Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Another Ship on Fire

I asked that of one of the staff on my last journey. There were more high speed chargers being put into the shops car park area. Clearly the higher power chargers stir the molecules more aggressively and heat them up so being more likely to trigger an event if there is a weakness?

His answer was - smoke detector plus in car cameras - put your foot down so it does not stop mid tunnel unless extreme.

It appears that as they take a bit of time to turn from smouldering to intense almost unstoppable conflagration that it allows them to get out the other end and into a siding. Putting them on the lorry carts would be bad as it would not contain the heat and could damage the tunnel more.

Not certain if it is true but that was what he told me. Makes sense it is not that long a run through and the alternative of a chemical fire in the tunnel sounds a lot more difficult to deal with given the fumes and access.

You look at all that melted steel. That is very frightening.

They have planned for that, well their planning for any car fire is based on stopping, uncoupling both ends of the burning coack and then pullling the front and back bits away from the fire.
Given that they do not allow camping gas bottles on the shuttle I'm surprised the allow EVs, the risk of an EV fire is low, but like a gas bottle,, the consequences are not nice to contemplate.

I guess Peter it is an emerging risk and one their business model may find difficult to handle.
I worked making ink using nitro cellulose a pre cursor to TNT. Like the batteries it can auto ignite and has it's on oxygen (old film stock is made of this ).
We weren't / aren't allowed to use the Chunnel & very few boats would take it. So much so that UK prouduction of the clear varnish to dilute colours was viable in the UK.
Across the RoW we shipped by truck or ocean. Containers on the top level so easily ditched.

NC storage always involved isolate buildings with water drench system to cool & control but not to kill the fire. Once it went up you let it burn.
Given that NC inks also used solved lie toluene and iso propyl aolochol some site sites major fire risks.

John V6 .... hazardous stuff ... but acknowledged as such, handled as such by trained people, hedged around by regulations and with planned and purpose built procedures and premises in place.

EVs on the other hand circulate amongst us in the hands of Joe Average, possibly parked in the integral garage of their semi under their bedroom ... left loose on the street...crashed, mistreated and in time will inevitably fall down the food-chain to where they will be 'serviced' by some bodger in a backstreet with a hammer.

Not as dangerous as nitro, but infinitely less managed. My guess is that as soon as a viable alternative battery/fuel/hydrogen vehicle comes on the scene the political imperative that glosses over the hazards of Li-on will disappear and current EVs will be worthless and quietly and quickly ushered off the road by the very people who are promoting them before the fruits of their dubious judgement come back to haunt them.

K

The more I research Lithium Ion battery fires the more I am concerned.
First, the critical temperatures of ignition are only at 112–121°C on anode tab and 139 to 147°C on upper surface for all cells. That isn't really very hot and it isn't difficult to see that fast charging is a serious risk.
Second, once established a Lithium Ion battery fire cannot be extinguished in any conventional way as the process of combustion releases oxygen, this supports combustion. So they will continue to burn even underwater. The only way to stop the fire is to reduce the temperature of the fire to the point the fire ceases to be self sustaining. This is why the advice is to retire to safe distance and let it burn out.

I have a 3kw battery pack in my garage and I begin to wonder if it is worth the risk.....

You have to believe that the people who design them and set the standards (there are some right?) are as smart as you in your respective field Peter. It's true of most things.

Is your building built correctly to manage storms.
Is your petrol tank in a secure place to protect it from a rear impact.

If the charging/draining is not at 100% of capability, the package is secure?
How does age affect this?
Is the casing good enough to deal with a flying hammer given my cack handed DIY skills?

For me the question becomes, does your insurance cover it, does it have to be explicitly highlighted. Only a matter of time and a couple of payouts before it gets added into the "general pot" risk to raise all our payments and also needs to be declared to be covered, with a price rise? You can add that to the cost of a BEV I suspect.

I am waiting for the moment when an electric cars bursts into flames and house goes up. Who pays, the car or the house insurance? Even worse what happens if you are in a semi and you take out next door. I think their should be a requirement to have a 130dB alarm fitted where the Li-Ion batteries are installed as part of a house system. Future builds with solar roof panels and electric storage is also going to lead to this more and more. Given the heat generated, containment would be extremely expensive and storage location quite a challenge on the property. I don't want to live next door to one on my fence line.

I had the Coupe being serviced at Williams last week. We had a quick chat about Lotus bringing in a load of lumpy battery tanks. I asked how they felt about the risk of fire when servicing and the comment was that the insurance, training, risks and costs were deeply unattractive. Rack up another win for our charge-to-the-future plans by the government. I support changing for the environment but only once someone has signed off on a sensible map to do it right. The way it is now I feel that we are likely to stand up a chinese coal fired power station to support all the BEV charging. At that point I prey someone who made the BEV only decision gets hit by a bolt of lightening. Oh silly me it was a chinese led nuclear reactor wasn't it. It has the makings of a film script at this point. Perhaps a modern version of Airplane roger Roger.

We handle dozens of iPads for a contract we look after and have had a couple back following a local burn out. I am surprised that the DHL service will carry them as there are many comments about them re-igniting again, but they don't know do they.

We had the same issues with the first time petrol vehicles entered the system but I do fear this is not a fully balanced model at this point.

It is interesting that an LI battery is covered by hazardous good regs when it is transported as a battery, but when it is built into something (phone, laptop, car, bus) it is no longer classified as hazardous. My understanding is that more than 50% of thermal runaways occur when the battery is being charged which to me suggests that they are a greater hazard when they are built into something.

Makes no sense to me.

My nephew gained his Phd with Lithium battery research, he was one of the first way back that manged to crystallize Lithium into a semi stable condition. In doing this he blew himself up in the Lab several times!!.
We used the early Lithium batteries in our underwater seismic streamers, the units that maintained depth were powered by them. They did not like crush damage if they went deep and used to heat up and catch fire when back on the surface. We were told that one D cell lithium battery could have the same explosive power as a stick of dynamite in the right ( wrong conditions ).. Needless to say there are quite a few old D cell lithium batteries at some depth in the varous oceans!! The saying was to " deep six" them if they were hot when recovered onboard!..