[Dégoûté]

These things are dangerous!

https://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=2126337

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by dfox

I sure hope you don't have a cell phone, laptop, or literally any rechargeable electronic device in your home, they're apparently innately ready to ignite and burn your house down at any moment.

And yes, sometimes they do. But also, just about everything else can catch fire too... so either live your life in fear, or don't. But blaming EV's for a few car fires when ICE vehicles have been proven to be more dangerous is just silly.

I've never said all Li-Ion batteries self ignite and never implied all Li-Ion devices catch fire. What I did say is Li-Ion batteries contain an oxidizer within the chemical make up of the apparatus that lends itself to spontaneous combustion. I said that in contrast to gasoline and diesel fuel (automobiles) which do not innately contain an oxidizer within the chemical make up of the fuel. Gasoline and diesel need a separate ignition source (heat) and a separate source of oxygen and the proper fuel-to-oxygen ratio to ignite. There is an intrinsic difference between the fuel sources.

<Cue the Boeing 787 reference >

[gblansten]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

There is a lot going on in battery tech to further address fires. New designs and new chemical compositions. Problems with cellphone and laptop batteries have been addressed through engineering. Lots of things in life are inherently dangerous, but risks are mitigated and change occurs.

Anyone's house could burn down from their laptop or cellphone, but we aren't going to design tiny little ICE generators to run them. We improve the design. We fix the flaws. EVs are about what is coming, not what is now. Anyone would scoff at suggesting ICE vehicles were flawed based on factors relating to the Model T.

Without getting too far off topic, we are spending much time discussing current batteries, when new designs and compositions are already addressing these concerns. This is a good read which discusses this issue from many angles. No cherry-picking to win internet points. Just science.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91170534...es-on-the-rise

“Lithium ion batteries don’t commit suicide. They are murdered by people,” says Newcastle University’s Christensen, whose research focuses on thermal runaway and propagation in large lithium ion battery systems. “The human factor is always in there somewhere.” Some are designed wrong, some are handled wrong and some are built wrong. Some are accident related. All of these things are addressable. Just like with ICE vehicles.

"Solid-state batteries are more efficient, packing more power with the same size battery. As a result, EV batteries could become more compact, charge faster and weigh less, which could increase range. Solid-state batteries are believed to last longer — with up to seven times more recharges during their lifetime, according to CAR Magazine. They’re also believed to be safer, because the solid electrolyte material is fireproof..."

Toyota is expected to start using these in cars by 2026. BMW by 2030.

On the solid state battery front Toyota has been releasing headlines since 2009 and with every year the can gets kicked down the road a few more years.

https://changediscussion.com/toyotas...ate-batteries/

I agree completely with you on the lithium comments.

[dfox]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I've never said all Li-Ion batteries self ignite and never implied all Li-Ion devices catch fire. What I did say is Li-Ion batteries contain an oxidizer within the chemical make up of the apparatus that lends itself to spontaneous combustion. I said that in contrast to gasoline and diesel fuel (automobiles) which do not innately contain an oxidizer within the chemical make up of the fuel. Gasoline and diesel need a separate ignition source (heat) and a separate source of oxygen and the proper fuel-to-oxygen ratio to ignite. There is an intrinsic difference between the fuel sources.

<Cue the Boeing 787 reference >

The oxidizer for gasoline is oxygen in the air... plenty of that to go around, you can't say it's not present. What isn't present is heat. Heat just so happens to be the component needed to set an EV on fire too...

There's a lot more than just saying they "contain an oxidizer"... Batteries do not contain two components that want to spontaneously combust. What happens is high temperatures break down various components and those components release oxygen... the oxidizer. So it becomes self-sustaining, rather than something that can be extinguished by removing the oxidizer.

Much different fire, yes. But spontaneous combustion is absolutely not what is happening.

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by gblansten

On the solid state battery front Toyota has been releasing headlines since 2009 and with every year the can gets kicked down the road a few more years.

https://changediscussion.com/toyotas...ate-batteries/

I agree completely with you on the lithium comments.

Right, the point when taken as a whole, is that new technology and changes to existing technology are addressing these issues.

Samsung made changes when their Note 7 was problematic and these changes appeared to be a significant improvement.

I know that on the internet, one mis-spoken word will allow people to ignore the greater point, so I try to anticipate that and avoid the utter waste of time that comes with these deflections. Not saying you are doing that. I also tend to avoid directly interacting with the folks who are not conversing in good faith. As much as I may occasionally wish to address inaccurate inferences, I contain myself. If someone resorts to inference, before asking appropriate questions, I try to ignore it. The rabbit hole is deep.

