On the EV issue…
It is now, or should be, common knowledge that electric vehicles—cars, trucks, buses, bikes, scooters—under conditions of even low humidity or water damage, are prone to catching fire, owing to the unstable nature of the lithium-ion battery. As Chris Morrison writes at The Daily Skeptic, EVs are known to explode “with the force of a bomb blasting super-heated jets of flame, melting and decomposing nearby structural materials including metal and concrete, and sending vast amounts of toxic fumes into any enclosed atmosphere.”
Jammed into underground parking garages or packed in ferries, EVs are harbingers of almost unimaginable disaster—ecological and safety menaces to which the Net Zero fanatics among our political leadership are comatosely indifferent.
Full article, HERE from PJ Media.
Interestingly, this article is written by a Canadian, but the issue is a world-wide one, and impacting multiple countries and companies producing EVs, including the big three.
One not mentioned, is one my oldest daughter called me about in California on I-80 up by Placerville, HERE. It blocked I-80 for over six hours, and apparently took over 50,000 gallons of water to put the truck out.
Funny, to me at least, we have not heard about a single EV fire as a result of hurricane Helene in the MSM, which is strange considering the last hurricane caused multiple EV fires with flooded EVs… The only place there is any mention is 16 confirmed fires in Florida, but it is behind a paywall at Business Insider.
It seems that many of the shipping companies/suppliers are now looking at ‘alternatives’ to transporting EVs by sea, especially after at least two ships have sunk due to EV fires onboard.
I know I don’t have any good answers, but I’m to the point that I believe insurance companies are about to get into the ‘game’, so to speak, and will be changing rates for EV owners depending on where/how the live and store the vehicles, and possibly where they work and park.
Anybody have any better ideas/thoughts?
I saw at least one video on X of a Tesla catching fire in a garage as the water rose.
This is what happens when you raise a generation of morons.
Nobody gets taught science of any kind, or critical thinking of any kind.
We ARE becoming the ‘Marching Morons’.
And the people who are ruling us are all lawyers who flunked every science course they ever took (if they took any).
High power density electric batteries made with highly reactive metal, combined with salt water. What could possibly go wrong.
Yet another rumor (since denied and the tweet disappeared) claimed that Geico was dropping insurance of the Cybertruck.
Though after seeing my home insurance carefully (and sneakily) dropping most insurance* of my manufactured house, I wouldn’t be surprised to see EVs get “special treatment” from the insurance companies.
((*)) In this case Country Insurance. Too long a story, but manufactured houses are getting canceled or short shrift. Maybe industry wide. BIL’s mother got a heads up last year for Nevada, we got a few month’s warning. It was sort of buried in a “this is the wonderful new coverage–if you have the right kind of home. If not, BOHICA.”
FWIW, American Modern covers manufactured houses. Even in fire-prone areas. At a substantial discount from what I had.
I think you will find that in most cases the lithium ion batteries have shorted, then caused a fire. Having worked with organic peroxides, the batteries don’t explode but they will burn quite nicely. Journalists do have a way with words.
We used these batteries in sensor packages but always in a circuit pack that was encapsulated. We would crack the case and throw them in a bucket of water for testing. Never had a fire much to the disappointment of the engineers.
In ChiCom manufactured bikes and such, there are no such circuitry and many more and larger batteries. If and when they short, all that energy is going someplace. ChiCom QC has a long way to go and IMHO they don’t care.
Probably the safest thing is to ship the batteries separate from bikes and such. UPS will air carry li-ion batteries in packs but not the batteries themselves. They must go ground
Makes me wonder what might happen to Japan’s newest class of subs (Soryu class?) that have lithium ion batteries. Hope they’re stored outside the people tank.
All- Thanks for the comments, and yes, insurance is going in some ‘interesting’ directions…and not to the better for us!
Just and FYI, We have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of electrical contractors and power company trucks in the Augusta Ga area after Helen. Ya know I ain’t seen one plugged into the wires they are putting back up!
I suspect there are very few to no EVs in the affected area – the price, charging, and the lack of virtue signaling all support that.
Local Brger King has turned their parking lot into a Tesla charging station. San Jose area. HUGE number of Tesla’s in the South Bay. I’ve seen home driveways with multiple Tesla’s. ($2m McMansions)