EV Island Issues

[The Bastard]

11 minutes ago, quilp said:

Good link. Didn’t read it detail when posted previously. The 2-minute contagion experiment coukd be very problematic and it was stressed that no two fires are the same. After the good doctor's reassurance, we can take for granted then that the fire-fighting and containment techniques employed by those experienced, professional fire-fighters are being passed-on to the boat's inexperienced, non-professional fire-fighters, with suitable training provided. Toxic fumes released by EV fires especially will require suitable PPE; fire-helmets/respirators, etc., in an enclosed car-deck. Do car-decks have sprinkler and smoke extraction systems as standard?

Don't know, would presumably be covered by SOLAS regulations. AFAIK all vehicle fires would release toxic fumes, so there would be some provision you'd think.

Edited October 25, 2023 by The Bastard

[Max Power]

4 hours ago, Major Rushen said:

Non EV risk of file is electrical damage or fuel leaking onto a hot exhaust. For an EV the is a greater risk of battery overheat when charging. So no sneaky charging on the boat please.

Actually fuel leaking onto hot exhausts is not really the big risk, it's brake fluid where the problem lies. If you throw a small amount onto a hot manifold it will ignite pretty quickly, the flames in turn cause petrol to ignite. If you do the same with a little petrol, it generally just evaporates. 

[WTF]

3 hours ago, quilp said:

Not at all. 2017 Kia Niro.

nice looking motor.

[Zarley]

This may be a stupid question, so apologies in advance if that's the case.

They use special cladding on space-going vessels to protect against the high temperatures generated upon reentry to earth's atmosphere. Could they not make a box out of the same materials in which to put an EV battery, thereby safely containing any fire? 

If the answer is "no" on the basis of cost, wouldn't mass production bring those costs down while saving money incurred by fires?

[Bobbie Bobster]

1 hour ago, Zarley said:

This may be a stupid question, so apologies in advance if that's the case.

They use special cladding on space-going vessels to protect against the high temperatures generated upon reentry to earth's atmosphere. Could they not make a box out of the same materials in which to put an EV battery, thereby safely containing any fire? 

If the answer is "no" on the basis of cost, wouldn't mass production bring those costs down while saving money incurred by fires?

In a word, no.

In some more words, atmospheric entry heatshields depend for their proper function on there being a hypersonic airflow, and also use ablation (bits of the heatshield being heated up and being blown away by the same airflow) to provide protection against radiative heat.

Edited October 26, 2023 by Bobbie Bobster

[emesde]

A toyota director was vocal this week on the nonsence of 100% EV s

He claims that hybrids are a better route for the enviroment and all the infrastructure is in place. I think he talks a lot of sense. 

Toyota says it takes the same amount of raw battery material to make one electric vehicle as it does to make 90 hybrids or six plug-in hybrids.

 

 

 

 

[Zarley]

27 minutes ago, Bobbie Bobster said:

In a word, no.

In some more words, atmospheric entry heatshields depend for their proper function on there being a hypersonic airflow, and also use ablation (bits of the heatshield being heated up and being blown away by the same airflow) to provide protection against radiative heat.

Thank you for taking the time to answer. That makes sense.

[The Bastard]

42 minutes ago, emesde said:

A toyota director was vocal this week on the nonsence of 100% EV s

He claims that hybrids are a better route for the enviroment and all the infrastructure is in place. I think he talks a lot of sense. 

Toyota says it takes the same amount of raw battery material to make one electric vehicle as it does to make 90 hybrids or six plug-in hybrids.

You're missing some vital context on that - it wasn't a director of Toyota, it was an opinion from the vice president of sales and marketing for Toyota Australia. He was talking specifically about Australia at the moment, where the majority  of electricity comes from coal-fired sources, so the environmental benefits aren't as clear-cut as elsewhere. 

For context : 

It's right in a sense that the environmental arguments for uptake of EVs don't make sense in Australia at a point in time where electricity itself is generating huge emissions and there's no plans to change.

That's the reason why in other more advanced countries, EVs are a part of a wider strategy - converting electricity generation to renewable sources, and using that zero-emission generation to fuel vehicles, either through EVs alone or by generating renewable fuel such as hydrogen.

It also overlooks the other arguments for EVs. People don't just buy EVs because of emissions. They also buy because of performance, cheapness (Citroen Ami, anyone ?), lower maintenance, convenience of charging at home (maybe from a solar panel), and concerns about the impact of funnelling funds into oil-producing regimes with terrible human rights records.

