We Burned 6 Electric Vehicles!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- Explore the depths of FSRI's comprehensive three-year study as we dissect the fiery experiments conducted on six electric vehicles. From analyzing temperature spikes to evaluating toxic emissions, witness the crucial insights gained into EV fire risks and safety protocols.
Fire Safety Research Institute Electric Vehicle Study: fsri.org/resea...
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A major concern of mine is if the turnout gear can be reused. If it protects the firefighter but ends up so damaged or contaminated that it needs to be disposed of that is a major problem, especially for underfunded departments.
Yup, something else that was never considered when EV's were allowed on the roads.
Don't fire departments clean the tunout gear? I know the silver stuff used for ARFF fire fighting can't be washed a machine it is fragile, the aluminum coating, I've seen them spray it off with some type detergent while being worn.
You can wash the gear yes but the chemicals are sometimes a permanent contaminant@@kennixox262
Contamination turned out to be myth. No worse than ICE fires.
I can only imagine..$$$$
I personally think the biggest difference is what happens when you actively try to fight these fires at the beginning or midway and stop them prematurely before burning themselves out. That is where the biggest differences will be as the batteries constantly try to reignite themselves…
💯
@@StacheDTraining Lithium-ion battery fires are no joke; there's a battery storage facility near San Diego that caught fire on Wed and CalFire expects the fire to continue burning for WEEKS, all they're doing is pouring water on it, which of course, gets contaminated. Did UL test the water that was used to cool/put out the fire for contaminants?
@@andyinsdca... Thanks for the lead.
In one report I just Googled, a San Diego fireman explains that throwing water on that Otay Mesa fire can actually trigger shorts in cells not already involved.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Guessing only the crews involved with the 2024 new year's Genius Star XI fire -- the "Unified Command"? -- might have some practical Li battery fire knowledge potentially of use to the San Diego folks.
I just Googled: Genius Star XI fire report ... and, brief search only, all I could find -- no link to any report -- however, as of 14 Feb 2024, Genius Star XI was apparently headed to San Diego with it's partially(?) burned Li battery cargo.
How gallows ironic if the presently burning San Diego / Otay Mesa batteries were somehow connected to the Genius Star XI cargo.
P.S. The Genius Star XI has since apparently sailed into oblivion, no follow up reporting.
These fires can't be put out even if the entire vehicle is submerged in liquid nitrogen. I assume your comment refers to cells that aren't actually on fire but getting close to it from heat in a nearby cell.
@@andyinsdca These EV's are so dangerous, in fact any EV
Company I worked for changed protective overalls manufacturer to offshore, our welder complained that the hi-viz stipes caught fire and melted into hot blobs. We had to simulate it and make a video for our union to get involved to sort it out.
Unions. The worst of everything in one package.
Good thing you had a union to back you up. I've been on plenty of jobsites in strongly non-union areas, and they could give a schitt if a worker is slowly melted down into a blob. Just don't take away from that bottom line.
That much trouble when substituting Scotchlite as a retroreflective material would have worked.
It will be interesting to see the toxicity results for the different battery chemistry. Couple that with how much of the car was left (how hot the burn was) and maybe we can mandate certain batteries over other less safe batteries. We shouldn't be driving around in vehicles that make a super fund site out of every crash.
That's going to be difficult with the influx of chineese Evs
@@BD-bditw yet another batch of “forever chemicals” that we get to enjoy
@@jerrykorman7770 we already have them. It's no different from all the other countless lithium batteries you use every day already. If anything, EV batteries are less of a problem as they are more likely to be worth properly recycling than all the little small lithium batteries in our electronics.
@@Hendea2 agreed.
ICE fires produce the same toxic emissions… Burning plastic has “issues” (particularly Teflon, acrylic and nylon).
Follow the smoke. That is the real question. How much worse it it. Car fires in modern cars are the most toxic fires out there. Very interested in the results.
How toxic is water runoff ? There are huge amounts of water required to put out these fires. The water ends up in sewage treatment plants. Can they decontaminat effectively.
The smoke is going to reveal a significant presence of gaseous hydrofluoric acid which isn't found in conventional car fires and is evil stuff. That stuff isn't just toxic to inhale, it's toxic if it comes into contact with the skin. In the case of cars which utilize NCM batteries, you're also going to find the presence of Cobalt compounds. They're not pretty, either. You can be pretty sure that water used in fighting these fires is going to be similarly contaminated.
Any car fire isn't good, but EV fires just put the icing on the cake.
@@davidbrayshaw3529 Yeah except that in the worst case scenario of a parking garage for example the levels of hydrofluoric acid are relatively low in case of EV fires.
But since no good fireman will ever go near it without breathing apparatus it does not form an increased level of danger fighting the fires.
There are really no significant differences between ICE and EV car fires.
But hey the US is a apparently years behind on this since this has already been known for years as per research of RISE done ion 2020.
@@TheGalantir Thanks for the reply. I wasn't aware of that research. My limited understanding was that concentrations of hydrofluoric acid were significant enough to be of concern. I stand corrected.
@@jazztheglass6139 Runoff doesn't go into a plant for treatment. It flows directly into waterways from storm drains, untreated.
Remember boys and girls, it ain't arson if you got a funny helmet on!
Kind of reminds me of "Flaming Death".
