Luckily, FL has an abundance of currently wasted land. It should be easily solvable. In CA, a bigger challenge as the land is actually used efficiently so there is little room to shuffle parking spots around.
Yes, I have driven all over CA and lived there as well. The places EVs are, mainly LA and SF, all the land is being used reasonably, even if it’s not for people. In FL, there is about 500 feet of empty space around every object of interest serving no purpose basically.
It's the leaseholders who handled it. They sent out updated terms for the apartment building which extended insurance exclusions. Not in USA for ref...
No? I've never been able to read a policy before underwriting? The same insurance carriers have different sub-companies they put different customers in depending on the specifics of the customer, one sub-company might have the restrictions and one might not. Might also depend on the specifics of the car park - how close to the building it is, if it's attached, etc.
You really don't know what you're going to get until you get your personal quote - For example, my previous insurance policy has a separate, much higher, deductible for hurricane claims which wasn't disclosed until after I got the quote. I shopped around quite a bit because I wasn't happy with that provision of the policy and was able to find one that didn't have a separate hurricane deductible for cheaper.
You really don't know what you're going to get until you get your personal quote
Exactly. You get a quote, you read the attached policy, it says "No EVs can be parked on premises," you have a good chuckle and toss the quote in the trash.
I don't understand any of this "You have to buy the policy to see what is in it" reasoning.
Trivially, after the investigators identify the cause of the fire. With all insurance, it’s not a matter of policing, it’s what will be covered when you try to make the claim.
> how can you even police that? is there security monitoring this or something?
I don’t understand how that applies to an owner. Police and monitor themselves?
Owners cover cars with car insurance, house damage (including from cars and e-bikes) with homeowners insurance. The homeowners insurance policy describes the details and requirements of what’s covered.
Insurance companies do actually do reconnaissance occasionally; my parents had their homeowners insurance cancelled this way.
More commonly, they will deny a claim if, during the claims process, they found there was an EV in the parking lot at the time of the loss, even if the EV isn't related to the loss. Friend of mine is an insurance adjuster and he says he denies claims all the time when he finds out people were violating their policy terms at the time of the loss.
Sigh, another article focusing on Tesla battery fires when it is a common failure mode to most of not all EVs. In the end, the inconsistency makes the article more confusing. The quoted officials all talk about EVs in general while the author talks about Teslas, and the reader doesnt know what actually happened.
Isn't this just "the kleenex effect" where the most prominent brand becomes the "defacto name". Do you see this as some form of "slander" against Tesla?
I've never heard someone IRL talking about Teslas when they mean some other EV or EVs in general. So no, it doesn't seem like the kleenex effect at all, it's just much more attention grabbing to talk about Teslas specifically in an article, so it's done even thigh it's misleading.
Like, the actual article mostly only mentions EVs but then the headline says Tesla. It's clickbait. IMO the HN title should be edited to "Electric Vehicle fires..."
> The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is aware of multiple fires in Tesla vehicles, the agency said in a letter sent Friday (Oct 14) to a Florida official and obtained by Bloomberg Government.
Perhaps due to the popularity of Teslas, it is being seen in them more so than other vehicles
Here's a Bloomberg.com (not .sg) link that says there's been two such fires in the entire state in the wake of hurricane Ian, but doesn't name the brand. Draw your own conclusion as to wether that's a statewide emergency affecting Teslas.
Were tissues are controversial product when they first came out? On many Tiktoks I see where someone is discussing their Tesla people make a large number of negative remarks unrelated to the video. Because of this when I see an article using "Tesla" for an issue that all EVs face I'm suspicious.
EV fires are more difficult to extinguish, aren't they? And EVs are often parked inside personal homes, so there's a higher likelihood that the fire could spread to a house and kill sleeping parents and children instead of only causing property damage. It at least makes sense that people find EV fires scarier than ordinary fires.
our house has a carriage house in the backyard for the garage. i don't really like it setup like that but I guess it could be useful if this issue doesn't resolve.
Yeah, people also park in the driveway in many cases, which similarly protects you from a fire spreading to your house. At least where I grew up most people used their garages for storage or as a workshop, etc. Maybe climates like Florida's encourage garage use though since weather is going to age your car's paint more quickly? Not sure.
