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Comment by Ansil849 | Hacker News Reader

> My car's gas engine does not consist exclusively of deadly high-voltage equipment in it that can kill me dead when my car is powered off, so I think it's fine to apply different safety processes to consumer-targeted electric cars than we apply to consumer-targeted gasoline cars.

Your car's gas engine, no. Your car's gas tank, however, absolutely can.

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I bet Mercedes also has the audacity to prohibit me from prodding the gas tanks of their combustion cars with a screwdriver.

What happens when you prod a gas tank with a screwdriver?

I'll never know. :(

The right answer

You might damage the screwdriver I guess.

Probably not much. Fuel tanks are usually made of plastic now, so you aren't likely to create a spark and ignite something.

Petrol fuel in liquid form is hard to ignite, so if it leaks not much is going to happen other than giving your driveway a good clean (it's a solvent) - it's the gas form that is much more flammable. When petrol enters the engine combustion chamber it is mixed with air to form a flammable gas - there should be no liquid.

Diesel fuel is much harder to ignite, heck, you could probably use diesel fuel in place of engine oil and it probably wouldn't ignite.

Depending on the age of your vehicle, and how you hold the screwdriver anything from 'nothing' to 'foom'.

I can’t parse this objection. One of my failed attempts reads “My gasoline tank should have the same safety processes as electric cars”, which is obviously not a valid interpretation. My gas tank isn’t deadly for me to touch, so I’m quite lost if that’s what you meant instead.

Help me understand what you mean?

The parallel being drawn was that gas cars do not have components which can kill you when they are turned off: "it that can kill me dead when my car is powered off,", and so do not require stringent safety controls. My counter was that gas cars absolutely do have such components.

A 12V battery can kill you or seriously harm you. The entire chassis of the vehicle is the return path, and can make a short circuit or exposed wire exceptionally dangerous. Working around high current paths like the wire from the alternator can be a special hazard.

The battery can also release explosive gasses if charged or used improperly or if other parts of the electrical system are damaged. Combined with a spark and again death and serious injury are possible.

Pulleys and belts are under tension. It's probably not as lethal, but it's a stored energy hazard and has hurt plenty of technicians.

Suspension systems contain many stored energy hazards.

Tires with air pressure are a stored energy hazard, even if they're not attached to the vehicle.

> A 12V battery can kill you or seriously harm you.

How?

People wear metal jewelry and use metal tools. And dry skin resistance is not the same as wet skin resistance. Aside from these, admittedly, far fetched cases.. batteries can explode if serviced improperly.

Is filled with strong acids, for example.

But I agree that having to deal with high voltage is a totally new level of troubles.

You are vastly over estimating the hazards under a hood. When opening a hood and looking for a problem, filling up a water tank, checking oil or topping up the radiator the greatest danger is probably somehow not propping the food open correctly or forgetting to let it cool down first and touching a hot part or fluid and getting a minor burn.

Opening a car hood is miles less dangerous than changing a light bulb on a desktop lamp, it's probably even less dangerous than driving the car on the road.

>My counter was that gas cars absolutely do have such components.

They do? From your previous message I'm guessing you're referring to the gas tank. While it's technically true you can kill yourself with a gas tank, I don't think it's anywhere near the danger of electric car batteries. For a gas tank there's a clear sequence of events needed to cause injury/death. You need to either puncture it and then expose it to an ignition source, or throw an ignition source directly into the tank. The first is likely to be noticed because gasoline has a distinctive smell, and is physically visible. It's also surprisingly to light gas on fire[1] even if there is a leak. The second is so implausible to happen it's not even worth considering.

On the other hand, it's very easy for someone to touch the wrong wires under the hood of an electric car and get fried. There's no warning, you just get zapped. You might need to expose some wiring/connectors to get shocked, but there's nothing that tells you that this particular exposed wire is going to kill you.

[1] https://mythresults.com/special7 "It is possible to ignite a pool of gasoline using only a cigarette."

Typo: surprisingly ___ (difficult, I think it’s meant to say)

A modern fuel tank has two basic connections beyond sensors: fuel line and electrical supply for the fuel pump. When the pump isn't active, the only thing that comes out is a dribble of residual fuel from the fuel line. A full tank is not an intimidating thing on a motorcycle, where you're a lot more likely to remove it, it's not even that heavy.

I'd be more worried about crush injuries working underneath a car.

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