APPARENTLY CENSORED:
0.5 GWh BESS Gateway Energy Storage in Otay Mesa near San Diego burning for a week no end in sight ... mentioned by an earlier commentator.
I'm looking into it. Hopefully I can get a video done on the topic.
It was put out after five days…
@@allangibson8494 that incident isn't done yet.
@@StacheDTraining There have been a number of utility scale battery fires.
You just sweep up the debris and replace the failed battery module.
Thats why the modules are spaced far enough apart not to cause a ripple failure.
For comparison, a steam turbine throws parts about a kilometre when it fails. They have a 1% catastrophic failure rate.
High energy, high risk and consequence.
@@allangibson8494 ... Steam turbine failures?
A BESS does effectively zero work compared to a similarly sized operational steam turbine - generator set.
... And a steam turbine catastrophic failure in the USA is extremely rare -- 1% my arse. Please provide reference.
The sweeping going on here is the sweeping under the rug of BESS incidents ... a la Neermoor and now also Otay Mesa, in just what? ... weeks?
Why does it feel like all this needed to be done before evs were legally unleashed on the public
Some of the oldest cars were EVs.
EVs are nothing new.
Well, you have to consider this: Most of the damage are still ICE fires. In the live time ICEs exist you would have thought they were save by now. They are not. Still they are legally unleashed on the public.
What we can do is learn from it. We did that with ICEs and they still are incredibly dangerous. And now we do that too with EV.
What I think should happen is some legislation/TAX(!) for battery(!) and battery *casing* producers: they should (in)voluntarily hand over a batch of batteries and casings so these guys can do their tests. The remainder should be straight from the government.
It's not just EV's. It's batteries inside houses too. What is the best way to place them.
Because one way or the other, we are much better off with batteries, especially with the Sodium generation.
With batteries we can more efficiently use any fuel (like fossil fuels up to 80% fuel savings just by adding a buffer for the energy), but better: we can buffer any energy we can collect.
And let me ask you this: how many mobile phones are you carrying? Do you feel unsafe?
Do not confuse EV burnings with EV's are unsafe. EV's are very safe in they are not so spontaneously combusting like ICE"s can. But we still need to learn a lot about what to do when it does happen. And also why did it happen. And what chemistry to use.
This channel teaches you that LiFePo4 are very very safe, but when it gets unsafe (thermal runaway) they expell a dangerous amount of H2. Unlike an ICE fire, in a LiFePo4 fire you need to suck away the gasses, and an ICE needs to be smothered. LiFePo4 is self contained, ICE needs oxygen.
You also need to realize that thermal runaway starts around 70 degrees, not 100+ degrees celsius. Batteries do not really produce enough heat (at least mine don't) to cause any temperature increase, so internal temperature increase can only be caused by abuse of battery (No BMS that turns off main port when even one cell hits the max allowed charging voltage several times in its lifetime, a higher continuous load than specced, for instance by puncturing with a metal rod, or just shorting it with a thick rod), or a chemically defect battery. As I said, mostly external causes that need to be dealt with. And the more we have these, the more fires we have experienced, the stricter the government mandates will be about the use of these items.
But a ban on EV's because they are more unsafe than ICE's makes no sense, because they are not. We just need to know how to deal with it.
@@bloepje You are completely right. I just watched a program that compared ICE vehicle fires verses hybrid and EV's. Each per 100,000 vehicles.
ICE vehicles currently burn at a rate of about 1400 per 100,000.
Hybrid vehicles burn at a rate of 3400 per 100,000.
EV's burn at a rate of 25 per 100,000. That's not a typo. 25 per 100,000.
EV's don't burn often but when they do, because of our limited experience with EV fires, they are a nightmare to put out or contain. They also get a LOT more news coverage than ICE fires.
It's simply going to take time and experience (testing) to effectively combat EV fires.
Were these tests done before ICE vehicles were legally unleashed into the public? You’re probably right that EVs should have been tested first, but there were already enough challenges with getting EVs out of the lab and into the road. Nobody would’ve paid for this extra massive hurdle to be accomplished right at the beginning.
@@bloepjeLithium fires need oxygen - the difference is lithium can extract oxygen from WATER. That makes water a really bad extinguishing agent. A dry chemical extinguisher or fire blanket is better.
LOL. Learning about the dangers of a new technology after the horses escaped from the barn.
The world is run by fools. Agenda 2030 says we aren't going to have automobiles. That's where this is going.
"Hey, it was papa govt who gave green light to these things"
So which is the greater risk? Government gave the green light to ICE as well and those fires along with all the other risks are pretty significant to say the least.
Well fossil fuels got away with known dangers for about 100 years before anyone even thought about mitigating them, so these tests are way ahead of the curve on this one.
Horses are F…g dangerous and polluting… That’s why we replaced them with EV’s.
Very interesting and informative! Great job! Greetings from the Netherlands! 🇳🇱👍🏼🇺🇲
Glad you enjoyed it!
Youd think all this would have been done before the technology hit the streets
yeah, they still allow ICE's on the street, while we can see here that ICE's are just as dangerous as EVs. Let's just ban all non-human powered vehicles.
I doo feel like you could use some of the vehicles which get crash tested for this kind of work in parallel
EV fires are RARE. That’s why they are NEWS.
ICE fires occur multiple times per day in most cities - therefore not news.
