Massive EV cement truck fire: official 'explanation' versus the facts.

[Monkeh]

i can't even remember a news article mentioning a gasoline or diesel car fire.

Selective memory or lack of reporting.

Ford recalled more than 600,000 vehicles globally last year over ICE-unique fire risks. Over 125,000 this year in the US alone.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-recalls-more-than-125000-suvs-due-fire-risk-nhtsa-2023-06-06/
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-recalls-nearly-519000-us-vehicles-over-fire-risks-2022-11-24/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-38641489
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46180703

Oh wait sorry no, I missed the 142,000 Lincolns: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-recalls-142000-lincoln-suvs-us-fire-risks-2023-05-31/

But clearly, ICE vehicles just don't catch fire. That's why they recall MILLIONS of them every year to fix them so they don't catch fire.

[johansen]

i can't even remember a news article mentioning a gasoline or diesel car fire.

Selective memory or lack of reporting.

Ford recalled more than 600,000 vehicles globally last year over ICE-unique fire risks. Over 125,000 this year in the US alone.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-recalls-more-than-125000-suvs-due-fire-risk-nhtsa-2023-06-06/
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-recalls-nearly-519000-us-vehicles-over-fire-risks-2022-11-24/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-38641489
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46180703

Oh wait sorry no, I missed the 142,000 Lincolns: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-recalls-142000-lincoln-suvs-us-fire-risks-2023-05-31/

But clearly, ICE vehicles just don't catch fire. That's why they recall MILLIONS of them every year to fix them so they don't catch fire.

How many battery packs has tesla swapped out to cut the fire risk?.

And now many are recalled has no bearing on how many have caught fire....

A times b times c equals x. If x is less than the cost of a recall...we dont do one.

[Monkeh]

How many battery packs has tesla swapped out to cut the fire risk?

I don't know. Feel free to present a number.

And now many are recalled has no bearing on how many have caught fire....

How serious the risk is has very much bearing over whether they recall them to fix them. The risk becomes serious when enough of them catch fire to take note of, and I helpfully provided several examples of news articles of ICE vehicles suffering external combustion, seeing as you just can't recall such an article or event occuring.

[johansen]

How many battery packs has tesla swapped out to cut the fire risk?

I don't know. Feel free to present a number.

And now many are recalled has no bearing on how many have caught fire....

How serious the risk is has very much bearing over whether they recall them to fix them. The risk becomes serious when enough of them catch fire to take note of, and I helpfully provided several examples of news articles of ICE vehicles suffering external combustion, seeing as you just can't recall such an article or event occuring.

Fire risk in a gas car is usually a couple components, easy to fix, cheap to recall.

The entire battery pack?...lol

[johansen]

https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/nfpa-research/fire-statistical-reports/vehicle-fires?l=0

Using that data as a baseline, there have neen 302 deaths per year due to small vehicle fires.

https://www.tesla-fire.com/
80 confirmed deaths, 218 fires.

You can run the numbers to adjust for the far, far fewer number of Teslas in existence compared to all other vehicles.

[5U4GB]

Oh, that's a different nutter than the one that someone sent me a link to.  There was a house fire somewhere close to here and some crackpot with a Youtube channel was expounding an elaborate conspiracy theory involving local government, central government, the fire service, fire safety investigators, the media, and probably a few more, all in a grand conspiracy to cover up the fact that an EV parked outside the house on a driveway had caused the fire inside the house.  Someone, maybe George Soros or Bill Gates, was telling all these organisations to report that it wasn't the EV parked outside that caused the fire inside (I stopped listening after a minute or two).

You don't even need to quote figures of EV vs. ICE fires for something like this, if the person pushing the conspiracy theory is recording his video from la-la land then that's pretty much the end of it.

[Monkeh]

https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/nfpa-research/fire-statistical-reports/vehicle-fires?l=0

Using that data as a baseline, there have neen 302 deaths per year due to small vehicle fires.

https://www.tesla-fire.com/
80 confirmed deaths, 218 fires.

You can run the numbers to adjust for the far, far fewer number of Teslas in existence compared to all other vehicles.

Yes, let's compare an average from a single nation with 10 cumulative years globally. The number you're looking for is 6.7, not 80.

[Dan123456]

EVs... lol.
More fires, more morons, more futurist obsessive nonsense.

I love my EV. No noise, no vibration, no local air pollution (we literally call our ICE car the "Stinky" car), almost no running costs because I use excess solar, never have to go to a petrol station.
Although they are expensive, but the tax payer gave me one for free.
Not for everyone of course, horses for courses. But definitely not LOL.

