Hurricane Ian and EV Fires | Hacker News Reader

Hurricane Ian and EV Fires

edn.com

24 pointsjohnnyAghands25 comments

> Try now to imagine an electrically driven vehicle catching fire during Christmas shopping season in mid-December in midtown Manhattan in front of Macy’s department store during rush hour at six o’clock in the evening.

Why would I imagine that? This kind of thing happens from time to time with gas cars. Example (picked lazily and randomly): https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/video/car-erupts-in-flames-n...

In some respects, Lithium Ion fires are harder to manage, but they also seem to happen less frequently.

Maybe don't jump to conclusions based upon ~10 fires in vehicles flooded by saltwater?

> but they also seem to happen less frequently.

Do they? Even comparing only other new cars? I just don’t trust the claims so far.

It definitely happens much more frequently. So frequently that it doesn’t get articles written about it. It’s just not news. I saw a newer gas pick-up’s entire engine on fire and spilling spilling fire onto the road in the pouring rain just a week ago.

A couple points

EVs are novel so anything happening with them is going to get more coverage even if ICE have the same problem.

There are FAR more ICE cars on the road than EVs so we have to adjust for that in figuring out the rate one would burst into flames.

The numbers in rcxdude's post are given in percentages

Anecdotal but on my drive home I regularly see car-b-ques of ICE cars. Not so many EVs.

There is a sampling bias there though: most cars are still ICE, so if they caught fire at the same rate you would expect the same observation.

You’re using a weird definition of regular.

I’ve commuted almost a million miles in my life and seen one fire and that was a garbage truck. Of the “irregular” things I’ve seen on the road fire is probably one of the least common.

Here's some data: https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-vs-electric-car-fires/

What's odd is hybrids seem even more likely than petrol cars to catch fire, though EVs are far less likely. I guess the combination gives you the worst of both worlds in terms of fire risk.

It’s a very complex setup, mechanically and electrically, and yes does expose you to both battery and flammable liquid issues.

It’s amazing it isn’t more of a problem, frankly.

From that article:

“In older vehicles, the wiring and batteries start to break down, putting them more at risk of catching fire in an accident. Since most electric vehicles aren’t yet at the advanced age of older gas vehicles, there currently isn’t any data showing if they will be at a higher risk of battery and electric explosions as they age.”

So this is not yet corrected for age of the vehicle.

Its hard to say for sure. They haven't been on the road in large numbers for long enough to make comprehensive age adjusted estimates. There just aren't a lot of 10+ year old EVs on the road to use as comparison. The few that are on the road tend to be very low volume vehicles and diy conversions.

Having said that, if you watch Tesla crashes much, you'll see a lot of amazingly hard side impacts that don't result in fires. Its actually pretty surprising to me how unusual post-crash fires are.

~10? How about ONE? For all the reporting, there really doesn't seem to be a spate of Tesla's blowing up in the wake of Ian. There's been three pictures of that one white Model Y, and it looks mostly intact. If there were really more than one incident I'd expect, well, more pictures and additional reports. If this is really actually a problem we can march with pitchforks to Tesla's HQ together, but given the tens of thousands of them that must have been in Florida when the storm hit, this seems like the media just has an axe to grind.

That was an X not a Y, and there've been pictures of at least two others. One was at an apartment and another was in a ditch near some sort of vehicle repair shop.

I don't have time now, but the 10 figure came from a report with official sources. I suspect it was pretty close to right.

I don't know how it compares to gas car fires, which are also not uncommon after submersion in saltwater. Often the reason is the same too, the low voltage battery sometimes catches fire.

Its too late to edit my earlier post, but here are some links: https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/politics/2022/10/21/fl-r....

https://www.eenews.net/articles/why-6-flooded-evs-burst-into...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ev-electric-vehicle-florida-f...

Certainly not huge numbers in any case. Florida has a lot of EVs.

It's hilarious how overly specific that case of the imagination is. Would it make any difference if it were a GAP instead of a Macy's? Maybe Macy's burns better.

Macy’s is the largest department store in the US. It’s like an entire city block in one of the densest neighborhoods in the country. So lots more street area for things to catch fire, lots more impact when it happens.

Well, to be fair, the Macy's flagship in Herald Square does have historic wooden escalators...

So what seems to have happened is that N number of EVs - where N is unconfirmed in any of the articles I have seen but all have the same photo of a white Tesla Model X - which were submerged in salt water storm surge for many hours, experienced battery fires due to this corrosion / conductive water intrusion following a hurricane which had the worst level of storm surge in a populated part of Florida that I can remember in my lifetime.

I know that at least some gas car fires also happened in the aftermath of this storm, submerging even a standard 12v car battery in salt water is inadvisable.

I'm not sure what we can usefully draw from that, other than to avoid leaving EVs in areas expected to be submerged in salt water, but that's generally good advice anyway.

I do think the difference in how these fires are managed versus a gasoline fire should be considered. The most interesting thing I have seen to deal with this is a fire department that just had several car-sized metal dumpsters. Drop the car in the dumpster, fill it with water from a firetruck, and come back in a day or two.

sure, sure, the snow in which enough people drive for there to be a rush hour is totally comparable to a hurricane.

Ya exactly! I’d walk or take the train? Maybe LA and sunset.

As an Oslo resident and occasional christmas mall shopper, I can attest that there has been zero EV fires in relation to this scenario. Neither has there been any serious scenarios started due to an EV. Few fires has started happened to unsafe wall charging with extension or bad circuits not approved for EV charging (Using standard electrical socket charging EVs at personal homes is now outlawed, but not enforced, and installing approved and much faster 16V chargers at homes and garages is a very common selling point in real estate.)

Anecdotally, an airport parking garage burnt down in Stavanger due to a diesel Opel Zafira from aprox 07’ self-catching fire sometime the last two year, it was speculated at that time that it was an EV in media (Sorry no source, easily googleable).

This gets blown up because of the anxiety/kickback about EVs. The writing is on the wall that ICE cars are going to if not disappear at least decline.

That’s a big freaking deal as millions of people make their living around cars. The number who will be in the future is a smaller number.

You know what else is prone to ignition? Gasoline.

The article conspicuously ignores gas car fires.

I think the only actual point is that BEVs are more likely to kind of spontaneously combust after corroding? Abs that bev fires are hard to put out.

It's a poor article. Their top reference is a Fox Business screenshot.

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