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Electric cars

From reading one or two motoring journals recently, it would appear that sales of electric cars have peaked and are now in decline.
 
I actually had to google this, as I wasn’t sure if it was a customised message or the name of the car. Pretty wanky in any case…

IMG_5655.jpeg

Any word on reliability?
 
T & P said:
I actually had to google this, as I wasn’t sure if it was a customised message or the name of the car. Pretty wanky in any case…

View attachment 416012

Any word on reliability?
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Chinese knock off of a Kia.

Not really sure why these things are allowed in this country, they won't allow snide Louis Vuitton handbags to be sold legitimately, so why the motors?
 
I've got the Bimmerflow app now so I can see all of the car's data that BMW would prefer that you didn't.

We are on 98.9% battery health after 7,000km which pretty good as most of the degradation will occur in the first year of use. However, I am scrupulous with battery management, you could easily end up with much lower health by using a lot of fast chargers and leaving it outside in the heat.

Estimated range is somewhere between misleading and meaningless when it comes to estimating battery health, never rely on it.
 
hash tag said:
Question is, are electric cars a fire hazard? Someone seems to think so
BBC News - Electric car driver turned away from hospital car park - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk

Electric car driver turned away from hospital car park

Experts say it does not make sense as research suggests petrol cars are much more likely to catch fire.
www.bbc.co.uk
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I know fuck all about it but my two cents would be that it largely depends on the manufacturer of the vehicle/ batteries. Just as you sometimes see videos on YouTube of cheap Chinese electric scooters, bikes or even cars bursting into intense flames but which are much rarer with Western-made products.

Having said that, it seems putting out a fire from an electric vehicle is remarkably difficult. I read a while ago a news article about a Tesla catching fire in the US, and after dumping the entire contents of a fire truck onto it and falling to extinguish the fire, the Fire Department had to call Tesla HQ to ask if they had any insider tips on how to extinguish one of their cars’ battery cells.
 
T & P said:
I know fuck all about it but my two cents would be that it largely depends on the manufacturer of the vehicle/ batteries. Just as you sometimes see videos on YouTube of cheap Chinese electric scooters, bikes or even cars bursting into intense flames but which are much rarer with Western-made products.

Having said that, it seems putting out a fire from an electric vehicle is remarkably difficult. I read a while ago a news article about a Tesla catching fire in the US, and after dumping the entire contents of a fire truck onto it and falling to extinguish the fire, the Fire Department had to call Tesla HQ to ask if they had any insider tips on how to extinguish one of their cars’ battery cells.
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Once the battery enters thermal runaway it creates its own oxygen, and the fire becomes self-sustaining. It's all but impossible to extinguish a lithium battery fire at that point. It'll even burn submerged in water.
 
From the point of view of safety, at least electric cars are by default parked outside. There are numerous clips on YouTube showing electric scooters and bicycles spontaneously catching fire in a similar intense fashion, and often when inside a house or garage. Though from what I’ve read online, which of course is no proof of anything, such troubling incidents tend to be mostly restricted to cheap Chinese knock-off imports.
 
T & P said:
I read a while ago a news article about a Tesla catching fire in the US, and after dumping the entire contents of a fire truck onto it and falling to extinguish the fire, the Fire Department had to call Tesla HQ to ask if they had any insider tips on how to extinguish one of their cars’ battery cells.
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Fact check

[Fire Chief] Buck also said contrary to some reports in the media, the Tesla involved in the April 17 fire did not burn out of control for four hours.

He also said no one from the township’s fire department called Tesla asking for help with the blaze, noting that he is not aware of the company having such a service.

“With respect to the fire fight, unfortunately, those rumors grew out way of control. It did not take us four hours to put out the blaze. Our guys got there and put down the fire within two to three minutes, enough to see the vehicle had occupants,” Buck said of inaccurate claims the vehicle burned for hours. “After that, it was simply cooling the car as the batteries continued to have a chain reaction due to damage.”
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But to be fair, vehicles powered by an internal combustion engine using highly combustible fuel are always likely to have a far higher percentage of catastrophic failure events than electric cars, in particular in real life scenarios such as collisions. Admittedly modern ICE cars catching fire on their own is extremely rare, but in the event of a serious collision, which is not such uncommon a possibility, I’d much rather be in an EV.

Ultimately for me safety is not a concern at all with EVs. Not directly anyway. I do have a major issue with autonomous/ semiautonomous cars being allowed on the road at all, which seems to be a feature heavily pushed by Tesla and other EV makers.
 
The hydrogen tank in a Hyundai Nexo FCEV is pressurised at 700 bar (10,000+ psi). I wouldn't fancy being in a high speed shunt in that.
 