Lol, I’m the exact opposite 

While I have nothing against EV’s other than thinking they aren’t quite ready to take they place of ICE vehicles (although getting close!), I just love the sound, rumbles and smells of a high power ICE engine 

That said, I am also one of those people that prefers a manual transmission as auto’s are boring to drive so maybe I’m just becoming a hipster in my old age 

[SiliconWizard]

Both have advantages and drawbacks. I also like real ICE engines and manual transmission. But the comfort and silence of EVs, especially in urban traffic, is hard to beat.

Apart from EVs not being quite ready as you said, what I don't like, and I don't see ever improving (as it's not merely a technological issue) - probably only getting worse over time - is how dependent they make you compared to an ICE vehicle, on many levels.

[lezginka_kabardinka]

Both have advantages and drawbacks. I also like real ICE engines and manual transmission. But the comfort and silence of EVs, especially in urban traffic, is hard to beat.

Apart from EVs not being quite ready as you said, what I don't like, and I don't see ever improving (as it's not merely a technological issue) - probably only getting worse over time - is how dependent they make you compared to an ICE vehicle, on many levels.

Far from a coincidence! 

[EPAIII]

You say my example was not a good one because it was so small that it would not have even been part of the statistics. You are correct. I did not report it to anyone except my wife and employer because I might have been late for work on the following Monday. And I doubt that the shop which did the repairs reported it to anyone; at least not to my knowledge.

Actually THAT very fact shows just how pertinent my example was. The gasoline/oil fire  in my truck was so slow to grow that I DID have time to take effective action. And I only needed a very SMALL, probably the smallest available, fire extinguisher to put it out.

Apparently the driver of the EV did find a fire extinguisher and use it. If I am not mistaken you can see one or perhaps even two fire extinguishers in the videos and they are nice, BIG ones. Far bigger than the one I used. It or they did NOTHING to stop the battery fire. And he/she apparently did not have time to return with a better one.

Frankly I doubt that once the fire had progressed from that original cell to one or two of it's neighbors, that any firefighting equipment could have stopped it. What time frame was that? Two or three minutes? Perhaps just seconds? Certainly not very long. Just how much protective material do they place between the cells in these EV batteries? Probably not much.

I think this is a magnificent comparison between a fire in a gas/diesel vehicle and in a EV. Both started as a small, confined fire. One stayed local/confined while the other spread quickly. One fire did not even make the statistics while the other brought down a whole building. One bad cell in an EV battery destroyed over 1000 vehicles and the building they were parked in.

Thanks for helping me with that point. It is a great point.

That statistic may be true, but it sounds like it needs to be clarified.

One thing I would ask about is just how big the fire events were. Perhaps I am wrong, but when a gas or diesel vehicle catches fire, it can be easily extinguished. I had a fire in my gas powered truck on a highway trip and was able to put it out with the small fire extinguisher that I carried. I even had time to pull over to the shoulder of the road, get out of the truck, open the hood, observe the fire, go into the trailer to get the extinguisher, return to the truck, and put the fire out. I did this myself, with a small extinguisher. And after it cooled down, I was able to drive the truck and trailer to the next exit where repairs were made.

You are giving an example which wouldn't even have been in the gas vehicle fire statistics, not the greatest example but OK.
Your concerns should be resolved by having the appropriate tools for the fire department, sprinklers or other systems inside car parks to mitigate fire spread where possible. As mentioned above, as LFP gets wider adoption, spread will be less of an issue if at all.

...<snip>...

[EPAIII]

Well, I have been in busy auto parks and in ones that were almost totally isolated and deserted (the long term ones). And even the busy ones had areas where there was little or no activity. Upper floors or distant corners, etc. And in office buildings the second basement can see almost no one after 8PM and before 7AM. As I said, BEEN THERE and DONE THAT.

The fact that the owner was present and that it was a busy parking building did NOTHING to stop the disaster. You also have actually helped my point. The fire department would need to be there within a minute or two after that first cell caught fire. And even then, they may not have been able to stop it. Thanks for helping to make my point.

As for it being a diesel, I believe the powers-that-be are emphasizing that word instead of saying it was some kind of hybrid which did have a lithium based battery - a big one.

Airport car park! Been there. They are one of the loneliest places in any city. I wonder just how many cars were either on fire or completely burned out BEFORE ANYONE even noticed there was a fire.
...
If a battery fire can destroy 1500 vehicles in an airport car park...

This one was spotted almost immediately (while it was just a single car), it's a busy car park. People tried to fight it with available fire extinguishers before being forced to retreat.

As previously detailed, it wasn't an EV, it was a Diesel.

[johansen]

https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/nfpa-research/fire-statistical-reports/vehicle-fires?l=0

Using that data as a baseline, there have neen 302 deaths per year due to small vehicle fires.

https://www.tesla-fire.com/
80 confirmed deaths, 218 fires.

You can run the numbers to adjust for the far, far fewer number of Teslas in existence compared to all other vehicles.