The irony is that EVs reduce pollution if you don't factor in the extra electric power from coal-fired power stations and Lithium mining. However, the toxic smoke from all the battery fires so far and all those yet to spontaneously combust must surely cancel out the reason for electric cars in the first place.
The cheapest car insurance, third party, FIRE and theft take on a whole new meaning.
Actually INCLUDING power generation from coal fired power stations, EV’s are less polluting. Coal fired power plants are crazy efficient now. Car engines are horribly inefficient (they run too cold in the combustion and too hot on the exhaust).
This is impressive work to say the least, thank you for presenting it - and doing so with as little surplus information/graphics as possible, you just get on with it 👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
There's been a lot of news about associated toxins for quite some years now, it's good that the testing is happening - BUT - I'm surprised that it's only happened lately or have there been previous studies and I haven't found them?
Two of my neighbors have Tesslas, how do I dontate them for testing?
Who do you want to send out for testing..your neighbors, the vehicles or both, LOL.
@@upinthetreesha ha 😂🎉
@@upinthetrees
Dang was gonna make that joke.
I've never heard of a Tesslas?
Is there any connection to the vehicles OBD port to log real-time sensor data and error codes from the vehicle's onboard computer?
I believe they tried to collect data from the OBD2, but I don't think it worked very well.
I'm an outsider; I do not work in firefighting. Thank you for gathering so much data to maximize society's benefit of burning these test cars. My first impression was to personify each car by thinking, "What a sad end to that car", then later changed to "What an honor to be a car that sacrificed itself in that way."
This is very interesting. I'm hoping the data will finally end these death traps ✌️
We have the data here in Norway. Around 20-40% of the cars I see around me on any given day are EVs. The way some people talk, you’d think every single parking garage here should burn down once a year, at least, right? You know what the data says? They’re safer than gasoline cars. By a wide margin. Fire departments here have no problem with them. A bit of a challenge, sure. Requires some extra training and equipment. But that’s more than made up for by the fact that they catch fire less often.
We had a huge parking garage fire nearby, started by a diesel car. There was many EVs in there. You know what happened to them? Nothing. No battery fire. Isn’t that funny? Wasn’t EVs supposed to explode if a fire barely touched them? But unlike the gasoline cars they contributed no fuel to the fire (the interior burned of course)
You’re on this thread, too? Do you just scroll through TH-cam and find videos like this and run free PR for EVs? Don’t you have anything better to do? You should go to the gym or something.
For your own sake, I recommend don’t get so invested in how things turn out for EV companies, or any company for that matter. There’s got to be something more to your identity than the car you drive.
@@CropCircleCritic Why don’t you say the same thing to the hoards of people who complain bitterly about how terrible EVs are on every single TH-cam video related to EVs?
I really, *really* don’t care about the drivetrain or the companies. I just want to drive the best, most convenient and safest car I can get. I’ve done the research, I have the experience, and live a place where the infrastructure is fully transitioned, and I’m just sharing it with those who have been misled by the fossil fuel lobby, cable news and social media posts.
Do you want me to show you in person? Do you want to do a video call? Because I feel like the reality I live every day is simply impossible according to these kinds of comments. So why don’t I just show you? Are you brave enough to face reality if it may change your world view?
Thanks for the suggestion of going to the gym! I finally had time to go again recently now that the kids are a bit older, and have been hitting the gym consistently for a few months. The encouragement would have been valuable a few months ago, but I have no problem with motivation these days :)
Also, I bike to work every day now, which is just a super nice bit of cardio exercise since.. you know.. sun and some fresh air does you real good, considering almost half of the vehicles I bike past aren’t spewing actual toxic gases in my face!
Or maybe you turn on a little gas generator in your gym to get some of those lovely NOx gases and particulates while on your Peloton bike? Real men huff exhaust right from a coal rolling pickup truck between sets. /s
@@auspiciouslywild Those are really good points. People also forget that there are other risks to ICE cars that are ignored because they just take them as an acceptable given.
@@yodaiam1000 Thanks, yeah, you put it very succinctly. ICE cars burn every day. We have a tunnel nearby that is closed at least once a year because the grade is a bit high and so some trucks overheat and start burning. It’s never in the news because it’s just routine.
That’s just a whole class of vehicle fires that’s completely eliminated by EVs.
People don’t think about that.
Bravo the those putting the highly needed effort
THANK YOU
I have a diesel Ute and I bought my wife an electric car and under the hood of both I have a fire extinguisher ball (I think it goes off at 70 degrees Celsius) and in my wife’s car I also have one at the feet of the back seat because like you mentioned the battery is under the car itself. Where I live it’s mandatory to have seatbelts and air bags in new cars but it blows my mind that it’s not required to have a fire extinguisher ball under the hood of all vehicles
70 degrees celcius seems way too low for it being in an engine compartment of the diesel...
You can cook a dinner under the hood of an ICE vehicle… (There are TH-cam tutorials on how to do it)…
What was the battery chemistry of each of the vehicles?
Any LFP ones?
That would be good to know what the battery details are. They tested 5 different EVs for a reason, maybe NMC, NIMH and LFP could have been tested or cylinder cells, pouch cells. square cells etc... I'm guessing LFP/LiFePO4 is the most dangerous when on fire. That chemistry produces a lot of hydrogen when in thermal runaway.
@@practicalguy973 But it's the most stable out of the lot, so the chances of it even reaching thermal runaway is less than the others.
