[wakawaka28]

An EV fire is at least 10x worse than a gas vehicle fire. Hybrid fires due to batteries are also misclassified as petrol fires. If you catch a gas fire in time it can be put out with a bit of water or a fire extinguisher. It is also exceedingly rare. An EV fire is not extinguishable, burns several times hotter than any petrol fire, may reignite for weeks or months, and emits shocking volumes of toxic gasses that can injure anyone around. Although the fires can't be extinguished, firefighters still spray hundreds of thousands of liters of water onto battery fires, and that water is polluted and not captured. The whole thing is a nightmare.

The possibility of EVs catching fire all together inside an underground parking garage in a high rise should scare the hell out of anyone sane. Sprinkers will do nothing for that, and all that heat could permanently damage the building. The gasses could suffocate anyone unlucky enough to get stuck down below.

[thebruce87m]

> It is also exceedingly rare.

And EV fires are even rarer.

The people who study fires disagree with your other points:

https://www.ri.se/sites/default/files/2020-12/FRIC%20D1.2-20...

> Observations during the fire indicate that electric vehicles did not contribute to the fire development beyond what is expected from conventional vehicles.

[wakawaka28]

That's very funny. If you have ever seen these EV fires you'll know that they are no joke. Have a look at this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13005001/london-bus... Have you EVER heard of even one petrol-powered bus catching fire, much less multiple in a few weeks in one city?

Insurance companies are drastically raising rates on EVs as more information comes in: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/30/the-quotes-wer... There are many reasons for this, among them the fire hazard. The EVs cost more to fix, of course, but EV batteries can reignite weeks or months after being damaged or catching on fire. So they must also be stored very far apart while being repaired.

Ferries do not want EVs on board because of the fire hazard: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/norwegian-ferry-company-b...

This firefighting expert says why these fires are much worse than ICE fires in a thorough presentation at a conference. The audio sucks but the info is gold: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AIXTP-TgPEw

I can't say if this battery replacement costs more than the car because of fire hazards. But I think it was deemed in need of replacement because of possible fire hazards. You be the judge: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/yikes-the-60000-hyundai-i...

If you do a little actual research about lithium battery fires, all of what I'm saying will be very obvious. Idk where your slides came from but they sound very wrong.

[thebruce87m]

I have done research. You have basically hit all the EV bingo misinformation points in one post, and you’ve swallowed it all up apparently. You’re not even distinguishing between the different chemistries.

There are 100k vehicle fires every year in the UK yet the small amount of EV fires make headlines. The petrol and diesel fires are so common you don’t even hear about them.

The fact that you quote the daily mail is the cherry on top - remember when the diesel car burned down Luton airport? The daily mail commenters were calling for the banning of EVs over this.

One ferry company with two ferries banned EVs as an overreaction.

Insurance costs went up for lots of cars, but for EVs it was the high repair costs.

If you do even a little research you will see that EV fires are at least 20x less likely than ICE car fires. The spreaders of misinformation will have you believe that ICE cars are easier to put out - maybe, but why didn’t the TWO fire extinguishers put out the diesel car before it burned down the car park at Luton? What about the car park at Liverpool?

Even with the larger proportion of NMC batteries out there the fires are 20x less likely. LFP batteries are even less likely to go into thermal runaway and they are becoming more prevalent.

[wakawaka28]

Sorry but you're just wrong. We'll see how "safe" these batteries are when they're 10 to 20 years old and still on the road, banged up, subjected to extreme conditions for years, etc.

What exactly is misinformation about insurance rates going parabolic? Or the fact that these fires are self-oxidizing and much hotter than others? Or that ferries in progressive countries don't want to carry them? Or the videos and testimony of an expert at a fire safety conference showing that poison gasses rapidly escape from batteries as they enter the well-known process of thermal runaway? Or a replacement battery for the Hyundai Ioniq costing $60k, more than the MSRP of a brand new one?

