Posted on 11/22/2023 11:36:38 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
“And any tiny tap damages the battery.”
Nope.
“The driver sits on top of up to 8000+ thermodynamically unstable lithium battery cells (18650’s)”
2 – Cost: The manufacturing time and materials required for the 4680 means productions costs will drop by 56%. We are going to see real competition on the raw sticker price in the window at the local car dealer. Currently, 4,416 (Model 2170 lithium ion) cells are placed inside a Tesla Model 3 or Model Y long-range edition battery packs. In contrast, only 960 cells will be required to fill the same space with the new 4680 Dry-Cell. As an added bonus, Tesla won’t have cobalt in their batteries anymore, that means no more memes about children in the Congo!
https://fcpp.org/2020/12/26/the-tesla-4680-battery-six-things-to-know/
There was a push years ago where you buy no fault insurance where if your in a wreck, you take care of your repairs, medical etc. The idea is that if you want to own a Porsche, you need to make sure your protected. EVs may make this a reality.
I worked for a company that did a huge amount of EV battery research in the 80s and 90s. Early on, liquid sodium sulphur batteries were thought to are in contention. However, the liquid sodium sulphur had to be kept hot (IIRC, about 700F) and leaks were a serious problem. One test car battery leaked onto the asphalt, caught fire, and burned up the prototype car and the a couple of vehicles on either side of it in the parking lot.
Respectfully, be careful throwing numbers out on this subject and I am happy to have a polite conversation about it because there is so much misinformation out there about the “rate” of fires. Even that is difficult to pin down because you cannot necessarily assign “blame” to the battery or ICE for all “vehicle fires”. My best answer is that I don’t know, but I suspect it is much more similar than what people paste all over social media.
The US uses NFIRS for fire reporting. It is an antiquated system and most firefighters (by nature and culture) are NOT going to read the manual to find the two additional codes necessary to specify that the “vehicle fire” box they check on the front page was an EV or a hybrid. I know this firsthand - they fill out page 1 and the drop-downs and it is rare to see more reported data. I have looked at many of them. I personally know of several “EV fires” that were not reported or referenced in studies such as the EV Fire Safe one (an excellent organization in Australia by the way) but even Emma went out on a limb with her analysis and admittedly used “news stories”. An EV fire in rural Colorado for example is unlikely to make the news.... just saying.
The EZautoinsurance brochure claiming to have used NTSB data to extrapolate the numbers is crap. They are a discount auto insurance brokerage - not an insurer and their data analysis is very flawed given that they used the number of fatal fires for example - meaningless to “the vehicle started the fire”. If I taught statistics to college kids I would use their brochure as a study assignment so the kids could learn about bad or misinterpreted data leading to a flawed result. Even NTSB released something saying they did not say what the discount brokers said in the oft-cited brochure.
The ONLY people who know the real numbers are the insurance industry and they are not sharing the data - they are raising rates more for EV’s vs ICE vehicles. I don’t claim that is related to “fire causation” directly but it is certainly part of the equation as I explained above and THAT came from an insurance executive.
Vehicle fires are typically in my experience “older vehicles with poor maintenance”. Daughter goes off to college and has bad valves in older car purchased by dad and she does not check the oil = overheated engine and eventual hot surface ignition for example.
The vast majority of EV’s have been purchased in the last 5 years. Prior to this time period they comprised a very small number of the total vehicles in use in the US. Go to your local craigslist and search for used cars less than 5k in cost and those are by far the most likely to catch fire usually from dry rotted hoses with ignitable liquids (lots of fluids besides gas in a vehicle) or severe leaks from bad gaskets, etc.
About 10-15% of car fires (per authorities like NTSB or National Fire Protection Association) are arson and most of these are stolen cars used for joyriding or other crimes and the perp torches the vehicle to get rid of forensic evidence or just because they are azzholes. I saw a lot of these as a cop in the inner-city during my prior life. I also saw a lot of cars torched for “domestic squabbles” in the inner-city. Not caused by the car.
EV’s are much harder to steal since you would need to be a hacker and that is beyond the ability of your average car thief. The EV crowd (generally wealthier) are less likely to be burning each other’s rides because they slept with their squeeze so we can probably agree that there are less “criminal incidents” involving EV’s.
So, if we removed the older vehicles with poor maintenance AND we remove the stolen vehicles/meth fueled social dysfunction we now get better data, but it would still need to be cleaned up!
How could this be done? You would have to compare the same year model vehicles to make any kind of claim. 2017 EV to 2017 ICE to 2017 HEV or 2022 EV to 2022 ICE to 2022 PHEV to 2022 HEV.