Yes, let's compare an average from a single nation with 10 cumulative years globally. The number you're looking for is 6.7, not 80.

You can easily see, just on the ratio of 218 fires and 80 deaths.. they are far higher than ICE on a per mile driven measure, and deadlier.

just looking at the list, there have been 31 fires in the last 12 months in the usa, and 30-34 casualties in the usa. that tells me that not all the fires are being reported. just look at the fact that none of the fires in other countries have any casualties, except for germany with a couple.

teslas make up just 4% of the vehicles on the road in the usa..hmm...

[Monkeh]

As for it being a diesel, I believe the powers-that-be are emphasizing that word instead of saying it was some kind of hybrid which did have a lithium based battery - a big one.

You can believe what you like, but the vehicle is known to have been a TDV6 model - NOT a hybrid.

just looking at the list, there have been 31 fires in the last 12 months in the usa, and 30-34 casualties in the usa. that tells me that not all the fires are being reported.

I'm not sure how it tells you that, but okay.

So, where are the other 4600 fires? If they're 4% of vehicles they'd be 4% of fires if the rate was equal, and 4% of the average from your own data source is 4,694.8 fires.

[johansen]

As for it being a diesel, I believe the powers-that-be are emphasizing that word instead of saying it was some kind of hybrid which did have a lithium based battery - a big one.

You can believe what you like, but the vehicle is known to have been a TDV6 model - NOT a hybrid.

just looking at the list, there have been 31 fires in the last 12 months in the usa, and 30-34 casualties in the usa. that tells me that not all the fires are being reported.

I'm not sure how it tells you that, but okay.

So, where are the other 4600 fires? If they're 4% of vehicles they'd be 4% of fires if the rate was equal, and 4% of the average from your own data source is 4,694.8 fires.

There are about 300 deaths due to fires in the usa. (Like 5 year moving average )
10% of them are from teslas. As per last years data.

Which make up 4% of the cars on the road.

This 2.5:1 ratio fits with the insurance cost data you can also find.

Read more here
https://www.tesladeaths.com/resources

[tom66]

How many battery packs has tesla swapped out to cut the fire risk?.

And now many are recalled has no bearing on how many have caught fire....

A times b times c equals x. If x is less than the cost of a recall...we dont do one.

Tesla has never had a recall due to battery fire risk except for the mechanical impact issue on older Model S, which was fixed by bolting a large block of titanium to the front of the battery pack so that road debris does not cause cell damage.

[Gyro]

...
The fact that the owner was present and that it was a busy parking building did NOTHING to stop the disaster. You also have actually helped my point. The fire department would need to be there within a minute or two after that first cell caught fire. And even then, they may not have been able to stop it. Thanks for helping to make my point.

As for it being a diesel, I believe the powers-that-be are emphasizing that word instead of saying it was some kind of hybrid which did have a lithium based battery - a big one.

Oh FFS, it was a bog standard 3 litre Diesel, tom66 looked up the registration plate on the UK DVLA website! Stop trying to distort FACTS

[EPAIII]

If I was distorting facts, I apologize.

Have you ever seen diesel fuel burn? I have and those videos looked nothing like it. And a standard extinguisher should have had no problem putting it out. But, if it was reported as a pure diesel, then believe it if you will. I just don't know. And I really don't trust everything that is reported, just because it is reported.

[tom66]

If I was distorting facts, I apologize.

Have you ever seen diesel fuel burn? I have and those videos looked nothing like it. And a standard extinguisher should have had no problem putting it out. But, if it was reported as a pure diesel, then believe it if you will. I just don't know. And I really don't trust everything that is reported, just because it is reported.

You're not the first person who has conflated a diesel car fire with a diesel *fuel* fire.  There's plenty of things on a modern diesel or petrol car that can burn that don't involve fuel or fuel systems.  For instance, if the DPF is plugged and the computer hasn't recognised this condition, it's possible for exhaust components to get hot enough to ignite adjacent parts.  Alternatively, it could have been a 12V electrical system fault or a seized brake.  Or the owner might have smoked a cigarette and dropped it in the interior without realising.   It really only takes some plastic, interior fabrics, coolant, ATF/oil or fuel then to feed the fire and you have a full vehicle fire.

It's not much different to a BEV in that case really. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of BEV fires have nothing to do with the main battery.  Obviously once the vehicle is fully involved the battery can begin to contribute.

