fires. Not every battery cell is exposed. The water is needed to reduce temperature, to prevent undamaged cells from being cooked by the burning ones. Foam removes oxygen but that doesn't reduce the energy potential contained in the damaged cells It won't prevent them from cooking off their neighbours like water will.
Water is also needed to unsure and carbon fiber doesn't burn, releasing all sorts of nasty stuff.
Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIB) don't react violently to water, the lithium contained within them is minimal and disbursed. It's not the solid clump of raw metal form your chemistry professor might have used to demonstrate the reactivity of such metals.
The concern with LIBs is a short circuit to the cell causing a thermal runaway as it rapidly discharges. The heat can cause the battery or surrounding components to combust. A short can occur due to a puncture, rupture, or blunt force (e.g. Samsung Note explosions).
Water is the most effective way to cool the batteries.
A Chevrolet Volt battery from a car used in crash testing caught fire while in storage [1]
I know many are quick to dismiss battery fires "because petrol cars do it all the time" but that is not the issue. One key difference is a lithium battery fire produces toxic gases that are more dangerous [2] which are more dangerous to bystanders and first responders.
A key reason these stories are noteworthy is because the technology is new and exciting. Plus many don't associate fires with batteries though Hollywood will likely provide an abundance of such excitement. So expect more stories of battery fires, especially surrounding AP accidents which are even more noteworthy but don't dismiss the issue because of petrol cars
Now in that previously mentioned Volt fire there is mentioning of powering down a battery as one solution. Is that possible with the Tesla system, actually is that truly a solution? I suppose the real solution is special holding areas created to store battery packs and cars from wrecks. Probably will require manufacturer's to take ownership of them
Batteries provide oxygen, fuel and a way to get that fuel hot enough to ignite (electrical energy) in close proximity. The higher the energy density the easier they will light up and the harder it is to put them out. Unless there's a fundamental breakthrough that allows us to use different materials to store electrical energy this is always going to happen from time to time.
Only the most die-hard of fanboys ever claimed that having a bunch of lithium batteries on the floor of your vehicle was an improvement in safety over liquid fuels.
All forms of energy storage are going to have the potential to destroy things by releasing that energy. The big difference between a bomb and energy suitable for conversion into mechanical power is time.
It’s amazing that we allow a car to be sold that can go this fast. They bothered to pass a law limiting electric bicycles to 28 MPH but my car will go 155. Why?
If you own an e-bike that can exceed 28 MPH then it is unlawful in most jurisdictions to operate it on any bike lane or path, and you need a motorcycle license to operate it on a road. The equivalent law for cars would be if your car can exceed 45 MPH you’re not allowed to drive it in a school zone.
The main cause of this accident seems to be doing 116 mph in a 30 mph speed limit zone...
I can't really blame the design of the car for the fatalities in that case...
The secondary fire isn't really preventable either - electric cars, due to their nature, contain batteries, and when those batteries are ripped apart in an accident, they might short circuit and catch fire. Recorvery crews need to know this, and leave the car somewhere it won't matter if it re-ignites.
Talking about these self-driving cars, I think there are still so many aspects that need to be fixed by the automakers. Until then, these cars should not be allowed to be operated on public roads. I have read an article that talks about this matter at https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accid.... Hopefully the automakers will think seriously about this.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadYou can't really put anything around it (like a nitrogen atmosphere) that prevents fires, because the oxygen is already in there in the cathode. And so is the energy to ignite it.
A non-flammable chemical to make lithium inert would be ideal. Mineral oil or another oil could be poured into the exposed battery, but these could make the situation worse.
Maybe lithium could have something else poured onto it, with the end-product of petalite (LiAl(Si2O5)2) or lithium chloride (LiCl).[0] The lithium could later be recovered from these molecules.
[0] https://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele003.html
Do regular cars ever catch on fire 5 days after being hosed down and junked?
Water has normally been used to absorb heat, and takes some oxygen away. But electrical fires you need something else like CO2, powder, or halon.
Dubai - car catches on fire twice!
https://www.thenational.ae/uae/transport/car-catches-fire-tw...
Didn't quite make the us news. Cars catch on fire at amusement park, Teslas apparently not involved http://abc11.com/several-cars-catch-fire-in-parking-lot-of-c...
There are several 'criteria for newsworthiness'. One of them is novelty. Another is general public interest. And there is substantial general public interest in Tesla as a whole, since it is doing new things. Additionally, many of the things Tesla is trying is also novel. So that is two things right off the bat that make basically anything that happens there newsworthy to some degree.
I get that people like to say "oh the media is just reporting on this failure because it's Tesla and they want them to fail," but to hold that view is to misunderstand the nature of news in general. Pieces like this aren't inherently "anti-Tesla", (which is what I am admittedly inferring you're getting at with your comment). But the fact that this is a new thing that humankind is experimenting with makes it newsworthy, and that includes its failures and successes.
I also admittedly didn't read the article yet :)
Investigative and traditional news journalism will still focus on unusual deltas or events — and in this case, those deltas should be in Tesla's favor. A good example of newsworthiness might be if firefighters failed to put out a battery fire or if the NTSB (edited from NHTSA) focused on a particular incident for some reason, e.g. to learn and see how this event is being handled versus others.
"Tesla on fire" isn't newsworthy.
"NTSB monitoring emergency response to Tesla car fire" probably is. (edited from NHTSA. Source release: https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20180509.as...)
"Tesla batteries catch on fire [more or less] frequently than gas cars" is newsworthy. It may even be worthy of further investigation in either event.