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by dfox

The oxidizer for gasoline is oxygen in the air... plenty of that to go around, you can't say it's not present. What isn't present is heat. Heat just so happens to be the component needed to set an EV on fire too...

There's a lot more than just saying they "contain an oxidizer"... Batteries do not contain two components that want to spontaneously combust. What happens is high temperatures break down various components and those components release oxygen... the oxidizer. So it becomes self-sustaining, rather than something that can be extinguished by removing the oxidizer.

Much different fire, yes. But spontaneous combustion is absolutely not what is happening.

Adding to your first point:

In a vacuum, neither heat, nor spark will ignite gasoline. In a car, the tank always has oxygen and vapors. Once the gasoline leaks out anywhere, it is subject to combustion as well.

Additionally many of the recalls that I cited involved brake fluid as the fuel source. And sometimes catalytic converters start fires.

We seem to be saying, and research confirms, that there is always a human element. We might conclude that getting rid of humans is the best solution on both fronts.

[DrVenture]

If Lithium Ion batteries are an insurmountable problem in automobiles, hybrids are also a problem. Or we can just address their deficiencies.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

Adding to your first point:

In a vacuum, neither heat, nor spark will ignite gasoline. In a car, the tank always has oxygen and vapors. Once the gasoline leaks out anywhere, it is subject to combustion as well.

Additionally many of the recalls that I cited involved brake fluid as the fuel source. And sometimes catalytic converters start fires.

We seem to be saying, and research confirms, that there is always a human element. We might conclude that getting rid of humans is the best solution on both fronts.

Nope, gasoline has to be be vaporized and mixed with oxygen in the correct ratio plus heat added for it to combust.

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Nope, gasoline has to be be vaporized and mixed with oxygen in the correct ratio plus heat added for it to combust.

Which of my sentences are you disagreeing with here. Be specific. Pick one.

"In a vacuum, neither heat, nor spark will ignite gasoline."

"In a car, the tank always has oxygen and vapors.

"Once the gasoline leaks out anywhere, it is subject to combustion as well."

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by dfox

The oxidizer for gasoline is oxygen in the air... plenty of that to go around, you can't say it's not present. What isn't present is heat. Heat just so happens to be the component needed to set an EV on fire too...

There's a lot more than just saying they "contain an oxidizer"... Batteries do not contain two components that want to spontaneously combust. What happens is high temperatures break down various components and those components release oxygen... the oxidizer. So it becomes self-sustaining, rather than something that can be extinguished by removing the oxidizer.

Much different fire, yes. But spontaneous combustion is absolutely not what is happening.

So I didn't have to type all of it, this is a good summary of the issue from Clemson University:

What causes battery fires
Typically, a battery fire starts in a single cell inside a larger battery pack. There are three main reasons for a battery to ignite: mechanical harm, such as crushing or penetration when vehicles collide; electrical harm from an external or internal short circuit; or overheating.

Battery short circuits may be caused by faulty external handling or unwanted chemical reactions within the battery cell. When lithium-ion batteries are charged too quickly, chemical reactions can produce very sharp lithium needles called dendrites on the battery’s anode – the electrode with a negative charge. Eventually, they penetrate the separator and reach the other electrode, short-circuiting the battery internally.

Such short circuits heat the battery cell to over 212 F (100 C). The battery’s temperature rises slowly at first and then all at once, spiking to its peak temperature in about one second.

Another factor that makes lithium-ion battery fires challenging to handle is oxygen generation. When the metal oxides in a battery’s cathode, or positively charged electrode, are heated, they decompose and release oxygen gas. Fires need oxygen to burn, so a battery that can create oxygen can sustain a fire.

Because of the electrolyte’s nature, a 20% increase in a lithium-ion battery’s temperature causes some unwanted chemical reactions to occur much faster, which releases excessive heat. This excess heat increases the battery temperature, which in turn speeds up the reactions. The increased battery temperature increases the reaction rate, creating a process called thermal runaway. When this happens, the temperature in a battery can rise from 212 F (100 C) to 1,800 F (1000 C) in a second.

In thermal runaway, a lithium-ion battery enters an uncontrollable, self-heating state that can lead to fire or explosion.

The elements for the self sustaining oxidizer is in the battery. The air-to-fuel ratio in a gasoline storage container is not suitable for ignition. The Li battery can heat up internally through the chemical process of charging or discharging. Gasoline/diesel does not explode in the fuel tank when it's being drawn to the engine for propulsion (discharging), nor does it explode when being pumped into the fuel tank (charging).