No sleeping parents or children have been killed by an EV fire in a garage.
Bad logic like that (painting a picture instead of citing data) is precisely why people flip out about sub-noise signals like this (four cars burned in the course of a huge regional hurricane that destroyed whole tracts of suburban homes).
So you don't have a refutation to things like "EV fires are harder to extinguish" and you're just attacking a claim I didn't make ("sleeping parents or children were killed by an EV fire")? In the first place, I explicitly said that this is why people are scared, not that it actually makes Teslas unusually dangerous. Situations like this are all about shock value.
I don't have to refute everything you say. You are right about a narrow notion of firefighting technique. You are wrong about parents and children burning to death. I thought that was important to point out. I'm very happy you agree that parents and children are not burning to death.
> Sigh, another article focusing on Tesla battery fires when it is a common failure mode to most of not all EVs.
The question is, why can these fires happen? It's one thing if a pack goes on a thermal runaway after mechanical damage, such as after a collision or when a building collapses on a car. But ordinary water ingress? Why don't battery packs have waterproof seals and high-current transistors that only provide power to the battery pack's port when requested to do so by the car's ECU?
In case that these are easy to fix (or at least, cheap to integrate parts) construction deficits, car makers should absolutely be held accountable.
You don't think there might have been mechanical damage during a hurricane?
Batteries burn. They just do. Life with EVs means life with mitigation strategies for minimizing battery fires (which absolutely include waterproof seals and solid state power circuits, FWIW!).
I mean, it's true, that this must seem scary in comparison to gasoline fueled cars, which don't involve storing flammable material inside the car, or have a failure mode where they can "catch fire", right?
All lithium batteries burn. The energy densities are just too high to prevent; there isn't enough thermal conductivity to self-cool in the event of an internal short.
It's true that the relative risk changes with chemistry. The nickel/cobalt chemistries popular in consumer electronics and most EVs are indeed some of the more volatile (owing in no small part to their higher energy densities!). LiFePO4 looks like it's going to be a better fit in the long term. It's less of a fire risk and has some other advantages (cheaper raw materials and much higher durability being at the top of the list).
But don't buy the snake oil: iron phosphate batteries burn too. There's no free lunch here. You want to push two tons of metal around on the street, you need a bunch of stored energy to do that. And stored energy escapes.
>Sigh, another article focusing on Tesla battery fires when it is a common failure mode to most of not all EVs.
The article uses Tesla as a way to catch the readers eye. The actual article shows that Senator Scott asked not only Tesla, but other manufacturers such as Ford, GM, and Stellantis about what they were doing to mitigate this.
I suspect its even worse than that. The body of the article doesn't make any claims about a tesla catching fire. It only uses EV: "a series of electric vehicle (EV) fires tied to Hurricane Ian." So there may be 0 tesla fires.
I really feel like the article buried the lede though. I really think the bigger story is that the EV can catch fire for weeks after the water damage with (I assume) no warning/diagnostic errors.
"“Lithium-ion vehicle battery fires have been observed both rapidly igniting and igniting several weeks after battery damage occurred,” Jack Danielson, executive director at NHTSA, wrote in the letter to Patronis."
I think that if someone only wishes to post a link, then good on them. You can use nitter if that works for you. I agree it would be nice if people took the time to write a more thoughtful post, but I also think that trying to convince the internet to improve its behaviour is antisensible..
Perhaps instead of trying to ask others to do something, you could have added a link to nitter, and a 240 character summary (although in this case the relevant thread is wayyy longer than that and contains relevant images, so good luck!)
[Video clip of a Tesla EV, on fire from battery damage after Hurricane Ian. A fire crew is dousing it with water. Someone observes that they've put 1,500 gallons on it already.]
From the articles linked throughout this thread there were two EV fires during Ian and none of them reported on the brand of the car that caught fire. Why harp on a company that has 0 implied involvement, besides by being the company that originally brought the technology to market?
I don't think so. He implied that people "not really into investing" own Tesla, and I wanted to show that it's widely invested, even by large institutions, not just people who aren't sophisticated and want a "brand name" stock.
Tesla stans are vastly outnumbered by smug gasholes who are gullible enough to believe every oil industry placed lie and propaganda piece they read, and arrogant enough to think they are correct in their ignorance, so there’s a bit of a persecution complex among the Tesla stans.