>The spreaders of misinformation will have you believe that ICE cars are easier to put out - maybe, but why didn’t the TWO fire extinguishers put out the diesel car before it burned down the car park at Luton? What about the car park at Liverpool?

Many people believe that the media is lying about Luton, and that it was a hybrid battery that caught fire. Regardless of that, isn't it a huge problem if any EV catching fire can cause inextinguishable, toxic fires to spread through a whole car park full of them? I don't know about Liverpool off the top of my head. There are so many terrible parking garage fires now. I never heard of it happening in my whole life until recently, and I'm sure it's because EVs make it dramatically more likely to happen and more damaging.

You ought to consider the incentives behind the media push to assure people that EVs are safe. A large number of politicians behind mandating these death traps would be very embarrassed if the truth was recognized. Instead of waiting for the technology to develop and mature naturally, if that is even possible, they want to force it on us against our will. So forgive me for not giving two shits what any fake stats say on the issue. It will take much more time to settle the question of safety than these jokers are suggesting.

[thebruce87m]

Let’s analyse one of your articles to see the exact misinformation you are swallowing.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/norwegian-ferry-company-b...

> Li-Ion batteries in electric vehicles pose a significant fire risk, which was further emphasized after the Felicity Ace cargo ship sank almost a year ago.

The Felicity Ace sank and therefore no cause was found. How are they coming to these conclusions? And YOU talk about the media pushing a narrative?

> Statistics tell us that electric vehicles catch fire from time to time, although those fires are far less common than people imagine.

This part is at least true. I know you said you won’t believe the real stats since you’ve made up your mind based on a narrative you’ve been fed, but here they are: https://thedriven.io/2023/05/16/petrol-and-diesel-cars-20-ti...

> Only 23 fires were reported in electric vehicles in 2022 making up just 0.004% of Sweden’s fleet of 611,000 EVs.

> In contrast, over the same period, some 3,400 fires we reported in 2022 from Sweden’s 4.4 million petrol and diesel cars representing 0.08% of the fossil car fleet.

> This means that in 2022 a petrol or diesel car in Sweden was around 20 times more likely to catch fire than an electric vehicle.

> Furthermore, fires in electric cars are declining. The MSB says the number of fires in electric cars has been around 20 a year over the last three years, although the number of electric cars over that tie has almost doubled. Presumably, this is due to EV makers improving fire suppressing designs in newer models.

Back to your article:

> It’s unclear what started the fire, but the hundreds of electric cars onboard made it impossible to extinguish.

That’s what they said about The Fremantle Highway when it was on fire, let’s see what happened when they towed it back to port:

> However, between 900 and 1000 cars including the EVs appeared to be in good condition, the chief of salvage company Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, Peter Berdowski, told media last week.

Huh, that’s weird. Looks like the daily mail readers were wrong about that too (surprise!).

The Driven |https://thedriven.io › 2023/08/14Sorry EV haters, big ship fire probably wasn't caused by electric cars

Let’s look at Liverpool: Liverpool car park fire: Hundreds of burnt-out vehicles removed https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-46290095

1,000 cars burnt out in a car park fire in 2018. How many EVs do you think were in there 6 years ago? One? Two? It was 99% ICE vehicles along with the one that caused it. I’m sure no toxic fumes were produced as a result of the ICE cars burning lol.

> Many people believe that the media is lying about Luton

Many daily mail readers were saying it was an EV before the fire service even said anything. Here’s what they said:

> The fire service can confirm the initial vehicle involved in the fire was a diesel car.

https://www.bedsfire.gov.uk/news/major-incident-declared-lut...

Funnily enough this fits with the video of the vehicle showing the number plate: https://x.com/andysoullinux/status/1712232395049422942?s=46&...

The video gives an excellent view of those TWO fire extinguishers that failed to put out the fire too. Those ICE vehicles sure are easy to put out!

Facebook and YouTube algorithms are feeding people scary videos and the daily mail and its ilk will happily feed the narrative too. The stats and facts simply don’t back the level of FUD they are amplifying. It’s like refusing to fly over driving over safety fears after looking at a few plane crashes.