[DrVenture]

"There are three main reasons for a battery to ignite: mechanical harm, such as crushing or penetration when vehicles collide; electrical harm from an external or internal short circuit; or overheating."

Damage - The same thing that can cause a ruptured fuel tank or brake fluid to ignite.

And faulty construction or design - The same thing that can cause ICE fires.

The first can be mitigated. The second addressed through engineering and improved design.

On the ICE side, the occurrence is more frequent (61 times more frequent) and on the EV side the fires are harder to control. It comes down to the subjective question of whether 61 ICE fires are worse than 1 EV fire.

After 100 years of ICE development they are still 61 times more likely to ignite. What will be the situation after 100 years of EV development?

More importantly it raises the question of "What is the point here relative to the topic at hand"? Are we going to halt this process because it isn't perfect and poses challenges? If much safer and improved battery tech comes from this effort, isn't that part of the learning process? And worth it?

Why has this become about some esoteric argument regarding "self-igniting" vs "spontaneous combustion". No one here is doing battery development. No one whose car burns cares about such details. Are we going to halt all manufacturing of hybrids too, because of the same issue?

I will assume that if someone picks only one sentence in this post to disagree with, that they agree with the rest of it. Or have no relevant argument. That is fair, correct?

[Dégoûté]

#AllFiresMatter

[NSX2M4]

Originally Posted by kyriian

How about “All cars catch on fire, hide your kids and never leave your dungeon!!!”

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

Which of my sentences are you disagreeing with here. Be specific. Pick one.

"In a vacuum, neither heat, nor spark will ignite gasoline."

"In a car, the tank always has oxygen and vapors.

"Once the gasoline leaks out anywhere, it is subject to combustion as well."

This one: "Once the gasoline leaks out anywhere, it is subject to combustion as well."

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

"There are three main reasons for a battery to ignite: mechanical harm, such as crushing or penetration when vehicles collide; electrical harm from an external or internal short circuit; or overheating."

Damage - The same thing that can cause a ruptured fuel tank or brake fluid to ignite.

And faulty construction or design - The same thing that can cause ICE fires.

The first can be mitigated. The second addressed through engineering and improved design.

On the ICE side, the occurrence is more frequent (61 times more frequent) and on the EV side the fires are harder to control. It comes down to the subjective question of whether 61 ICE fires are worse than 1 EV fire.

After 100 years of ICE development they are still 61 times more likely to ignite. What will be the situation after 100 years of EV development?

More importantly it raises the question of "What is the point here relative to the topic at hand"? Are we going to halt this process because it isn't perfect and poses challenges? If much safer and improved battery tech comes from this effort, isn't that part of the learning process? And worth it?

Why has this become about some esoteric argument regarding "self-igniting" vs "spontaneous combustion". No one here is doing battery development. No one whose car burns cares about such details. Are we going to halt all manufacturing of hybrids too, because of the same issue?

I will assume that if someone picks only one sentence in this post to disagree with, that they agree with the rest of it. Or have no relevant argument. That is fair, correct?

I'll address a few things. I'm not sure where the stat of 61 times more likely to ignite comes from, but I found this in a Forbes article, "A report from AutoinsuranceEX said EVs exhibited 61 times fewer fires per 100,000 sales than ICE vehicles." I'm not sure exactly what that means because it is not qualified. For example, does that mean ICEV sold in the last 12 years as new cars catch on fire 61 times more than EV sold as new cars over the last 12 years? I'm using 12 years as the starting point of the Model S, which it can be argued is the where the EV sales curve started to move upwards in any significant measure. Google the question what automotive fuel architecture catches on fire more often and the number 20X comes up a lot. So 61X vs. 20X seems like a big gap in the statistics calculus.

That Forbes article also brought into the discussion regarding age of ICEV vs. EV and that ICEV due to their age in the market are subject to component wear that attribute to fires. That is a component of the discussion I have been making on this topic since it came up, poor maintenance of ICEV attributes to the statistics of ICEV fires. My position has always been about the fuel igniting between ICEV vs. EV. And further, self-ignition. ICEV fuels do not self-ignite when parked. EV fuel (as the battery storage component) can self-ignite (as to why I provided reference earlier - cell short circuiting). Yes, both fuel architectures can ignite due to an accident/crash, but the significant difference is ICEV ignite on-site at the crash scene and the fire lasts only as long as the fuel (gasoline/diesel) is available. Whereas EV can ignite or re-ignite hours or days later after the crash when the EV has been moved to storage.