[JPortici]

Gas vehicles are far more likely to catch fire than EVs, on the order of 7-40x more likely. Commercial trucks are disproportionally a larger percent of those fires.

https://www.warpnews.org/transportation/fewer-fires-in-electric-cars-compared-to-fossil-fueled-cars-in-the-worlds-country-with-the-highest-share-of-electric-cars/
https://rib.msb.se/filer/pdf/29438.pdf
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9671

what makes hybrid cars safer than gasoline cars?

they aren't

they have all the complexity of a gas, and electric.. in one?!

because of that. Little engines pushed to the limit, crazy high temperatures, plus a small electric drive also pushed to the limit and small li-ion pack crammed somewhere. What could possibly go wrong?

i can't even remember a news article mentioning a gasoline or diesel car fire.

unfortunately, they do catch fire a lot but it's rarely reported. EV catching fire is better news.
In the comments above you have probably links to ford and the RHD kuga. jesus christ 

[JPortici]

If I was distorting facts, I apologize.

Have you ever seen diesel fuel burn? I have and those videos looked nothing like it. And a standard extinguisher should have had no problem putting it out. But, if it was reported as a pure diesel, then believe it if you will. I just don't know. And I really don't trust everything that is reported, just because it is reported.

When a diesel car catches fire it's usually because of a crack or another leak in the oil circuit. oil goes in the intake, the oil catches fire and the engine keeps revving higher and higher. oil is pushed by the pump that is driven by the timing belt... you can see how it is self sustaining and pretty quickly one of three things are going to happen:
one, you are extremely lucky and you cut the ignition, the air intake valve closes before it melts in position (but you have about five seconds to understand what's happening and counteract)
two, the engine revs so high that the whole thing seizes
three, burning oil comes out of the ignition, spills somewhere else and everything catches fire.

Bonus: The moment the interior catches fire, you have casted fireball.

[G7PSK]

"When a diesel car catches fire it's usually because of a crack or another leak in the oil circuit. oil goes in the intake, the oil catches fire and the engine keeps revving higher and higher. oil is pushed by the pump that is driven by the timing belt... you can see how it is self sustaining and pretty quickly one of three things are going to happen:
one, you are extremely lucky and you cut the ignition, the air intake valve closes before it melts in position (but you have about five seconds to understand what's happening and counteract)
two, the engine revs so high that the whole thing seizes
three, burning oil comes out of the ignition, spills somewhere else and everything catches fire."

Reading the above tells me one thing and one thing only, someone does not understand how compression engine work and the sequence of events when one goes into runaway.

[Monkeh]

As for it being a diesel, I believe the powers-that-be are emphasizing that word instead of saying it was some kind of hybrid which did have a lithium based battery - a big one.

You can believe what you like, but the vehicle is known to have been a TDV6 model - NOT a hybrid.

just looking at the list, there have been 31 fires in the last 12 months in the usa, and 30-34 casualties in the usa. that tells me that not all the fires are being reported.

I'm not sure how it tells you that, but okay.

So, where are the other 4600 fires? If they're 4% of vehicles they'd be 4% of fires if the rate was equal, and 4% of the average from your own data source is 4,694.8 fires.

There are about 300 deaths due to fires in the usa. (Like 5 year moving average )
10% of them are from teslas. As per last years data.

Which make up 4% of the cars on the road.

This 2.5:1 ratio fits with the insurance cost data you can also find.

Read more here
https://www.tesladeaths.com/resources

And in how many of those was the fire the cause or merely a factor in a high speed collision?

And I'll ask again: Where's the reporting of the other 4600+ fires which simply must be occuring?

[CJay]

If I was distorting facts, I apologize.

Have you ever seen diesel fuel burn? I have and those videos looked nothing like it. And a standard extinguisher should have had no problem putting it out. But, if it was reported as a pure diesel, then believe it if you will. I just don't know. And I really don't trust everything that is reported, just because it is reported.

Yes, I have, I've had the misfortune to see plenty of vehicles on fire (all ICE) including a rather expensive Lamborghini which belnged to a soccer star.

I've seen more than a few diesels burn too, usually as a result of runaway and once they get going pretty much every fluid that can burn does, spilling burning engine oil, hydraulic fluid and diesel everywhere.

[RJSV]

   I'm trying to see this in light of all the criticism.  That is, all the criticism of the reviewer / host of the video.  Sure his comments can be harsh....but he is talking about ARROGANCE, basically, and in light of some very real and dangerous differences, as that cement truck is basically conducting testing...testing better done in, um, err, PRIVATE! 
  Ok, it's irritating the way some of the video is delivered, but please don't think I care, or not, if the dude is ego driven.  His message really is the arrogance of that particular EV producer, and the 'Green / Woke' aspects put it over the top (arrogance-wise).
   Took me a minute to understand his points made regarding Transportation Safety and driver safety, and how absolutely critical such care and proper attitude.
   I'm seeing such reckless additude approach in other venues, these days.  That host, ego or not, points out some concepts, like having proper tests (in remote areas) as absolute necessary, and thats not happening that way, but on public roads.
   Sorry, but the video host (ie Auto Expert) is pointing out some serious-sss shhi.
I'd take (his) ego over the arrogance.