Electric Vechicles Are Here - The world is rapidly going to S#@!

Bottom line is that I care about the Earth, the environment, the future of my 4 kids, etc, etc. I see billionaires and elites cripple and burden society with taxes, regulations, laws, 'carbon credits', fake beef, and Greta Thumbergs and Al Gores in the name of "man-made" climate change (because 'new ice age, hole in the ozone layer, global warming' didn't pan out).
If you are a naturalist, you believe the earth is 4.543 billion years old.
Even if you concede 200 years of 'good data on climate', you are basing this on 200/4,543,000,000, or about one hundred millionth of the available data. This is irrational based on scientific standards. But hey, look at all the other 'changes' that 'science' has given us over the last 20 years.
 
TBF, if we hadn’t dumped carbon into the atmosphere the way we have we would probably be headed towards that ice age. We showed those wooly mammoths, didn’t we?

The billionaires don’t care about us. They don’t care about much anything you said. They have their private doomsday bunkers and are working on their spaceships to bail out on the rest of us. The hell does Greta have to do with anything except apparently say things that people are sticking their fingers in their ears over? If it’s not her, it’s someone else that would be getting hated on. The taxes and all are there to do what people and corporations won’t do voluntarily. People are lazy and greedy. Corporations even more greedy, Profit Is God, and nothing will get in the way of that unless they’re forced to deal with it. That’s been proven time and again throughout history.

Changes like better medical treatments? More spacecraft on Mars? More vaccines against things like Ebola or Covid? Advances in treatment of things like AIDS, cancers, birth defects, transplants and all that? Better electric vehicles? More renewable energy sources that are becoming cheaper than fossil fuels? More efficient cars? More efficient solar? More efficient HVAC? Advances in fusion energy? Advances in battery technology?

Yeah, those scientists are such slackers. As far as disliking the data…are you a climatologist? Got a PhD in data analysis? Published any papers in peer reviewed journals? I haven’t any of that either, so I’ll trust the people who have, and not the talking heads bought or directed by corporations more concerned with their next political donation, short term profit margins, and the next quarterly report than anything else in the world.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
Please provide a definition of “spontaneous”, and how many EV batteries fall under this category of self-immolation. I’ve been part of a drone/quad copter racing group for a long time, and the vast vast majority of failures occur due to improper charging. Many people charge their drone batteries in cinderblock enclosures or metal ammo cans. Those batteries are crashed, dropped, overheated and otherwise suffer abuse that cars shouldn’t though they can suffer the same fate if damaged.

I really don’t see EV batteries being any more of a risk than ICE vehicles when it comes to fires. The irony is that we in this group are more likely to suffer a fire per capita than a production line car. DIY wiring, combining non-standard components, DIY fuel systems, high stress use, and quality control is only as good as individual skill. How many DIY supercars go up in smoke vs the tens of thousands of boring domestic vehicles?

At any rate, there’s no more reason to fear EV than ICE - however, if I ever build a house, the garage will absolutely not be directly attached to the house. Garages are always a higher fire risk due to everything we discussed. Sparks, engines, fuels, chemicals, vapors… it’s all there.

Oooooooookaaaaaayyy....I can see where this is now heading - delving into definitions, minutia and splitting hairs over opinions and the like rather than much else. (E.g.; where am I liable to find stats on how many EV battery fires fall under self-immolation category vs. some other cause? Do such records even exist?)

One thing I do know for an absolute fact is no NON-CARGO RELATED electrical fire in any ICE-powered vehicle I've ever heard of has required 3 hours and twenty-some-odd-thousand gallons of water to put out, NOR did it "reignite" for days afterward as did the Lith battery fire mentioned in one of the posts above...and I do not believe normal lead acid battery-involved ICE-powered vehicle fires can reach temps of 2,000 degrees Celsius/3632 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't believe they ever exceed much if anything at all over 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit...but I could be wrong.

Anyway, to answer your question - "spontaneous combustion":
"...the ignition of organic matter...>WITHOUT AN APPARENT CAUSE< ,typically through heat generated internally by rapid oxidation."
 