Fascinating! This is the first
I’m hearing of the anti-Tesla sentiment actually being an oil industry psyop.
I don’t think that’s very likely simply because the media reports far far more on Tesla vis a vis Elon and EV tech in general simply because it’s new and has things worth reporting on.
You’re absolutely right that Tesla stans have a persecution complex and it’s not at all unexpected because you take the literal years of the Tesla evangelism strike force, and “Tesla Face” where any and all criticism of EVs not being a solution for every driver and Tesla not being gods gift to the car industry and, and Elon not being EV Jesus breaker of business models met with dogpiling by Tesla stans that would make kpop and mcr fans blush. It follows the formula exactly that today with Elon making an ass of himself publicly on the regular and the reality of the actual cars being just kinda fine that the internet is having its moment of having a laugh at their expense which would put any fan on the defensive.
Tesla is going through all the normal obsessive fandom phases like you would expect from 14 year old girls in 2014 on Tumblr obsessed with Dr. Who. It has almost nothing at all to do with the cars.
> This is the first I’m hearing of the anti-Tesla sentiment actually being an oil industry psyop.
It’s not anti-Tesla it’s anti sustainable energy.
One of the books Elon most frequently recommends (and I mean very frequently… if this is the first you’re hearing of it, that’s kind of a red flag that you don’t know your topic!) is Merchants of Doubt, which is about how massive corporate interests (on scales that dwarf Tesla… think big tobacco and big oil) historically have funded biased and ethically compromised research and journalism to advance their agendas (as well as, of course, lobbying, no surprise there). I don’t know if big oil and big your-dad’s-auto are doing this now, but the motivation is there, so it’s a fair bet that they are. And then there are short sellers. And then individuals who have to rationalize their purchase of a $70,000 gas Audi because nicer leather.
But yeah I agree Tesla is going through obsessive fandom phases.
Humans are apparently wired for worship and celebrities and famous folk are our handmade gods.
I like what Musk has done to change the debate on EVs as well as refactoring space travel with a highly iterative process. Same thing with Jobs in how Apple changed our relationship with computing.
In both cases, these men are not to be at all admired for their personal conduct but it cannot be denied that they put a dent in the universe. The power of an intelligent, driven, and charismatic asshole is impressive.
I thought I explained the reason why in my post. I want objective information. I dont care if it is good or bad for Tesla, but the sloppyness with which most people write about Teslas gets in the way
I see one article claiming 10+ EV fires from one department. Were any non-Teslas? All the footage and articles I see so far are of Teslas, but that might be because they are more popular:
I am open to the idea, but have never once seen actual data to support this, just a lot of anecdotes. I been thinking about getting a EV for my next car so the garbage information in the space bothers me
This is just nonsense.The issues that Teslas get dingged for are fit and finish issues.
What we are talking about here is the electronics systems (batteries, motors and so on). Every single analysis of those systems shows that in those things Tesla are excellent. In most cases far ahead of the competition.
A historically bad hurricane comes through and floods SW Florida, causing (per a quick google) $50-200B in damage, including dangerous situations of all kinds (downed power, building failures, hell, even public health issues like mold and sewage risk are real and genuine problems).
But four cars catch fire and... that's what we all want to talk about? Is it time yet to start talking about Tesla Derangement Syndrome?
Last time I spoke to someone in SFFD (2016) there were about 40 pumper trucks total for the entire city. Their biggest concern with earthquakes was fire. They pretty much said everyone is on their own after an earthquake to deal with fires because there are not enough resources to handle them all.
Now throw in EV batteries that could be ruptured, crushed, punctured, and burning uncontrollably that require special treatment to be extinguished.
Energy Efficiency? (In terms of the amount of the stored energy put into the car that actually goes towards spinning wheels and not making loud noises and lots of heat)
Electrical energy can be renewable generated without carbon emission unlike hydrocarbon energy?
Oh and better acceleration and handling in my experience.
Early cars were also dangerous death traps, and modern ICE cars can't just drive away after being submerged either. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater; There is work to be done to mitigate water shorts of completely submerged batteries but this seems like an edge case to fix not a reason to throw out the idea of electric cars.