That would improve it, but even then, the numbers will be skewed. Take the vandalism arson incident at the Tesla dealership in the US. Photos of that are erroneously linked by many people online to illustrate the fire risks of EV’s or Teslas. That is ridiculous because the batteries DID NOT catch fire despite gas being poured on top of the exterior of the vehicles and lit on fire. Not the vehicles fault and kudos to the engineers - the battery design resisted the fires on the vehicles but IF the reporting agency correctly logged the incident in NFIRS it would reflect over a dozen Tesla’s that “caught fire”. I would bet it went into NFIRS as over a dozen “vehicle fires” and those are counted as ICE. Unfair either way and logically meaningless to your assertion and my skepticism.
What about wildfires? Take the recent fires in Spokane, WA, for example that just occurred in August (Oregon and Gray Fire) or the Camp fire in California. Burned hundreds of homes and thousands of vehicles of all kinds. Those are still logged somewhere as vehicle fires so it neither supports nor disproves your statement about the rate of fires because the vehicles were victim, not cause, and I sincerely doubt they were reported as EV or ICE or hybrid.
I could go on, but you get the point. I believe the Norwegian government study showed that older EV’s were more likely to catch fire than newer ones (shockingly just like ICE vehicles), but I admittedly did not parse that report and understood from a colleague that the data reported by a government pushing the technology in the name of “climate change” also had problems. Norway is also a very wealthy country in comparison to other data sets so I bet they have fewer vehicle fires than Juarez or New Orleans given newer vehicles and better maintenance with “poorer Norwegians” more likely to be driving an old beater ICE vehicle than an EV.
Like I said - the only sound data is possessed by the insurance industry and they are not talking. It would be a direct comparison by type and year model eliminating any vehicle fire that was “arson” or vehicles that burned because of something else spreading fire to them. I don’t believe NTSB or the US DOT or your state DOT has this data.
My assertion above stands - ALL vehicle fires are very low incident events but EV’s are much higher consequence than ICE fires in my experience and I have seen both. Most ICE fires are not that exciting and are easily extinguished and many can be repaired.
ANY fire in an EV is game over for the vehicle and far more deadly to people inside the vehicle or inside a structure where the incident occurs. They are a MUCH different animal from start to finish. Like I said, the fact that they exist at all is a real testament to engineering given the temperamental nature of the lithium-ion battery regardless of which chemistry.
PS - it is all but certain that the older the current generation of EV’s become the more failures will occur. It is a simple engineering concept - more age and more wear and tear = more failure.
Battery fires are scary because the slightest flaw in one cell out of thousands in a pack can burn them all and the propagation is very difficult to stop. They burn hotter and are much more toxic too.
Like I said - an ENORMOUS amount of energy stored in an ignitable liquid electrolyte = potential to be on the nightly news! :)
It's the old and familiar Reliability Bathtub Curve...
When ICE vehicles wear out, they do not have catastrophic fire risk. Unless the fuel tank corrodes through and leaks, but I've honestly never heard of that happening. You DO get occasional fuel line leaks and high pressure fuel injector leaks, but those are rare.
Minor quibble, and I don’t know for certain, but I suspect the 18650s in a battery pack are welded and not soldered.
That’s how they’re connected on most smaller devices, using a somewhat specialized pinpoint welding technique that I assume heats the metal (and the cell) a lot less than soldering would. You can buy DIY setups on ebay for small projects - I assume it’s scaled up on the EVs but uses a similar tech for similar reasons.
Of course, I could be wrong...
Here’s a low-end battery spot welder as an example.
https://www.amazon.com/Aideepen-Handheld-Adjustable-Portable-Stainless/dp/B0BZS4H6WP?th=1
I am happy about all of that. I am NOT anti-Tesla and think as a company they are on the cutting edge of managing or harnessing the potential of the current battery chemistries.
However, I think the Tesla semi is a bad application of the technology based on risk/benefit analysis (2 - 4000# packs is a LOT of potential for something to go wrong compared to a single 1100# pack in a sedan for example). I also think their new truck is an excessive use of resources for the designed purpose but I expect we will see fewer “fires” with them than they had with the Nikolei (sp?) trucks in Phoenix (believe they had 4 burn out of 280 made or something like that).
Another advantage to the larger 4680 cells is that (I hope) they may be able to connect each individual cell to the battery management system instead of entire rows. This is another limiting factor for EV’s because one bad cell causes the BMS to isolate and turn off a row of 50 or 100 batteries (18650 or 2170) leading to a more significant loss of range/capacity and shorter battery life. Monitoring each individual cell might also reduce the chance of that cell going into thermal runaway if it is acting up.
“ANY fire in an EV is game over for the vehicle and far more deadly to people inside the vehicle or inside a structure where the incident occurs.”
Less deadly as EV fires develop slower and have pre-fire indications. EV fires are no more intense than gas fires, they just last longer.
EV battery technology and protection is improving with each new model. The percentage of EVs versus ICE cars is increasing resulting in the average age of EV’s decreasing compared to ICE. More later models in use.
It is a simple engineering concept - less age and less wear and tear = fewer failures.