Look, you made the statement with a broad brush, and I’m asking you to back it up. I’m not quibbling over minutiae, I just want to know the realistic hazard of an EV battery catching fire in a garage in a situation where it hasn’t been damaged or mistreated by the owner/operator. You can’t just run around saying “OMG Li-ion are HOrRibLe!” without providing context and a comparison to ICE cars’ hazards for catching fire as well. If you want to keep getting excited over water usage to put a fire out, fine…but that’s not data.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
Look, you made the statement with a broad brush, and I’m asking you to back it up. I’m not quibbling over minutiae, I just want to know the realistic hazard of an EV battery catching fire in a garage in a situation where it hasn’t been damaged or mistreated by the owner/operator. You can’t just run around saying “OMG Li-ion are HOrRibLe!” without providing context and a comparison to ICE cars’ hazards for catching fire as well. If you want to keep getting excited over water usage to put a fire out, fine…but that’s not data.

Nope.
'Not worth the effort.
Let me reverse the tables.
If you can provide credible evidence/proof the "S Plaid" above ignited for some reason other than Lith battery-related spontaneous combustion...a reason any lead acid-equipped ICE car would also have ignited as well under the exact same conditions, then I may very well cede to your 'viewpoint'.
But, otherwise, 'not likely.
Enjoy the rest of your day, Sir. ;-)
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
The thing is Jeff, I don't care what you think, what kind of car you want or where you want to live. Go for it. ( I took out the next sentence so as to be non-threatening and nice) There are millions just like me.........don't forget that! Now have a nice day and leave me alone.

I know a LOT about battery fires. The main thing is this. You don't need any air with one to produce heat. Gas fires need air, battery fires only need a charge...........................and it burns until the charge is gone. If my gas car catches on fire in my garage and I get to it quickly I can put it out with the garden hose. If the Tesla battery shorts out cell to cell the only way you ( just as quickly timing-wise) will save your house is by dragging it out of the garage and letting it cook-off in your driveway. Those are facts..............you like facts............right......er I mean left...........errrrr...........whatever dude.
 
It is well known that Lithium based rechargeable batteries do not tolerate impacts. The question is, how much of an impact becomes a concern? Jumping a curb? Hitting a pothole? I don't know what the standard is for an EV involved in a fender-bender. I do see people swapping drivetrains from wrecked Teslas into other projects. With LiPo packs for drones, etc, you can usually see a visible abnormality develop with the pack, ie swelling of a cell.

Earlier this year, Hyundai was forced to replace 75,000 of their EV batteries at a cost of almost $1 billion dollars, as a result of unexpected fires in vehicles that never saw an impact. So Hyundai saw the fire risk as 'substantial' enough to invest $1B into just 2.5% of the 2,960,000 vehicles they sold in 2020. Plus the environmental impact of 75k additional battery packs cannot be overlooked, although I don't know if they can be refurbished.

I believe the battery technology will eventually get to the point where none of this is an issue, but this is the current battery technology we have for the foreseeable future.

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Kind of dissapointed here. People making claims about batteries but want me to make their cases for them. That's not how it works, that's a bad faith discussion, and it paints EV vehicles as some sort of sole owners of destructive fire while willfully ignoring or refusing to admit that fires also happen with ICE vehicles and willfully avoiding attempting an assessment of the risks. I see lots of sole- source reports but no actual comparison. That's cherry picking. Because EV bad? Because ICE FTW and screw the environment? If it's "not worth the effort" then it's just people saying what they want to hear at the exclusion of all else, and this is no longer a discussion when minds are made up and exclude outside information.

Howard...Leave you alone? I never posted anything as an attack, but I'm sorry that disagreement on this subject has somehow become personal.
 
My only point was that the fires have occurred in battery packs that had not been jolted, abused, etc.
If I had an EV, concern for a fire while charging would certainly be in the back of my mind every single time I plugged it in. Because it's unpredictable, no rhyme or reason why 10,000 charge fine and 1 goes into meltdown.
I admire Tesla for making EV almost mainstream in a very short amount of time and forcing competition in the EV market.
Again, 'screw the environment' is only the attitude of jerks and madmen, and doesn't apply to the debate.
 