"Tesla on fire" isn't newsworthy.
How unusual/newsworthy is a NTSB investigation? You can look at their list of major highway investigations right here:
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/All-Investigations...
There are about 50 ongoing investigations since 2016. Of those, Tesla is the subject of 4 of them:
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/pages/HWY18FH004.aspx
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/pages/HWY18FH011.aspx
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/pages/HWY18FH013.aspx
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/pages/HWY17FH013.aspx
By my informal count, Tesla seems to have the most NTSB investigations of any individual automaker right now, given that many of the NTSB highway investigations involve bus and train accidents.
https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20180509.as...
(Investigation page https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/pages/HWY18FH013.aspx)
The focus is on the response because the fire isn't the kind of fire most response teams are used to dealing with. It's not necessarily focused on the car.
Clickbaiting is a legitimate though devious tactic. Per my comment referencing one of the same examples you cited, I wouldn't consider it clickbait to focus on the investigation when the investigation's true intent is highlighted. "NTSB investigating response to Tesla crash" and "NTSB investigating Tesla crash" are vastly, vastly different.
I went ahead and edited one of your examples into my post. Thanks for finding it; I was wondering why I wasn't able to dig it up while searching for NHTSA.
"New NTSB Tesla fatal crash report: Model S battery reignited twice after Florida crash"
And considering that my comment may have appeared to critique the story itself (even though my comment was a critique of its parent and not of the actual story), it's a fair point to make, so thanks.
But news needs to sell something everyday, and real investigative work takes months.
I think without another element to the story that's notable, novel or otherwise interesting, I think it falls short of the criteria for meaningful reporting and falls into the realm of sensationalism. It may not be specifically or deliberately "anti-Tesla", but that doesn't mean it's not sensationalist.
I read about a concept car that was going to integrate capacitors into its carbon fiber frame. High electrical potentials, encased in a mesh of carbon, doing 100kph down a public road. What could possibly go wrong? I think more boom than burn.
Here I’d be okay with “electric vehicle” catches fire twice or something to that effect.
I like Tesla, but everytime something bad happens to Elons company people fall in line of saying well this wouldn't happen to x or y or talked about in the media the same way. Without ever considering it isn't a problem if the companies referenced were all considered on equal terms. This is the price Elon is paying for not having a dedicated marketing team and also being innovative.
However, I think one might if it were just a bit more exotic, like a Ferrari.
More importantly, if, e.g., Mercedes had recently been making headlines (arguably through their own efforts) about their new [1] hydrogen-fuel-cell technology, and it was that technology that was catching fire twice, I'm pretty sure we'd see their brand name in the title.
[1] fictional/hypothetical, for the purposes of this thought experiment
Electric vehicles require additional specialized handling after a crash. Who provides that training? Who provides the equipment and consumables for that special handling? Who covers that cost?
Very important factors which play into the lifespan of an electric car, factors which need to be discussed.
https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/4010/car-crash...
Amusingly the same story about the tesla as in this article comes up over and over again in different reports of the same incident.
Water + lithium fire, smart. I'm surprised it was put out successfully to begin with. Probably it died on its own, and got restarted with the water.
> USE WATER TO FIGHT A HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY FIRE. If the battery catches fire, is exposed to high heat, or is generating heat or gases, use large amounts of water to cool the battery. It can take approximately 3,000 gallons of water, applied directly to the battery, to fully extinguish and cool down a battery fire; always establish or request an additional water supply. If water is not immediately available, use dry chemicals, CO2, foam, or another typical fire-extinguishing agent to fight the fire until water is available.
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/2016_Mod...
Water is also needed to unsure and carbon fiber doesn't burn, releasing all sorts of nasty stuff.
The concern with LIBs is a short circuit to the cell causing a thermal runaway as it rapidly discharges. The heat can cause the battery or surrounding components to combust. A short can occur due to a puncture, rupture, or blunt force (e.g. Samsung Note explosions).
Water is the most effective way to cool the batteries.
I know many are quick to dismiss battery fires "because petrol cars do it all the time" but that is not the issue. One key difference is a lithium battery fire produces toxic gases that are more dangerous [2] which are more dangerous to bystanders and first responders.
A key reason these stories are noteworthy is because the technology is new and exciting. Plus many don't associate fires with batteries though Hollywood will likely provide an abundance of such excitement. So expect more stories of battery fires, especially surrounding AP accidents which are even more noteworthy but don't dismiss the issue because of petrol cars
Now in that previously mentioned Volt fire there is mentioning of powering down a battery as one solution. Is that possible with the Tesla system, actually is that truly a solution? I suppose the real solution is special holding areas created to store battery packs and cars from wrecks. Probably will require manufacturer's to take ownership of them
[1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/a11865...
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577247/
What do you expect to happen when a lithium ion battery hits a wall at high speeds?
Only the most die-hard of fanboys ever claimed that having a bunch of lithium batteries on the floor of your vehicle was an improvement in safety over liquid fuels.
All forms of energy storage are going to have the potential to destroy things by releasing that energy. The big difference between a bomb and energy suitable for conversion into mechanical power is time.
Is there anywhere near Mountain View where it's legal to drive even 75mph, let alone 85mph?
I can't really blame the design of the car for the fatalities in that case...
The secondary fire isn't really preventable either - electric cars, due to their nature, contain batteries, and when those batteries are ripped apart in an accident, they might short circuit and catch fire. Recorvery crews need to know this, and leave the car somewhere it won't matter if it re-ignites.