I think you are right and that was a poor choice of wording - its all done by machine for the connection. My point was that there is a LOT of potential for failure among small components anywhere within the pack or even between the sheets of anode/cathode in the battery.
Like I said, it is amazing that they exist at all when you understand more about the batteries!
Yep - I love that graph and use it when I teach.
Ironically, a debate I sometimes have with colleagues is that all the cheap crap we now import from Asia has changed the curve a bit and we see this with “energy” issues as well such as poorly made USB charging cubes or sketchy thin USB cables - same thing with extension cords and some of this corner cutting crap has worked its way into our home appliances like dishwashers or dryers, etc.
I am always skeptical of stuff made in China and have many experiences to back it up - not sure the Chinese products follow the bathtub if they cut corners.
“Another advantage to the larger 4680 cells is that (I hope) they may be able to connect each individual cell to the battery management system instead of entire rows.”
I can’t speak for every application but it is my understanding that each cell is monitored for temperature and voltage. Current is measured for each series grouping.
A lot of the stuff from China today reminds me of the crap being made in Japan in the 50s. But there is a lot of high-quality product manufactured in China. I suppose those have strict oversight by the US companies getting the product made there.
I worked in China for seven months from late ‘76 to early summer ‘77. Their “management” practices were absolutely abysmal as was their “productivity.” It took five to ten people to get done what one person could do in the US. They’ve come a long ways in many areas since then.
I bought a portable patio cart on wheels this summer for my new pizza oven. It came with three manufacturing defects (one part had no holes drilled in it, one part wasn’t rolled enough to capture a pin, and one part was really bent at the factory). It had taken me over an hour to assemble the cart and, wouldn’t you know it? The bad parts were the very last ones to go onto the finished assembly. Amazon told me to disassemble the cart and send it back. I told them there was no way in hell that I would do that, just send me an advance replacement and I’ll take out the parts I need. I had to escalate two levels at Amazon to get to a “Yes.” So BOTH the China product and Amazon service were infuriating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIXTP-TgPEw&t=1565s
Take 20 minutes and watch this presentation and we can talk about this... skip the intro at the beginning and I think there is another ad for the conference in the middle and he will show you why I disagree vehemently with your assertion about how deadly they might be with videos - you can watch the failures from their research and known events. I would urge anyone to watch this video so you know what the failures look like for your own safety. As he states, if you see a white cloud (of vapor) coming from something that might have a battery - run!
Before you express skepticism he was hired by Nissan to do research on their EV batteries (pouches) and he still works for battery manufacturers.
Most people within the industry agree with me that a more stable battery would be very beneficial. The fire problem with batteries along with environmental issues is an issue and limitation for the tech of electric motors which I find to be superior in many ways.
PS - I disagree with him on one thing - there have been fatalities caused by EV’s.
Much to my surprise I recently learned they do NOT really monitor each cell and it is because of economics (would require additional wiring and connections to each cell). One bad cell and you can lose 49 or 99 good cells. That sucks from an economy standpoint and as you know that is forever more dead weight (little less than 50g per 18650 cell in a Tesla).
This came from a PhD who works at a high level in the industry doing testing, but to be clear I do not know for certain and am only going by what I have heard from others.
There are many potential failure mechanisms for a battery pack and/or the vehicle overall. The most problematic for the industry are the internal failures that are primarily related to quality control in my opinion by 3rd party manufacturers in China like the recent spate of LG battery fires that have caused several recalls of energy storage systems in Europe and Australia.
I think China is worse than Japan because they have an avenue to get cheat (aka cheap) crap into the US through Amazon or online sales that never happened in the 50’s and 60’s. Sears or Montgomery-Ward would send that crap back in the 50’s or 60’s if it were not made to spec.
Take remote power taps or power strips or whatever you call them..... you could go into Walmart and buy one that weighs 1/3rd of what the $19.99 does for $4.99. You could order one back on Amazon when I studied this for as low as $3.99. I just looked out of curiosity and the cheapest now is 9.99 (damned inflation).
We bought a bunch and the wire gauge and overall weight/metal content were quite different depending on prices even though they advertised the same capacity and that directly impacts safety when you are running electrical loads.
I skipped through the video. I don’t argue with the points I saw but it lacks real world balance.
“As he states, if you see a white cloud (of vapor) coming from something that might have a battery - run!”
That is a take-off from another that said “If you smell Das vapor -Run!”.
” I would urge anyone to watch this video so you know what the failures look like for your own”
Did you see videos of the gas car explosion today. They first thought it was a bomb!
“PS - I disagree with him on one thing - there have been fatalities caused by EV’s.”
I missed that. How many people have died in EV fires while properly operating the vehicle?
“Much to my surprise I recently learned they do NOT really monitor each cell “
Tesla monitors every cell. I assume most quality units do also. Don’t know about the cheap Chinese.
BMS limits voltages on individual cells during charging. I understood this where each module was a series of cells but having learned that Tesla uses parallel cells in a module I need more info.
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