EVs + batteries take a lot more energy and raw materials to manufacture but break even relatively quickly on both accounts since you get to charge them with electricity that may come from clean non-carbon energy sources like nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal as opposed to filling up regularly with dirty and high-carbon fossil and biofuel. If you charge with coal or gas-generated electricity the breakeven is slower but still generally does happen over a period of some years.
Another poster already covered a number of the benefits. I'll add another: Never going to the gas station. If you've got overnight charging, your car is ready to go every morning. My wife and I bought an EV about 5 years ago. I go to the gas station about twice a year for our gas car that we use once in a while.
And to reprise the other poster's point: If you are a car guy (I'm a car guy) you've not lived until you've stomped a Tesla's accelerator while going straight up a mountain. (Not sure about Taycan, think they have multiple gears.) OMGWTF, the direct drive surges the car uphill. No lag. No gear shift. It's like driving a 5 speed manual if you only had to say in one gear for the whole drive but I've never been in a sports car with a 5 speed manual and gotten to use just one gear up a mountain.
EVs might be environmentally conscious. But don't miss the real headline -- they are spectacular cars to own. Best car I've had. (Sadly all their current offerings are moronic. Yoke? WTF. No display behind the wheel? WTF. I'd not buy a Tesla now because of unforced errors on behalf of Tesla.)
Your example is forest fires taking out regular cars...
The article is talking about flooding sea water starting battery fires... gas cars don't set on fire from sea water ..... making hurricane cleanup harder .........
I always run into this problem with literal minded people on HN. They are literally not the same, but they are not completely different. They're both dangerous car events occurring due to a natural disaster.
A wildfire will burn a car whether the car has a full tank of gas or no gas at all. I seriously doubt that gas in cars has ever played a meaningful role in the course of a wildfire.
We're talking about the danger to firefighters trying to put fires out. I'm not one, so I don't know which type - EV or gasoline - is more dangerous to firefighters. I'm sure it's a question they ask themselves. Is this a gas fire or an electrical fire?
> “This emerging threat has forced local fire departments to divert resources away from hurricane recovery to control and contain these dangerous fires,” Scott said. “Car fires from electric vehicles have proven to be extremely dangerous and last for a prolonged period, taking in many cases up to six hours to burn out.”
The concern is not the risk the fires pose to firefighers. The concern is the risk posed by fires diverting the attention of firefighters from other hurricane related matters. The electric car fires are particularly dangerous in this regard because they take much longer to put out, diverting firefighter resources for longer. Every firefighter spraying water on an electric car for six hours is a firefighter not helping people out of flooded buildings, or whatever else they'd otherwise be doing. In the hurricane scenario, electric cars are a unique concern because they catch fire in situations where ICE cars don't; when flooded.
In a wildfire, car fires aren't a diversion from fighting the wildfire because it's all part of the same fire. And in a wildfire any car caught in the fire is going to burn until it is a pool of molten aluminum, regardless of what kind of car it was. Replace all the electric cars in a hurricane with ICE, and there will be fewer car fires. Replace all the ICE cars in a wildfire with electric, and there will be just as many car fires.
tl;dr: Wildfires burn all cars. Hurricanes burn electric cars specifically.
Wildfires don't burn all cars if firefighters are in the town putting the fires out. I imagine approaching a car on fire in that situation is pretty dicey.
When a wildfire is ripping through town, firefighters don't focus on putting out individual car fires. Any car that gets caught up in the wildfire will burn; any building too. It doesn't matter what kind of car it is, whether it's fueled or charged; it will burn up regardless.
And in the general case of a car fire, the basic approach is the same: they spray the car with water from a distance. Unless there's somebody in the car the firefighters won't get up and personal with a burning car. The pertinent danger is not to the firefighters, but the effect of tying up the attention of firefighters on one car for six hours when there are other matters that demand their attention.
What is the actual mechanism that is causing these fires to start?
Is it saltwater getting into the battery itself? Is it saltwater in the high voltage wiring outside the battery? Is it physical damage to waterproof seals that is simply revealed during a flood, but probably would have let rainwater in if you drove through a ford? Or is it maybe unrelated to the saltwater, and is simply physical damage to the batteries caused by the storm?