@@slimjim1125 That's true. I own a LiFePO4 solar power station for that very reason. It would only be in something like a vehicle accident where I'd be worried about it from physical damage.
@@practicalguy973no modern BEVs use NiMH batteries. Maybe there was a single LFP battery vehicle in here (the Tesla model 3), but all the other ones are cobalt-based batteries. As far as I’m aware, Tesla is the only manufacturer in the US that uses LFP in their cars.
@@beanapprentice1687 Right, the test was BEVs. Toyota was still putting NIMH in many HEVs back in 2023 at least but that would be a different test.
Are there videos showing a whole EV fire from the beginning so people can learn how fast the fire evolves? Many EV hater say it just makes boom in the first second.
If the battery gets pierced it definitely will. But that also holds true for a gasoline fuel tank, if it gets directly pierced and the gas spills on the ground it's only a matter of time before something sets it on fire. And fuel tanks are significantly less sturdy than the undercarriage protection of an EV.
The real problem with a battery fire is that it basically cannot be extinguished.
@@demoniack81 Many fire expert say an EV battery fire can be extinguished with lots of water. My concrete question was, is there a video from one of those six cars showing the complete fire?
I don't think the batteries were in the cars at all. I didn't see any cells in that floor pan. Besides, to hypothetically rupture a battery producing a fuel and oxidizer vapor, indoors??? One would have to have the intelligence of a baked potato.
@@Alf-vt7yu Did you watch another video? Try watching this video.
@@gerbre1 what might you say next, if I told you I had watched the video? Some other passive aggressive whimper no doubt.
Can you say "Permanent lung damage"
It would be interesting to include a test with an overhead sprinkler system (as proposed for multi-story carparks in some countries) to see if this changed the combustion significantly. By burning for longer at lower temperatures, it may alter the chemical reactions and resultant contamination.
On another note, that zero-visibility smoke is a huge concern in enclosed spaces; we have to wonder if the large amount of plastic used in modern cars is sensible.
To my layman understanding, these are both a Class-C (electrical) and a Class-D (light metals) fire.
Effectivly almost impossible to extinguish, and very hot.
Except class C and Class D fires are easily extinguished with dry chemical extinguishers…
And most of the energy comes from the burning plastic vehicle interiors.
@@allangibson8494 Class-D fires are often left to burn themselves out, because they are notouriously so difficult to extinguish.
@@trespire Usually because fire brigades simply don’t have the right equipment.
Having equipment optimised for house fires doesn’t cut it with special class fires.
The fact that you can just order a six metre (20ft) square fire blanket makes it more inexplicable…
Nasty fires are metallic hydrocarbons (aluminium Tetraethylate being one example).
@@allangibson8494 Not sure what material a blanket would need to be to withstand the very high temperatures of a Class-D fire. A 6 square foot blanket (2ft x 3ft) has a limited coverage, and would require getting close to the fire. Class-D fires often burn extreamly hot and are impossible to approach without heavy protection.
Class-D are often solid powders, so I'm not sure if a liquid such as aluminium tetraethylate is a Class-B or D.
Extinguishing a light metals fire can be acceived using (dry !) sand, or the plastic powder yellow extinguisher. Water is a big no no.
Sounds like a lot of work but I'll bet it was fun. I want to see those batteries do their worst in these experiments. Do they still have nasty surprises we don't know about yet. Maybe start the fire with a battery short, get that runaway to start in a more localized area of the battery at one of the corners so you get as much fire time out of it as possible.
Looking forward to the report with test results
Move out of the way, hickory smoke-flavored jerky... Li thermal runaway is the new smoke flavoring!
I would think the biggest problem would be getting these vehicles to the test before they went up in flames.
How did you start the fire?
How much more water than a normal fire?
Did it ever actually go out or can be put out?
Water contamination, how bad is it?
Most of the questions will be answered in the report that will be released later this week. Can they be put out? That will be answered in our next sets of experiments.
If one does a bit of research, a regular ICE car fire can be knocked down with about 500 US gallons of water. The Tesla ERG suggests 3,000 US gallons of water. This is probably the absolute minimum as there are reports from fire fighters of needing upwards of 36,000 US gallons of water.
I find the Tesla ERG very interesting. Tesla cult members actually scoff at firefighters for using water to put out an EV fire. "You can't use water to put out a battery fire" etc etc. Yet on page 25 of the Tesla 3 ERG, the section on battery fire starts with all caps:
USE WATER TO FIGHT A HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY FIRE.
Who is correct here? The Tesla cult members, or the manufacturer of the vehicle and battery pack?
Thank you!! The netherlands.
Only a couple of million to go 😅
When everyone is driving an EV (as they banned ICE) they’ll ban the EV as they are too dangerous. 15 minutes cities? Job done.
Nah, we will have switched away from the volatile cobalt-based batteries by then. Heck, the EV industry already uses cobalt-free batteries, called lithium iron phosphate or LFP for short, in over 30% of the electric cars sold globally in the past 2 years. And this figure is expected to rise to 40% by the end of 2024. LFP batteries are a bit less energy-dense than cobalt based lithium-ion batteries, but LFPs are much less flammable and have a much longer cycle life.
I don’t agree Lithium Iron phosphate batteries are the answer. They solve the problem of using cobalt and its child miners. The lower energy density helps reduce thermal runaway. But in an accident, or fire from other causes, they do burn. And thoroughly toxic they are too. Battery fires are a real problem and as we use more of them, a growing problem.