You're also overlooking the fact that EVs doesn't mean "cars". It means boats, buses, delivery vans, motorcycles, scooters, e-scooters.

Fitting a hybrid engine into a e-motorcycle would probably mean adding some extra wheels to support the huge increase in size and weight, adding maybe a roof to keep the rain off, maybe some extra seats. Suddenly that's a car. 

[Kopek]

There several U-Tubers  surmising that the Range Rover in the Luton fire could actually be a Diesel/Hybrid?

Based on the intensity and position of the fire being in the place a hybrid battery would be.

Just saying, I don't know.

[The Bastard]

3 hours ago, Zarley said:

This may be a stupid question, so apologies in advance if that's the case.

They use special cladding on space-going vessels to protect against the high temperatures generated upon reentry to earth's atmosphere. Could they not make a box out of the same materials in which to put an EV battery, thereby safely containing any fire? 

If the answer is "no" on the basis of cost, wouldn't mass production bring those costs down while saving money incurred by fires?

Good question to ask !

If you read the article I posted on ferry fires in the last page or so, you'll see the opinion of a firefighter that's tested burning a number of EVs from different generations. Technology has advanced over the generations, and he pointed out that in the newer-model Tesla that was tested, the fire they induced didn't spread to the entire battery, but was limited to the single cell where the fire was deliberately started.

There are no doubt some advances to be made in battery containment, but it's clearly been thought-about - I note from the firefighter article that they didn't note any damage to the decks under the vehicles, despite them deliberately starting a significant fire. 

[The Bastard]

16 minutes ago, Kopek said:

There several U-Tubers  surmising that the Range Rover in the Luton fire could actually be a Diesel/Hybrid?

Based on the intensity and position of the fire being in the place a hybrid battery would be.

Just saying, I don't know.

There are a lot of Youtubers that say that the earth is flat and that Donald Trump is the messiah. 

Doesn't make them right, and a lot of Youtube (like much of the media) is driven by personal agendas rather than facts.

A lot of boomers desperately want it to be an EV because they're threatened by them, in the same way that their forefathers electrocuted elephants to prove how unsafe it was to have AC electro-trickery in your house.

So far all the commentary from official sources (such as the actual firefighters) has said it was a diesel and I'd tend to believe them over a tinfoil-hatted Youtuber. I'm waiting for the results of the inquiry, who knows if it was accidental/deliberate/diesel/hybrid.

Range Rover diesels did actually have a recall related to vehicle fires early in their history though.

Edited October 26, 2023 by The Bastard

[Two-lane]

It took a couple of hefty wacks to get it started, but once underway it was impressive.

 

[AcousticallyChallenged]

Petrol and a match is pretty impressive too.

Any fire on a ship is bad.

As a result, the fire pumps can pour a lot of water quickly onto the car deck, for the very reason that fires are such a problem.

The technique for dealing with an EV fire boils down to pouring lots of water on it. Fortunately, you're surrounded by the stuff, and the car deck is designed for throwing the wet stuff on the hot stuff in large volumes.

[AcousticallyChallenged]

On 10/25/2023 at 1:24 PM, Max Power said:

Yes, depends on the model, the Prius only had a range of 0.9 of a mile on the battery at one time. 

That was/is part of the design.

The idea behind them is little and often. The engine runs with an Atkinson cycle, and the electric motor negates the disadvantages of that.

The battery just siphons off electricity when it's most efficient.

Charging the battery to do longer distances just burns fuel, and you have burn fuel to lug that bigger battery around.

It's fascinating once you start reading up on it, essentially, the engine, when it runs, always aims to be in a sweet spot for efficiency, and the battery and motors work to keep it there.

As a result, you get diesel-like mpg out of a petrol, which the Americans who don't like diesel cars, loved.

[Max Power]

1 hour ago, AcousticallyChallenged said:

That was/is part of the design.

The idea behind them is little and often. The engine runs with an Atkinson cycle, and the electric motor negates the disadvantages of that.

The battery just siphons off electricity when it's most efficient.

Charging the battery to do longer distances just burns fuel, and you have burn fuel to lug that bigger battery around.

It's fascinating once you start reading up on it, essentially, the engine, when it runs, always aims to be in a sweet spot for efficiency, and the battery and motors work to keep it there.

As a result, you get diesel-like mpg out of a petrol, which the Americans who don't like diesel cars, loved.

Exactly, I'm driving a Hybrid VW at the moment which is a Toyota patented system, they use the battery to get you moving, saving the need to use a lot of fuel in the process.