If the cause is saltwater in anything, the design fix is easy... Simply have single-use disconnects between groups of battery cells, such that say the ~400v battery gets split into five 80 volt batteries.
Then, when there is only 80 volts across a bit of saltwater, not enough current will flow to get hot enough to start a fire. You'll just end up with some warm bleachy water and a lot of corrosion. Hydrogen gas is produced, but inside the battery there won't be sufficient oxygen for it to burn, and outside the battery hydrogen isn't too dangerous because it disperses incredibly fast.
The same disconnects could be used for emergency situations - as soon as they have been disconnected, there is no risk of electric shock to any first responders, even if they cut through high voltage wires.
The result? Hybrid-powered cars were involved in about 3,475 fires per every 100,000 sold. Gasoline-powered cars, about 1,530. Electric vehicles (EVs) saw just 25 fires per 100,000 sold.
I wonder how that will change as the fleet ages: I would like to see a comparison from the same car demographic (pricepoint, end-user, vehicle age cohort, mileage).
It is unobvious why hybrids should be so fire prone: perhaps because they are often high mileage taxi vehicles? (Is risk kilometre based, or technology dependency?)
111 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 188 ms ] threadYou've never seen a population density map of California have you?
Got a link that backs that up?
You really don't know what you're going to get until you get your personal quote - For example, my previous insurance policy has a separate, much higher, deductible for hurricane claims which wasn't disclosed until after I got the quote. I shopped around quite a bit because I wasn't happy with that provision of the policy and was able to find one that didn't have a separate hurricane deductible for cheaper.
Exactly. You get a quote, you read the attached policy, it says "No EVs can be parked on premises," you have a good chuckle and toss the quote in the trash.
I don't understand any of this "You have to buy the policy to see what is in it" reasoning.
what about hybrid electrics that use li-on. what about ebikes?
Trivially, after the investigators identify the cause of the fire. With all insurance, it’s not a matter of policing, it’s what will be covered when you try to make the claim.
I don’t understand how that applies to an owner. Police and monitor themselves?
Owners cover cars with car insurance, house damage (including from cars and e-bikes) with homeowners insurance. The homeowners insurance policy describes the details and requirements of what’s covered.
More commonly, they will deny a claim if, during the claims process, they found there was an EV in the parking lot at the time of the loss, even if the EV isn't related to the loss. Friend of mine is an insurance adjuster and he says he denies claims all the time when he finds out people were violating their policy terms at the time of the loss.
Read your insurance policies, people.
Like, the actual article mostly only mentions EVs but then the headline says Tesla. It's clickbait. IMO the HN title should be edited to "Electric Vehicle fires..."
Perhaps due to the popularity of Teslas, it is being seen in them more so than other vehicles
I am curious about Teslas AND EVs, but they way they mix them up I learn nothing about either.
Is this a Tesla specific issue... unclear
What is happening with other EVs... Unclear
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration makes a statement about Teslas... did they mention other cars? exclude other cars?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-14/tesla-fir...
Bad logic like that (painting a picture instead of citing data) is precisely why people flip out about sub-noise signals like this (four cars burned in the course of a huge regional hurricane that destroyed whole tracts of suburban homes).
The question is, why can these fires happen? It's one thing if a pack goes on a thermal runaway after mechanical damage, such as after a collision or when a building collapses on a car. But ordinary water ingress? Why don't battery packs have waterproof seals and high-current transistors that only provide power to the battery pack's port when requested to do so by the car's ECU?
In case that these are easy to fix (or at least, cheap to integrate parts) construction deficits, car makers should absolutely be held accountable.
Batteries burn. They just do. Life with EVs means life with mitigation strategies for minimizing battery fires (which absolutely include waterproof seals and solid state power circuits, FWIW!).
I mean, it's true, that this must seem scary in comparison to gasoline fueled cars, which don't involve storing flammable material inside the car, or have a failure mode where they can "catch fire", right?
Yes, the most popular battery recipe for EVs today is one that burns, but "Batteries burn. They just do." is a poor generalization.
It's true that the relative risk changes with chemistry. The nickel/cobalt chemistries popular in consumer electronics and most EVs are indeed some of the more volatile (owing in no small part to their higher energy densities!). LiFePO4 looks like it's going to be a better fit in the long term. It's less of a fire risk and has some other advantages (cheaper raw materials and much higher durability being at the top of the list).