😂
@@sullivanrachael lithium iron phosphate batteries do not release oxygen while they burn, so the fire can be quenched by depriving it of oxygen.
No. You need to read up on your electrochemistry. The oxygen-phosphate bond is harder to break than the oxygen manganese; so the phosphate versions don’t thermally runaway. They are more stable. But they have a nominal voltage of 3.2V, not 4.2V. So you get less energy storage. Less range on the EV. So, slightly safer. Especially for backup power in buildings. They are clearly the future. But still not great in a vehicle that might crash. And burn.
No car fire is safe although EV fires are far less likely to happen and even less likely is a thermal runaway of a battery. You have to do a proper risk assessment to determine the issues and the safer options. Austria has already done this to assess the tunnel fire safety. You also have to factor in the reduction in tanker trailers (and other hazmat issues with gasoline) that are also a major risk to infrastructure and lives. No one is saying thermal runaway from batteries isn't an issue but you have to put into context. Both the ICE and EV fires looked pretty nasty. What is also interesting is that the thermal runaway did not explode but the vehicle was not in closed off area to allow gases to accumulate.
Just to add another point. There may be a bit of difference between a EV battery fire and ICE vehicle fire. The toxic chemicals - firefighters have to through away their gear or kit after an EV battery fire due to chemical contamination. Fortunately infrastructure is more costly and will get a "cleaning".
@yodaiam1000 Big difference. An ice fire is @ 1500 Fahrenheit. An ev fire can be 5,000 Fahrenheit, roughly the surface of the Sun. At @ 1200 Fahrenheit, concrete explodes.
@@francismarion6400 As a structural engineer, I can attest to the fact that I have never seen concrete explode when exposed to 1200 F. I am not saying it is impossible but I do see it crack, spall, and the rebar gets damaged and that is a structure that is exposed for multiple hours to intense fire. I have also seen structures burnt to the ground from ICE cars. If a structure is gone, it is gone. It doesn't matter if it was an ICE or BEV car at that point. The fires from BEV can be worse (not always) but it is also far less likely. Thermal runaways do not always happen when an EV catches on fire. Newer LFP batteries also produce a lower heat and are even less likely to catch on fire than MNC. Solid state batteries are apparently even better. I understand that the earliest they will be out for mass production is next year in some really expensive cars. SS will likely come down in price and reduce the overall risk to the public.
@yodaiam1000 You aren't a structural engineer. Do you think a space shuttle could survive reentry into the atmosphere with commercial airline panels on the outside? This is what we are talking about. Mass casualties. Solid State batteries, while more stable, still burn 2x as hot as a gasoline fire. This is what large occupancy building should be engineered to withstand or the vehicles should not be parked there.
@yodaiam1000 ASTM E119 or UL 263. Openings must withstand a 325 degree temperature rise for x amont of minutes. 90 for a 90 minute rating. At 2,000 degrees steel exit doors weld shut, plaster and caulk at joints protecting other levels fail. It's a disaster. Might as well be pallet condos in Shanghai.
i only saw cars being tested solo -- do you have test cases where cars are parked next to each other -- to simulate what would happen in a carpark?
Check out my other video on the testing. There are large "walls" next to the car that take those measurements.
@@StacheDTraining does this measurement produce information re the probability of the ev parked next to the fire catching fire itself?
They should let the EV fanboys attend training fighting an EV fire. I bet they change their opinion seeing it first hand.
No car fire is safe. EV fires are far less likely to happen. You have to do a proper risk assessment to determine the issues and the safer options. Austria has already done this to assess the tunnel fire safety. You also have to factor in the reduction in tanker trailers (and other hazmat issues with gasoline) that are also a major risk to infrastructure and lives.
My opinion still has not been changed. Both ICE and EV fires are really nasty but thermal runaway is fairly rare compared to an ICE fire. I don't think any of this has established the actual relative risk.
I've heard the following: "How hard it is to put out an EV fire isn't relevant because it's much more rare".
I get it not accepting pure fearmongering, that's correct, but damn people take it too far to try to justify stuff as well...
@@yodaiam1000it's only more rare because EVs are less common. That will change.
And as car manufactures cut costs, handles won't have mechanical connections anymore. You'll be locked in if the system has an error or loses power. It's happening in China already, with people in fender benders getting trapped and burning to death.
And I'm calling it, next safety feature will be "automatic seatbelts" that don't have mechanical connections at all, completely computer controlled with no user input. We've already removed mechanical backup for steering, throttle, and soon braking, so why not? Just trust the manufacturer and software designers.
@@bluedistortions You realize that automatic doors are not an EV thing? They are on ICE as well. A mechanical latch is legally required on cars with automatic doors. My EV has a physical latch which I prefer.
In any case. it is an issue since people panic in a fire and forget about the emergency latch. Again, this is not an EV issue.
If your EV on fire 🔥 your not getting out as every thing shut down your not even opening your doors ☹️🥵.
