How safe are Li batteries in EV/Hybrids

MouldyOldDough

My OH is claiming that Li batteries in EV's and Hybrids are not safe....

In fact - she is refusing to travel in a car with batteries

Is there any evidence either way as to their safety ?

I am talking about in the event of a collision or in floods ?

facade

Richard Hammond turned one over and it set on fire, google "richard Hammond EV crash"

No worse than a petrol tank full of fuel really, but I wouldn't charge one in the house whilst I was asleep, same as the lithium packs for scooters/ebikes/drones etc. they are always setting on fire.

A quick google reveals London Fire Brigade dealt with 54 EV fires in 2019 compared with 1898 petrol & diesel fires, about 2.8%, there were only 100,000 EVs in 2019, compared to about 16 million cars in 2019 so less than 0.6% EVs, and the fires look way out of proportion.

Petriix

EVs are objectively less likely to catch fire than cars with a combustion engine. 

WellKnownSid

MouldyOldDough said:

In fact - she is refusing to travel in a car with batteries

Is there any evidence either way as to their safety ?

I’m with her on this one. I’m quite happy lighting our house with coal-gas mantles and feel considerably safer when I have 50 or so litres of highly flammable liquid sloshing around in the back of the car…

facade

WellKnownSid said:

MouldyOldDough said:

In fact - she is refusing to travel in a car with batteries

Is there any evidence either way as to their safety ?

I’m with her on this one. I’m quite happy lighting our house with coal-gas mantles and feel considerably safer when I have 50 or so litres of highly flammable liquid sloshing around in the back of the car…

Seriously, although I wouldn't bet my life on it, it is surprisingly hard to set fire to petrol or diesel, and possible to put the fire out if you are quick with the extinguisher. (I've done it when the maestro stopped and the bonnet turned black in the middle).

When a lithium battery sets on fire the fire brigade generally just watch it burn and try and stop it setting fire to anything else.

My house has loads of lithium batteries in 'phones, tablets, cameras etc, and I'm, not particularly worried, but I make certain that the fire extinguishers are accessible and more importantly, that I renew the house insurance!

I charge my ebike battery outside though, 500Whr, enough to boil a gallon of water

forgotmyname

facade said:

Richard Hammond turned one over and it set on fire, google "richard Hammond EV crash"

No worse than a petrol tank full of fuel really, but I wouldn't charge one in the house whilst I was asleep, same as the lithium packs for scooters/ebikes/drones etc. they are always setting on fire.

When a petrol/diesel car catches fire it doesn't carry on burning for several days. I think they said the batteries were still catching fire 3 days later?

Would be interesting to know whether the fires were poor charge/discharge cycles or whether the voltage got too low/high or just pushing
the battery packs beyond their nominal figures.

Low state of charge and the driver tried to pull max current?  One battery caused a whole bank to fail?

MouldyOldDough

Right - so the majority are with my OH ?

ie) EV's are not safe ?

TadleyBaggie

Bit of a small sample to come to that conclusion. 

MouldyOldDough

TadleyBaggie said:

Bit of a small sample to come to that conclusion. 

Its 100% of those who responded !

MouldyOldDough

facade said:

Richard Hammond turned one over and it set on fire, google "richard Hammond EV crash"

No worse than a petrol tank full of fuel really, but I wouldn't charge one in the house whilst I was asleep, same as the lithium packs for scooters/ebikes/drones etc. they are always setting on fire.

A quick google reveals London Fire Brigade dealt with 54 EV fires in 2019 compared with 1898 petrol & diesel fires, about 2.8%, there were only 100,000 EVs in 2019, compared to about 16 million cars in 2019 so less than 0.6% EVs, and the fires look way out of proportion.

What about USB lithium power banks?

ElefantEd

I've seen some stats suggesting that EVs are less likely to catch fire than ICEs eg

https://insideevs.com/news/561549/study-evs-smallest-fire-risk/

Though it does seem that the fires are harder to put out when they do occur in EVs. Petrol is quite hard to set on fire and is unlikely to explode, contrary to your typical hollywood movie car crash!

The risk of a fire in any car happening is still very low of course. Crossing the road is probably more dangerous than being in a battery EV.