Battery technology is evolving rapidly. Lithium-metal battery technology is one of several energy storage technologies that promise much including lower risk of igniting/fires. No doubt the risks and shortcomings of current battery technologies will be overcome in the near future.
The bigger picture, the path we are currently on is not sustainable. The massive impact of the pandemic; the downturn in manufacturing, drastically reduced air travel, significantly reduced personal mobility over the last 18 months has only resulted in a global reduction in carbon emissions of about 7%.
That is truly concerning. The events occurring worldwide almost daily, cannot be ignored. Intensity and frequency of the events is clearly increasing. I try to balance different sides of a debate where possible, but in this case, the impact is coming more rapidly than even the more dire predictions of the scientific community from just a few years ago.
Going EV is inevitable and a must. What bothers me is the lack of an overall analysis and plans. For example I have seen technical papers that claim that the complete switchover from IC to EVs will impact national grids from anywhere from 5% to over 40%. Even allowing for the level of disinformation out there, I would expect to see far more analysis and debate in this whole area, and credible detailed analyses of how and how much renewable energy will be phased in to support this increase - and I don't mean the puff-pieces I've seen for the most part. And what is the end-to-end impact on the environment on this conversion?
Media is obsessed with click-bait reporting rather than providing the essential information needed by us all. It's too easy to get angry and shout at each other, but we are all in this together and although I may be gone before the worst has happened, I want to hope that my kids have a chance of getting through this.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
The anti-progress crowd will go on and on about a few fires and an allegedly (I work in transmission and distribution, the grid will adapt and be fine) weak power grid to prattle on about electric cars.

The reality is there will always be ICE motored vehicles for you to enjoy. Hell I still have a fleet of them, exclusively. But EVs will be dominant, soon, and it's as much becuase people will PREFER them to ICE as anything else.
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
Ya, your right Jeff, I don't know you and so I shouldn't have assumed to understand your motivation. I should have used a more generic "left-wing environmentalist." instead of your name. Not that I think you are one it's just I read far too many on the left talking about mandate this, pass a law to regulate that, or simply make what they don't like illegal. Whatever happened to making a better mousetrap and selling it as a better product allowing the market to decide what it wants. If 90% of new car buyers what an EV then great, sell them one. But don't try and get rid of gas cars because some minority of outspoken people don't like them.

EV's are fine as far as I am concerned, It's the near-religious zeal to get rid of gas cars that bothers me. 20K years ago the ice was 2000 feet thick in Chicago. The weather changes................a lot................... over very short periods of time. I don't believe that humans are impacting it to any measurable extent. And if I did I would be in favor of going full-on nuclear power for electrical grid needs. But again it's the green religion that opposes it for what is really no scientific reason.

Adopting a single reactor type built to modern safety standards and replacing things like damns, coal-powered plants, wind turbines, solar farms, etc would not only change their huge footprint and environmental impact to very small footprint, nearly zero-emission, continuously produced power, extremely low environmental impact, and very long production life systems.

20 years and we could have all the power we need and its scalable to future needs as necessary.
 
Wow....
There is a lot going on in this thread. Electric cars are getting more capable, the more they progress the more I have interest. But one thing that never really seems to get addressed - what are we going to do with all the spent batteries? Has somebody worked out the cost of battery waste relative to the environmental 'savings'? Living in the SF Bay Area I see bazillions of Teslas everyday, oddly most of them stoplight race cars. Even older folks are hip to demonstrate the power... all the way to the next stoplight ... or the speed limit (whichever comes first) ;-)
 

Neil

Supporter
"The reality is there will always be ICE motored vehicles for you to enjoy."

No Jeff, the zealots won't be satisfied to let internal combustion engine-powered vehicles simply dwindle away. They will insist that they be completely eliminated and outlawed. In some places, older cars are already required to be sent to a crusher. Zealots are vindictive and authoritarian by nature. They cannot stand to see others doing as they please and being happy.
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
Somebody on this forum had to buy an old car and crush it so he could resister his new SLC.

By the way, I can't wait to see how they replace the gas tax revenue in California at the same time they outlaw coal-fired electric generators, nukes, fracking, oil exploration, oil pipelines, and the damns are filling up with silt or being put out of electric production because of no water in the lake anymore because it's all going onto people lawns in LA. Could be they are banking on nobody staying and not needing the taxes for roads anymore.

Oh wait.........that's right they don't spend the gas tax revenue on road maintenance like the law requires anymore anyway. It all goes right into the general fund and IOU's go in the road maintenance fund.

By the way, California has tried twice to tax by the mile as well as having among the highest car annual registration costs in the country.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
By the way, I can't wait to see how they replace the gas tax revenue in California...

Car tab hikes...BIG ones (along with whopping 'fines' for either intentionally failing to renew 'em or accidentally allowing 'em to expire)...despite already "having among the highest car annual registration costs in the country". ;-)
 
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