The water contamination analysis, that you show, is not an accurate measure of contaminates if you only use water after the fire has basically gone out. Hours of dumping water on a thermal runaway BEV, which would happen in the real world, would certainly knock down contaminates from the smoke and drastically increase the amount and types of contaminates in the run off. 🙂
In this case it's more concentrated. Hours of flowing water is hours of dilution. The solution to pollution is dilution. 🤔
@@StacheDTraining But you are not knocking down particulates from the smoke and vapours into the water. Surely that would make a huge difference on what contaminates are in the water used to fight the fire! It's not more concentrated, it's actually missing many compounds since they all left with the smoke.
Why haven't these vehicles been banned, if they're so dangerous why are they still being sold??
it has to do with ignorance, and not understanding eV limitations. Also, eV manufacturers list all of this in their manuals, but when one purchases them, the sales folks will only tell you how much money you will save. Sadly, even that’s not true.
Current lithium ion batteries use a liquid electrolyte which is extremely flammable, and combustible, and will burn in the absence of oxygen, making the job for firefighters close to impossible. The eV fires are fast, and burn to completion. Additionally, they use 8-10x more water to extinguish. Google “Tesla semi truck I-80 closed 16 hrs”
The only thing that bug me a little bit with the test. Dam, doing it on perfectly good car? Couldn' it have been done on totalled (but not burned) EVs? Anyways, test have already been done lol, can't reverse the past.
The EV fire is the one you can't put out.
I just liked the bravery I don't know why, the car can catch fire, let's make those that will keep people thinking about fire, and force them to use them
Just like your ICE car. ICE washing machines went out of production in the 1930’s (yes, Maytag made kickstarters for washing machines)…
You just wrote something, I can't find where to hold it I mean you don't have a point
Great video! Thank you. Questions:
1. If an electric vehicle burst into flame in a parking garage, when it set other vehicles next to it on fire?
2. If an electric vehicle burst into flame in a parking garage with the sprinkler system in the garage, be sufficient to put the car out out or would it not be sufficient and the car would burn anyway?
3. If an electric vehicle burst to flame in a parking garage, with the building above the parking garage have to be evacuated because of the toxic smoke?.
4. If an electric vehicle burst into flame in a parking garage, with the building have to be decontaminated, perhaps over weeks or months? Before people could return?
6. Does the FBI understand the risk that allowing electric vehicles to go into crowded parking garages in big cities hold? Does the FBI have enough imagination to realize that electric vehicles make great firebombs?
A couple of years ago, there was a huge parking garage fire at the Manchester, UK airport which burned several hundred cars. Not sure how it started or if any EV's were to blame.
@@kennixox262
Thanks, good to know. My concept which I explained to the FBI in a tip is that you drive electric vehicles into underground parking lots in every major city in the United States and you plug in timer and the heat gun to the interior outlet. Then all the people who drove the EV’s in leave the country and a week later all of these fire bombs explode in fire , and caused the evacuation of all the buildings above the underground parking garages. Probably nobody gets hurt. But having to evacuate all of those buildings and the embarrassment to the US government would be priceless. Coupled with the fact that all of the people who did this had already left the countrypeople who had no special skills except the being able to drive a car and needed no special training and need to defeat. Any type of security arrangements would make it even more embarrassing.
@@kennixox262That was a diesel only Range Rover. It destroyed the entire parking garage.
And people worry about EV’s…
(The British Police stopped using that Range Rover model after a half dozen fires in the ones they owned).
@@allangibson8494 I saw the smoke from a few miles away and thought that a plane had crashed. Big mess.
@@kennixox262 Any fire in a parking garage is a “Problem”.
In one with no fire suppression system it becomes a “big problem” because the combustion products are flammable and hot as hell.
Now i want to ask you, why use a fire to ignite the car? Most of the problem occur with a puncture of the batterypack or a cell going bad. Why don't puncture the batterypack with a remote nail or metal bar to simulate road situations?
That's what Prof Paul Christiansen did.
Very good research and heard him lecture in person in Hobart, Tasmania to the TFS.
Eye ooening
Most research on EV fires use this method to heat the battery in order to cause cause thermal runaway.
Why was every vehicle at 100% state of charge? Wouldn‘t you also want data on a nearly empty battery for comparison?
Not really . We , in the FRS always look at the worst case scenario. If you can deal with a full battery effectively then a partially charged one will use less of a threat .
@@derekdrummond7544 quantifying how that threat scales with SoC could be interesting in order to set regulations e.g. for bulk shipment and storage of those cars.
@cbuchner1 From a fire fighting POV , SOC is irrelevant , we'll deal with worst case and scale back if required.
I've never been to an ICE fire and wondered how full the tank was . Always treated them as full cos you won't get caught out relying on Joe public possibly having a faulty gauge or software glitch giving incorrect readings. Yes , we'd bear it in mind but never take it as gospel when they're freaking out.
As for storage etc , what's worse ?
50% SOC in a 100kwh battery or 100% in a 50kwh . Storage would be best set by capacity irrelevant of SOC unless they're certified dead , and who would really want to sign off and put their name to them being so as a glitch could say they're dead when they're not. Transportation should require minimum charge equivalent to a hibernation mode .
@@derekdrummond7544I doubt that. In a multi cell battery I'd expect the level of charge to be more important than total charge. If the individual cells have less energy to release before they complete their thermal runway it's going to be a lot easier to prevent spread to neighboring cells.
Overall power level matters more in a worst case for sure but I'd strongly expect there to be an inflection point for real world fire fighting where soc is more important.
@@Hendea2 Are you a Firefighter ?
You showed EV burning the last stages!
