Posted on 08/15/2023 11:11:52 AM PDT by Impala64ssa
The New York Fire Department recently reported that so far this year there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured 66 people and killed 13. According to FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, “There is not a small amount of fire, it (the vehicle) literally explodes.” The resulting fire is “very difficult to extinguish and so it is particularly dangerous.”
Last year there were more than 200 fires from batteries from e-bikes, EVs and other devices.
A fire ignited at an e-bike shop and killed four people near midnight on the morning of June 20. Two individuals were left in critical condition. The fire commissioner has warned New Yorkers that such devices could be very dangerous and typically explode in such a way that renders escape impossible.
FDNY also reports that in just three years, lithium-ion battery fires have surpassed those started by cooking and smoking as the most common causes of fatal fires in New York City. It’s happening all over the country as these blazes have become commonplace. Cars and e-bikes are randomly blowing up in driveways and garages.
Now let’s be honest: 13 deaths in a city the size of New York with some 8 million people is hardly an epidemic. Regulations should always be based on a cost versus benefit calculation, or there would be no cars at all.
And yet the same scaremongers on the left who have zero tolerance and want bans for small risks when it comes to everything from swimming pool diving boards, gas stoves, plastic straws, vaping, fireworks and so on, have a surprisingly high pain threshold when it comes to people dying or suffering critical injured from “green” electric battery fires.
Or consider this: In 1965, Ralph Nader almost single-handedly helped ban the popular Chevrolet Corvair — famous for its engine placed in the back trunk of the car. Nader’s bestselling shock book “Unsafe at Any Speed” declared the car was deadly. But there was no real evidence of that claim, and to this day there are no reliable statistics on how many passengers — if any — died in Corvairs from rear-end accidents
What is indisputable is that EVs will cause far more deaths than Corvairs ever did.
One other example: There have been more fatalities in just one city in a single year from lithium-ion batteries in cars than all the people who died from the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident — which was zero.
Yet, after the accident, thanks to the environmentalists’ fear campaign (with the help of the blockbuster anti-nuke movie “The China Syndrome”), no domestic nuclear plants were built for three decades. That is despite the fact that nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases.
But with EVs, the greens are pushing aside any concerns about the collateral damage of deaths and injuries. Biden wants to mandate that nearly ALL new cars sold in the U.S. be EVs by 2032. If that happens, many thousands of Americans may die or will be inured from electric vehicle fires.
All this is especially hypocritical because once upon a time the left’s mantra was “no trading blood for oil.” Now they are willing to trade blood in exchange for getting Americans to stop using oil. An irony of all this is that because of all the energy needed to produce windmills, solar panels and electric batteries, new studies are showing that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to this “net zero” transition is close to zero. It turns out, green energy causes some pollution, too.
For the record, I’m not in favor of the government banning EVs or e-bikes or just about anything. I just believe that we should make policy decisions based on real and factual risk assessments, not false scares and sensationalism.
As for the future of EVs, maybe it’s time for Ralph Nader to write a sequel to “Unsafe at Any Speed.”
You’ll have ban Liberals first
I had a 65 corsa, base corvair like a tank on snow.
This guy loves his Corvairs https://www.youtube.com/@CORVAIRWILD/videos
The destruction is for the good of the planet 😏
EV or Firearms. By number in circulation I suspect EVs are far more dangerous. And not protected by 2nd amendment. So, yes, ban them.
Wait until the science shows the dangers of sitting on huge batteries after a couple years.
Yes, why don’t they carry proper signage?
Or breathing. I had a 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid for a year and did note that the battery area ventilated into the passenger compartment. Never smelled anything but it did leave me wondering. Not mentioned in documentation.
Remember the dangers of living near power lines
Absolutely!!
But, unlike firearms, oversized electric golf carts DO go off by themselves.
They are the deadly autonomous danger that liberals screech firearms are.
Yup. There could be a foot of snow on the ground and my dad wouldn’t have to wait for the snow plough, just get in and drive 🙂🙂
The videos of the infamous Corvair control problems Nader trumpeted were shown to be fake. Took pro drivers to instigate the behavior.
Get rid of all the government funded tax breaks for the cars and the money stolen from taxpayers to pay for a nationwide charger network and sales of these toy cars will dry up.
Feel free to toss on some tariffs for any EV that is made outside the US and is imported for sale.
Heat wave in Portland. TV said cut back on your electrical use by not using appliances, only use AC when home etc. Not one word about not charging the battery car.
“”Heat wave in Portland. TV said cut back on your electrical use””
Very soon Portland will copy L.A. and ask all EV drivers to plug their EV BACK into the electric grid. Their next move will be to declare all the electricity the ‘people’s power’ and only allow distribution ‘according to one’s need.’ That ‘need’ amount will be determined by one’s social credit score. Those of us who have never used FaceBut InstaCrap, etc will have to sign up and express Big Brother’s opinion.
This is literally one of the reasons I have solar and an EV. I see one of 3 futures for the Dims and energy. 1) They'll just keep making it more and more expensive to price away most people's use of it. 2) Or they'll do #1 but with price rebates or such if we have a good social credit score / mark of the beast. 3) Or they won't use pricing to control us but have a blanket prohibition against energy to all who don't bow to their gods.
By making most of our own energy my wife and I avoid the Dims' ability to control us at least in that manner. As of now my solar system produces 81% of all our power for our all-electric home, including charging our EV. (By my estimate about 22K miles per year are charged at home.) It'd be infeasible at this point to make us 100% energy independent (law of diminishing returns). So for now I'm satisfied that it's doing its job of protecting our retirement investments from most of the stupid energy inflation. But I've already figured out what I'd have to do if I have to get to 100% energy independence (except for road trip driving, in which I case I'd then just like now have to pay for either power or gas depending on which car we take).
Don't get me wrong. I like my ICE pickup too. It brings a lot to the table that my EV doesn't. But the fact of the matter is I can't drill and refine my own oil to fuel my ICE pickup. However, I can produce my own power for my home and my EV (at least for local driving and the first 240 miles of a trip).
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