Tesla Megapack battery ignites at substation after less than 6 months

theregister.com

48 points·mikece··9 comments

I imagine they must design these things so that when a tiny spark ignites, you don’t lose your whole investment. With internal fire breaks.

right?

Right. The facility is like 300 "containers". This is 1 container, which burned, but did not spread. This is why they are spaced out on a concrete pad, vs smooshed together in a row.

So other than the service disruption, it's not like the whole thing burned down.

So does this mean electric car fires are way way more difficult to put out than regular gas fires?

Yes, there are many many car articles about it.

A car fire is out in 30-60 minutes, a EV fire could take a day to burn out.

And sometimes they spontaneously reignite after they were put out.

Fire departments have had to buy special equipment to put them out. One of them is pretty much an underbody nozzle similar to those pressure washer attachments used to clean under your car.

Since car batteries contain both the oxidizer and reducer, they are self sustaining. This makes smothering the fire impossible. The only way to slow or stop them is to prevent thermal runaway in uncompromised cells with a ton of water.

Yes, but they're also less frequent.

link to an earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32926557

AfTeR lEsS ThAN 6 MonThS! Where will we be in 10 years? Instead of run-away ramps, we'll have to have a network of burn-boxes on the side of every road for self-driving Teslas to drive into and burn out. Who's going to pay for all that? I'll keep my kerosene lamps and leaded gas thank you very much. /s

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