Need, as in other videos, videos of battery starting the fire. That looks totally different.
Except it doesn’t. Actual battery started fires are about as common as rooster teeth.
Great job, so far, but the main issue with EVs is the batteries when they self ignite, this needs to be simulated, as a separate video, of course, both cars burn the same, I was involved in an EV catching fire near me and it was over 3 hours before it was finally out, these all seemed to be out straight away??? also the heat generated from our EV fire was so much hotter than a normal ICE vehicle
Nice 👍🏼
Ok now as I am totally against EV's it would be so interesting to know what heavy metals, other products toxic or otherwise these lithium-ion batteries produce - during the progress of the fire, and the clearing up and disposal of the waste materials including the enormous amounts of water which currently is simply that water being let to drain into any water system natural or man-made, Just what injuries and health issues as in life-changing disabilities temporary or permanent will result to anyone unfortunate to be caught out being exposed to those toxic gases and materials at the fire site. Let's not forget the culpability of those battery manufacturers and EV dealers who promote and sell these wretched EV vehicles. Now I think that this could create a giant cesspool of future legal actions taken by the victims of any lithium-ion battery fires. Frankly, I am also feeling that the firefighters are by association so vulnerable to these health issues and should be compensated before and/or after the fact of any health issues that arise from their brave actions per se'..
You are obviously ignorant of the emissions of the petrochemical industry fueling your ICE car. That is a continuous emission not a momentary one.
My god, what a good work. We need these data. AND funding from the government.
I really hope these EV madness will stop in the shortest of time.
The pollution, man, the pollution. And then all those batteries end of life.
How is it fair for society to put firefighters at risk for purely ideological reasons (i.e superstitions about the weather).
It is the lying and trying to cover up the risks imposed by the new technology
Exactly.
Saving the planet is more important than a few firefighters.
I'm being sarcastic
Not saying I disagree with you, but a firefighters job is to put out fires.
To be fair its their job to risk life's,
Problem is that its not really that eco friendly to mine lithium so in reality its just moving that emmision to different place
Unbelievable work guys well done ⚠️
Shouldn't our Governments and the manufacturers be doing all this??
How on earth do you fund a facility like that ?
Amazing and Thankyou.
My recommendation would be to have a world ban on Lithium Ion , or at least stop China making the cells.
We all know they are constantly seeking cheaper methods and shortcuts in production.
I call most of their produce
Land fill products as that's where they end up soon after opening the box ⚠️
How much does the lithium react to the water trying to extinguish an EV fire?
Very much.
Water's benefit is only as a thermal dampener.
How does your company offset the carbon footprint of your training program?
By the knowledge gained form future battery improvements.
Hold the flames.
@@weldonyoung1013 i wasn't asking you.
@@Bibibosh then find an answer you like.
Umm did the batteries rupture and cells burn? The photo shown look like a normal car fire and no gas discharges occurring. The cells exploding and burning is where all the dangerous substances come from.
The cells absolutely burned.
Ok. Which one is easier to put out? It wasn't the EV.
none of that would be an issue if no EV s out there
ThumbUp &LeaveComment 4AIgosAll
Narration provided by Orange County Choppers.
Cars catch fire. I don't want an EV to take out my house as well. No to EV.
So when a gas car catches fire your house would not burn up but when an EV car would be standing in the same place and catch fire your house would? wat???
@XIIIStefanC The chance of an ICE car spontaneously combusting is way smaller. With these battery chargers around the house it's a disaster waiting to happen. Also the heat generated by ICE cars will be far less.
@noisevector 20 gallons of gas contains 2,4000,000 BTUs. A fully charged EV with a 75KWh battery contains 255,000 BTUs, or about 1/10th as much heat generated. My neighbors F150 caught fire in their garage and burned down their house. Don't fall for bogus information.
@XIIIStefanC The difference is *when* each car catches on fire. ICE will catch fire while driving or idling, when the engine is on. EV catches fire when it's parked or when charging.
@@krypton1260 F150s had a fault. The brake pressure sensor was wired directly to the battery. If the brake sensor failed, it would allow brake fluid into the electrical side, causing an internal low high resistance short. This had nothing to do with the engine running. The the short would produce enough heat to ignite the brake fluid. This would typically happen while the truck was sitting at rest, in a garage for instance. It turns out, F150s were not the only vehicle to have a similar problem. The car carrying ship fires that have been happening over the last few years were caused by used cars that did not have their batteries disconnected. Some of these vessels were carrying EVs, but they were never found at fault.
I love testing because all information is good but there’s not a lot of useful information here beyond: don’t park any car on top of a flaming burner. EVs don’t burn unless the battery pack is compromised and even then the heat is generated by chemical reaction inside the steel box-hard to extinguish but all it does is heat up the other parts of the vehicle which makes the smoke.
You have become a legal arsonist.
It’s just a shame you guys have to though all this and money spent to learn about these stupid electric cars, fire fighters risk there lives every time there’s an EV fire.
With or without the EV component, it's always good to gather data on vehicle fires.
EVS are EVIL 😈 CON 😠😡.
It was obvious that you did not trigger a thermal runaway as you were able to put the fire out within a short period of time. Shot a piece of steel diagonally through the casing might trigger it otherwise you just have a material fire.
How is it obvious? I can tell you from witnessing the tests in person that the batteries did indeed go into thermal runaway. When no water is applied the vehicles burn through all the material within about an hour.