Additionally, in general if an ICEV has a fuel system defect, it is readily apparent due to the odor of the leaking fuel and risk mediation can be immediately put into place to prevent a fuel fire. EV fuel system defects are not readily apparent until thermal runaway takes effect the and the battery burns extremely hot and for hours until the fuel is consumed and can re-ignite spontaneously hours or days later. It don't see this is esoteric argument, I see it as the main argument.

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

This one: "Once the gasoline leaks out anywhere, it is subject to combustion as well."

Now, we are debating whether gasoline leaks are subject to combustion? Or is it the word "anywhere" that you are having an issue with?
To be clear, by "anywhere", I am not talking about on one of the moons of Jupiter. I am talking underneath a car or in an engine compartment.

This is getting sorta ridiculous.

[DrVenture]

For anyone interested in the state of battery research - A very open discussion on new battery types. https://www.topspeed.com/nobody-tell...ate-batteries/

Solid state is still presenting challenges, but is receiving greater resources. At first it may be utilized on a smaller scale in hybrid applications. A hybrid battery pack that uses sodium and lithium-ion is also being tested by CATL and could make batteries more affordable and better overall for current BEVs. NASA is also deeply involved in solid-state battery research for flight.

If/when they solve the issues with mass-production, Graphene batteries have huge upside potential. Graphene batteries are much more conductive than their lithium-ion counterparts, leading to faster charging in devices and EVs, increased battery capacity and extended battery lifespans. Graphene’s sturdy structure also makes it a more reliable material than lithium-ion, lowering the risk of battery explosions and fires. The only setback to graphene batteries is their cost. Because companies have yet to figure out a way to mass-produce graphene batteries, the technology remains expensive and largely inaccessible to the general public for the time being.

Regarding lithium-ion, there was a recent discovery at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory that also uncovered ways to extend the lithium-ion range and performance safely. While all other battery types continue to undergo R&D. LI continues to be improved, not necessarily in leaps and bounds, but with steady, effective improvements in cost, capacity, safety and charging speed.

One such example is popularisation (Lithium Iron Phosphate) - This battery will blend bipolar NiMh technology with cost-effective lithium iron phosphate. Anticipated for 2026-27, Toyota predicts a substantial 20 percent boost in cruising range compared to the current bZ4X model. Additionally, Toyota's predictions state it could cost 40 percent less.

And High-Performance (Lithium-ion) - This battery will combine the bipolar structure with cutting-edge lithium-ion chemistry and a high nickel cathode. Toyota has 2027-28 as a potential release date, and is predicting a range of over 621 miles. This battery will have a 10 percent cost reduction compared to the Performance battery and will recharge 10-80 percent capacity in 20 minutes or less. Which equates to about 500 mile range in under 20 minutes.

In summary, what complaints exist today about the current state of EV battery tech, will eventually be a thing of the past. Or seriously mitigated. And with money and resources pouring in, like never before, on a global scale, I am optimistic about the future of battery tech.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

The report from autoinsuranceEX means what it means. Here is more - https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-...ric-car-fires/

Your doubts and questions are not refutations, more like musings. Maybe email them and ask?

I am happy to restate my statement as " It comes down to the subjective question of whether 20 ICE fires are worse than 1 EV fire."

Or we can agree to disagree and move on.

1 EV fire is worse.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

The report from autoinsuranceEX means what it means. Here is more - https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-...ric-car-fires/

Your doubts and questions are not refutations, more like musings. Maybe email them and ask?

I am happy to restate my statement as " It comes down to the subjective question of whether 20 ICE fires are worse than 1 EV fire."

Or we can agree to disagree and move on.

Read it quickly. The article says the same shit I and others have been saying in this thread for 3 years now. No news.

[gblansten]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Read it quickly. The article says the same shit I've been saying in this thread for 3 years now. No news.

We've been at this for a while. There isn't likely much we haven't discussed in this thread.

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

1 EV fire is worse.

So,what are you recommending?

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Read it quickly. The article says the same shit I've been saying in this thread for 3 years now. No news.

My takeaway is that for some reason you have been obsessing over this for three years. Which seems personal. And it still isn't going to change a thing. Because it is not the only aspect of this that is relevant, no matter how much you choose to emphasize it. And for the record, I haven't disagreed with any of the data regarding LI batteries, though you appear to be suggesting that I am.

My point has always been that the problems will be addressed and solved or mitigated. And new ones will come up. and so on.