[davidbanham]

It appears to me that the positioning of that port is only useful when the battery pan has been removed from the vehicle.

There is no way I’m crawling under an EV that’s already on fire while wearing breathing apparatus and wrestling a charged line to get a branch up and under a chassis rail to puncture that weather seal. You’ll find me in the cab of the truck aiming there remote control monitor while on the radio calling for every bulk water appliance in the district.

[magicalhippo]

As you can see from the media attached to the press release[1], the port is exposed through an opening below the rear seats it looks like. Based on the wording in the press release, seems like they assume the battery wouldn't start burning on its own and so any fire that got the battery burning already consumed the interior.

So this is not so much for saving your car, but rather not binding firefighters up for hours.

[1]: https://media.renaultgroup.com/fireman-access-an-exclusive-i...

[davidbanham]

Right, I see the quick shot in the video now. Looks like it would be inaccessible until the rear seat frames are removed. Also, it appears the only way to get the angle required to penetrate the adhesive disc is to clamber inside the vehicle, directly above the battery pack that is on fire and/or in thermal runaway.

That is once again a big no-thankyou from this hose dragger.

I came across someone in a Renault Picasso the other week stopped in the middle of an intersection late at night. I blocked oncoming traffic and went to see what was wrong. Turned out their alternator was faulty and the battery had run down to the point where the car shut down, fair enough.

First option, push the vehicle to a safer location then sort it out. The fine people at Renault, however, had equipped the vehicle with a button-operated handbrake and a by-wire automatic gearbox. No overrides obvious, none listed in the ACAP first responder guide entry for the vehicle, and no mention of anything in the vehicle manual. No way of pushing it. Great.

Next plan, jump-start the vehicle where it is. Did that, engine started, battery had enough voltage to run everything even without being charged from the alternator, no problems. However, the Renault flatly refused to disengage the park brake or go into gear because of the fault code being thrown by the alternator. Even though the engine was running and all systems were powered, it refused to permit the driver to operate it. After a few cycles of shutting off and jump starting it we managed to get it to agree to if not drive under it's own power, at least permit the wheels to be turned so it could be pushed.

Once we finally got it out of the intersection, I learned the driver was only a few hundred metres from home. I suggested they might want to remove the battery from the vehicle, take it home, and stick it on a battery tender overnight so that they had a shot at driving it to a mechanic the next day. Unfortunately, the fine engineers at Renault had decided that the battery should be mounted lengthways in the engine compartment with 90% of it buried (had to ground the negative lead to the chassis when jumping it). Removal of the battery apparently required disassembly of half the radiator shroud and general engine plastics which took at least 30 minutes.

I made an offer to fetch a drip torch in order to burn the bloody thing to the ground, which was politely declined. We all went home.