So, I see a lot of comments, but no good suggestions for ACTUALLY FIGHTING THE FIRE ITSELF.
Here's my educated two cents:
Nobody is using kitty litter(even though every single firetruck has it on the back, for hazmat chemicals) ... I mean, it's just common sense- Lithium fires don't stop in water! Lithium is known for actually CATCHING FIRE *BECAUSE OF* WATER!
I may have an education(I graduated high school, and flunked college), but I would expect that a FIREfighter, WOULD KNOW ABOUT LITHIUM. HELL, YOU'D THINK THEY UNDERSTAND COMBUSTIVE CHEMISTRY! 🙄
Instead, we're pouring fuel and oxidizer onto a fire which specifically is known for its ability to use it, unlike other fires. As a college dropout, I actually can say that it took me five minutes and a quick thought, to figure out how to put out a Lithium fire.
So... have YOU tried using diatomaceous earth to stop a Lithium fire from continuing its thermal runaway?
If not, well... I dunno... maybe give it a shot?
If one looks at page 25 of the Tesla 3 ERG, it starts with the following in all caps:
USE WATER TO FIGHT A HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY FIRE.
As much as I dislike electric cars, and as much as I absolutely despise Musk, the ERG clearly states to use water. A minimum of 3,000 US gallons of water.
Every firefighter I know is brave and committed to public service. Yet they often receive "instructions" from armchair quarterbacks
@jerrykorman7770 normally I wouldn't say anything about it. I have a lot of respect for firefighters, and please understand that I am not saying that lightly. I was a volunteer for CERT, VERT, and WFPVRC. I fully understand just how smart and well trained they are, and how brave.
However, this is high school level chemistry. I say high school, because most people have learned these facts by senior year. I was fortunate enough to learn chemistry as a very young individual, much younger than most people. My Dad was an awesome dude, what can I say? 🤷
This is where I learned how to put out a Lithium fire- you have to snuff them, not steam them like a structure or woodfire. In a woodfire, much like a structure fire, temperatures don't fully reach the levels necessary to diffuse water vapor into hydrogen and oxygen.
However, Lithium has a nasty trick up its sleeve- it's chemically reactive under the alkali metal intrusion principle. This means that there's a release of combustibly viable gases, which aid in the burning of other components, which would otherwise be steamed out. Since that's the case, and water acts as an accelerant, one could only theorize that this was a massive oversight by technicians at Tesla.
@jerrykorman7770 and that's why I have been commenting about this on every EV video I can find, because firefighters need to go with their instincts, not the manufacturer's instructions. If they did, they'd be using front-end loaders to BURY the cars, not toss them into a nearby canal. It seems counterintuitive, until you buckle down and actually do the math-
Greasefires and metal fires call for a complete reduction in oxygen and oxidizer. This is the only way to successfully stop them. Water just completes the burn.
@@guardsmanom134 ah, thank you for expanding on this. Generally, I wouldn’t say that technicians are to blame. As the ERG clearly states to use copious amounts of water, this is a reflection on the engineers and upper management at Tesla. This also reflects rather poorly on NHTSA
@@guardsmanom134 yes I agree with your statement. However, ERG’s are there for a reason and if a department doesn’t follow the ERG, and a FF is injured or killed, who knows what sort of liability is unearthed.
I suggest that, at a very fundamental level, NHTSA take a very deep look at the engineering and science behind EV fire events. Firefighters shouldn’t be expected to stop and consider how given fires release what toxic brew, especially in the heat of the moment. They should be able to just quickly get the ERG with CORRECT information.
Us civilians should likewise have an expectation that these events don’t expose us and the environment to a toxic brew that could impact our health immediately or down the road.
But the EV fires we are concerned with are due to internal thermal runaway caused by an internal electrical fault. Not a fire caused by an external heat source.
You need a device to puncture the battery pack
The vehicles burn from start to finish. Each vehicle went through thermal runaway, the evolution of the fire is irrelevant for the data that is currently being collected.
@@StacheDTraining Maybe, maybe not. Having a gas flame under the battery affects the O2//CO/NO/NO2/CO2 content of air under there. The temperature change rate is also different and could cause different reactions to occur in different proportions which may also change with atmospheric composition.
Since one of the stated goals is to measure how toxic battery fires are, it would make sense to replicate a typical internal fault runaway as closely as possible or the proportions and composition of residues and gasses may get significantly skewed. Different reactions may be prevalent at different temperatures and reactant concentrations, same goes for possible reactions with and between intermediate products.
@@StacheDTraining agreed. This is more about carefully controlled conditions and hopefully achieving repeatable results.
Why are they not set to thermal overload. I just seen the same fire on an ice and they don’t go into thermal overload.
You wasted the money!
"Every vehicle was at 100% charge"
What kind of battery did they have? And damage the battery ffs. Battery fires are nowhere near that controlled, even single cell/pouch battery fires, unless you remove the battery and then set the car on fire.
Strange if in a lab the EV burns the same way as a ICE-car. That means the method for setting it on fire does not cause the extremely dangerous thermal runaway.
Each vehicle did go into thermal runaway.
@@StacheDTraining maybe we will see it when those vid's are ready.
Total respect to you and that team of people,this should have been done years ago by every country and government.again RESPECT.🫶🙏✌️🏴