> You ought to consider the incentives behind the media push to assure people that EVs are safe.

You ought to do the same, who is pushing the anti-EV narrative? They tried to spread misinformation about range, battery replacement costs (bingo on your post), fires and so much more yet people are realising EVs are viable and cheaper to run. I run my EV for 3p/mile and certain people don’t like that. They are ramping these articles up since sales are still going up ( despite the headlines saying it’s “slowing”). It’s a shame so many people believe it without questioning it.

[wakawaka28]

>Sorry EV haters, big ship fire probably wasn't caused by electric cars

Even if it wasn't caused by EVs somehow, isn't it a huge problem that this cargo is so dangerous in the event of a fire? Ships are very expensive.

>Many daily mail readers were saying it [the Luton tinderbox] was an EV before the fire service even said anything.

Again, the car from Luton may have been a diesel hybrid. If the battery caused the fire or made it far worse, it counts as an EV fire. Here are some thorough discussions. https://youtube.com/watch?v=zk0MWDsueMY and https://youtube.com/watch?v=QZEku6lHfDM . But how dare anyone investigate independently based on video footage? Furthermore, will the same government that is mandating EV adoption be honest about this? Will the fire chief risk defamation and losing his job to say the right thing, knowing that the media will bury him?

>The video gives an excellent view of those TWO fire extinguishers that failed to put out the fire too. Those ICE vehicles sure are easy to put out!

Ok, there's something I have to clear up here. Car fires are not "easy" to put out because there is a lot of flammable stuff on board a car. But it can be put out relatively easily. On the other hand, an EV getting too wet can cause it to catch fire, and even being submerged will not put it out! https://youtube.com/watch?v=1zaV-JSwzzA

They can reignite months later. That never happens to ordinary ICE cars. https://www.evfiresafe.com/ev-fire-reignition That group is pro-EV and they are calling for caution.

Even the mainstream media admits the truth on rare occasion, mixed with lies like "don't worry, it's SUPER rare!" https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/29/electric-vehicle-fires-are-r... These cars need to be resilient against normal wear and tear, accidents, and also not cause amazingly bad situations in the event of arson.

>They tried to spread misinformation about range, battery replacement costs (bingo on your post), fires and so much more yet people are realising EVs are viable and cheaper to run.

NONE of this is misinformation. The batteries are notoriously expensive and difficult to diagonose. If even Hyundai won't replace its own battery at any dealer for less than the cost of the same car new, that sucks. There are people with an axe to grind for EVs but this is simply a reaction to evil media misinformation.

>Facebook and YouTube algorithms are feeding people scary videos and the daily mail and its ilk will happily feed the narrative too. The stats and facts simply don’t back the level of FUD they are amplifying. It’s like refusing to fly over driving over safety fears after looking at a few plane crashes.

No, I have to go out of my way to find information about this stuff. Youtube and Facebook are beholden to their advertisers and the governments of the world. If this information was easy to get, EV sales would be even more pathetic than they are.

>They are ramping these articles up since sales are still going up ( despite the headlines saying it’s “slowing”).

EV sales ARE slowing. More vehicles on the road increases awareness of problems that people can relate to. While some manufacturers are plowing ahead, others want out. The cope: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/electric-vehicle-sales-slowi...

Toyota knows EVs aren't right for everyone: https://fortune.com/2022/10/02/toyota-ceo-electric-vehicles-... and https://toyotatimes-jp.translate.goog/toyota_news/1055_1.htm...

>I run my EV for 3p/mile and certain people don’t like that.

I don't care if you manage to run it at 3p per mile. If that offsets the extra 10-20k£ and time wasted while charging, go for it. Just as long as I'm not subsidizing it, and your EV does not put me in danger, and nobody is forcing me to get one, and you pay for all the infrastructure that has to be fixed or upgraded due to increased EV usage. That includes: roads, parking garages made to carry double the weight of current ones, fire suppression systems, power plants, and power distribution systems.