But don't buy the snake oil: iron phosphate batteries burn too. There's no free lunch here. You want to push two tons of metal around on the street, you need a bunch of stored energy to do that. And stored energy escapes.
The article uses Tesla as a way to catch the readers eye. The actual article shows that Senator Scott asked not only Tesla, but other manufacturers such as Ford, GM, and Stellantis about what they were doing to mitigate this.
I guess the term "clickbait" is too harsh these days.
I really feel like the article buried the lede though. I really think the bigger story is that the EV can catch fire for weeks after the water damage with (I assume) no warning/diagnostic errors.
"“Lithium-ion vehicle battery fires have been observed both rapidly igniting and igniting several weeks after battery damage occurred,” Jack Danielson, executive director at NHTSA, wrote in the letter to Patronis."
Perhaps instead of trying to ask others to do something, you could have added a link to nitter, and a 240 character summary (although in this case the relevant thread is wayyy longer than that and contains relevant images, so good luck!)
As always: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Disclaimer: I sometimes find guidelines aggravating.
Perhaps a (more) Tesla(s) did catch fire after Ian but that claim is not supported by the article.
The #2 and #3 holders of Tesla stock are
The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTSAX)
and
The Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFIAX)
...so it's safe to say that all sorts of people are interested in Tesla stock.
I don’t think that’s very likely simply because the media reports far far more on Tesla vis a vis Elon and EV tech in general simply because it’s new and has things worth reporting on.
You’re absolutely right that Tesla stans have a persecution complex and it’s not at all unexpected because you take the literal years of the Tesla evangelism strike force, and “Tesla Face” where any and all criticism of EVs not being a solution for every driver and Tesla not being gods gift to the car industry and, and Elon not being EV Jesus breaker of business models met with dogpiling by Tesla stans that would make kpop and mcr fans blush. It follows the formula exactly that today with Elon making an ass of himself publicly on the regular and the reality of the actual cars being just kinda fine that the internet is having its moment of having a laugh at their expense which would put any fan on the defensive.
Tesla is going through all the normal obsessive fandom phases like you would expect from 14 year old girls in 2014 on Tumblr obsessed with Dr. Who. It has almost nothing at all to do with the cars.
It’s not anti-Tesla it’s anti sustainable energy.
One of the books Elon most frequently recommends (and I mean very frequently… if this is the first you’re hearing of it, that’s kind of a red flag that you don’t know your topic!) is Merchants of Doubt, which is about how massive corporate interests (on scales that dwarf Tesla… think big tobacco and big oil) historically have funded biased and ethically compromised research and journalism to advance their agendas (as well as, of course, lobbying, no surprise there). I don’t know if big oil and big your-dad’s-auto are doing this now, but the motivation is there, so it’s a fair bet that they are. And then there are short sellers. And then individuals who have to rationalize their purchase of a $70,000 gas Audi because nicer leather.
But yeah I agree Tesla is going through obsessive fandom phases.
I like what Musk has done to change the debate on EVs as well as refactoring space travel with a highly iterative process. Same thing with Jobs in how Apple changed our relationship with computing.
In both cases, these men are not to be at all admired for their personal conduct but it cannot be denied that they put a dent in the universe. The power of an intelligent, driven, and charismatic asshole is impressive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1ge694JwTw
https://twitter.com/JimmyPatronis/status/1578050503279316992
And it is harder to search for all the various other brands (to the Kleenex point).
https://twitter.com/jimmypatronis/status/1578050503279316992
https://twitter.com/jimmypatronis/status/1580963218155270146
Sigh, another Tesla fanboi blaming the messenger, rather than addressing the issue at hand.
> the job requirements to be a Tesla assembly person were that you're blind with no hands
But to be fair, I saw Teslas in Sweden, which had no defects like shown here.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgjVvetGPak
What we are talking about here is the electronics systems (batteries, motors and so on). Every single analysis of those systems shows that in those things Tesla are excellent. In most cases far ahead of the competition.
But four cars catch fire and... that's what we all want to talk about? Is it time yet to start talking about Tesla Derangement Syndrome?
Now throw in EV batteries that could be ruptured, crushed, punctured, and burning uncontrollably that require special treatment to be extinguished.
Edit:
60 total engines listed here with 42 active https://sfbos.org/18-apparatus-and-vehicle-management
Remind me why EVs are supposed to be good, again?
Electrical energy can be renewable generated without carbon emission unlike hydrocarbon energy?
Oh and better acceleration and handling in my experience.
Early cars were also dangerous death traps, and modern ICE cars can't just drive away after being submerged either. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater; There is work to be done to mitigate water shorts of completely submerged batteries but this seems like an edge case to fix not a reason to throw out the idea of electric cars.
And to reprise the other poster's point: If you are a car guy (I'm a car guy) you've not lived until you've stomped a Tesla's accelerator while going straight up a mountain. (Not sure about Taycan, think they have multiple gears.) OMGWTF, the direct drive surges the car uphill. No lag. No gear shift. It's like driving a 5 speed manual if you only had to say in one gear for the whole drive but I've never been in a sports car with a 5 speed manual and gotten to use just one gear up a mountain.
EVs might be environmentally conscious. But don't miss the real headline -- they are spectacular cars to own. Best car I've had. (Sadly all their current offerings are moronic. Yoke? WTF. No display behind the wheel? WTF. I'd not buy a Tesla now because of unforced errors on behalf of Tesla.)
In something like 30 years of driving I've never felt the need to accelerate flat-out from 0 to 60mph. Why is this a thing?
One thing that the article doesn't cover is how much ground and water the oil and gas from cars and boats have contaminated.
If fire fighters were actively worried about the ecological disaster, they'd also be distracted by each boat.
Your example is forest fires taking out regular cars...
The article is talking about flooding sea water starting battery fires... gas cars don't set on fire from sea water ..... making hurricane cleanup harder .........
They're.... completely different .....
> “This emerging threat has forced local fire departments to divert resources away from hurricane recovery to control and contain these dangerous fires,” Scott said. “Car fires from electric vehicles have proven to be extremely dangerous and last for a prolonged period, taking in many cases up to six hours to burn out.”
The concern is not the risk the fires pose to firefighers. The concern is the risk posed by fires diverting the attention of firefighters from other hurricane related matters. The electric car fires are particularly dangerous in this regard because they take much longer to put out, diverting firefighter resources for longer. Every firefighter spraying water on an electric car for six hours is a firefighter not helping people out of flooded buildings, or whatever else they'd otherwise be doing. In the hurricane scenario, electric cars are a unique concern because they catch fire in situations where ICE cars don't; when flooded.
In a wildfire, car fires aren't a diversion from fighting the wildfire because it's all part of the same fire. And in a wildfire any car caught in the fire is going to burn until it is a pool of molten aluminum, regardless of what kind of car it was. Replace all the electric cars in a hurricane with ICE, and there will be fewer car fires. Replace all the ICE cars in a wildfire with electric, and there will be just as many car fires.
tl;dr: Wildfires burn all cars. Hurricanes burn electric cars specifically.
And in the general case of a car fire, the basic approach is the same: they spray the car with water from a distance. Unless there's somebody in the car the firefighters won't get up and personal with a burning car. The pertinent danger is not to the firefighters, but the effect of tying up the attention of firefighters on one car for six hours when there are other matters that demand their attention.
Is it saltwater getting into the battery itself? Is it saltwater in the high voltage wiring outside the battery? Is it physical damage to waterproof seals that is simply revealed during a flood, but probably would have let rainwater in if you drove through a ford? Or is it maybe unrelated to the saltwater, and is simply physical damage to the batteries caused by the storm?
Then, when there is only 80 volts across a bit of saltwater, not enough current will flow to get hot enough to start a fire. You'll just end up with some warm bleachy water and a lot of corrosion. Hydrogen gas is produced, but inside the battery there won't be sufficient oxygen for it to burn, and outside the battery hydrogen isn't too dangerous because it disperses incredibly fast.
The same disconnects could be used for emergency situations - as soon as they have been disconnected, there is no risk of electric shock to any first responders, even if they cut through high voltage wires.
It is unobvious why hybrids should be so fire prone: perhaps because they are often high mileage taxi vehicles? (Is risk kilometre based, or technology dependency?)