DownwardDog said:
The hydrogen tank in a Hyundai Nexo FCEV is pressurised at 700 bar (10,000+ psi). I wouldn't fancy being in a high speed shunt in that.
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Which is powered by an electric motor, so it's fundamentally an electric vehicle. It just gets its electricity from a hydrogen cell.
Dangerous things those electric vehicles :D
 
I’m pretty close to choosing an EV to lease through my work scheme.

None come with a deal on charger points so I’ll need to choose one myself and obviously a tariff too.
The reading is making my brain hurt so please help if you have an EV.

Did you get one through your energy supplier or order the charger and choose the tariff separately? I’ll need to put it on finance I think but can pay it off fairly quickly. I am entitled to the grant so that’s £350 off.

I’ve just fixed my energy tariff with Eon:Next. If I stay with them does this mean I can’t get an EV deal?

Did you wait for the car before getting the charger fitted?

I don’t like change and really need some sensible advice as I only know one person with an EV. I spoke to a dealership and they were fucking shit.
 
Re: battery fires, LFP batteries aren't flammable, and many EVs are moving to this chemistry cos it's cheaper than Li-Ion for only slightly lower energy density. Quite likely a majority of EVs will use LFP batteries in the very near future.
They also have no cobalt or nickel, which is good.
 
BigTom said:
Re: battery fires, LFP batteries aren't flammable, and many EVs are moving to this chemistry cos it's cheaper than Li-Ion for only slightly lower energy density. Quite likely a majority of EVs will use LFP batteries in the very near future.
They also have no cobalt or nickel, which is good.
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Are you sure about that? :hmm:
 
Looby said:
I’m pretty close to choosing an EV to lease through my work scheme.

None come with a deal on charger points so I’ll need to choose one myself and obviously a tariff too.
The reading is making my brain hurt so please help if you have an EV.

Did you get one through your energy supplier or order the charger and choose the tariff separately? I’ll need to put it on finance I think but can pay it off fairly quickly. I am entitled to the grant so that’s £350 off.

I’ve just fixed my energy tariff with Eon:Next. If I stay with them does this mean I can’t get an EV deal?

Did you wait for the car before getting the charger fitted?

I don’t like change and really need some sensible advice as I only know one person with an EV. I spoke to a dealership and they were fucking shit.
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Pod Point Home Charger

You get that installed when you are certain you will get an EV.

You then need to find an energy supplier that does an EV rate for cheaper leccy overnight. We moved to Octopus and whilst I can't remember the exact numbers it was something like 35p per kwh for regular pricing during the day, 6p per kwh between midnight and 5am. You will need to have a smart meter installed for this to work, Octopus did that at no cost to us.

If you have just fixed it with Eon, check with them if they have an EV deal and whether you can switch to it if you stay with them.

Something weird about the tariff, the first one Octopus gave us wouldn't work with our car, they said the make was too old, even though the car only came out in February 2023 and we got it in June 2023, so they had to switch to a different tarrif, really can't work out what that was all about tbh.

Once you do get it sorted, you plug it in every evening when you get home and set the car up to talk to the charger so it starts charging at midnight and ends at 5am, or whatever time your cheap leccy is. If it's fully charged (80%) before that it will just stop anyway, if not fully charged and you need it to be fully charged you can ask it to carry on charging once the more expensive rate kicks in.
 
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Saul Goodman said:
I'd much rather be in anything but an EV in the event of a collision. That's probably when they're at their most dangerous.
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www.fleetnews.co.uk

Tusker fleet data reveals the truth about EV fires

The salary sacrifice specialist has analysed data from its fleet to understand if there is any truth behind some of the commonly shared myths surrounding EVs.
www.fleetnews.co.uk www.fleetnews.co.uk
While it’s no secret that EV fires present an increased danger once the battery starts burning, Tusker’s data proves that the likelihood of an EV catching fire is significantly less than that of a petrol or diesel car.
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Interesting in that vehicles in general are so safe that arson accounts for 65% of vehicle fires.
A study by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency backs up Tusker’s findings. It concluded that EVs are 20 times less likely to catch fire than petrol and diesel cars.

With data corroborated from a US insurer, the study found that EVs suffer 25 fires per 100,000 sold.

Petrol or diesel vehicles were found to experience 1,530 fires per 100,000, with hybrid vehicles at a notably higher risk of 3,475 fires per 100,000.
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Interesting about the hybrids, too.

I've had my car on fire, but it was just oil from the busted oil pan sprayed back on the hot exhaust and it went out on its own.
 
T & P said:
On the other hand, EVs seem to handle water better than ICE cars... :D

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I've seen that video on YouTube as well and thought the same, the next thought is the disbelief at the number of morons who actually drive through that ford rather than go round it.
 
MickiQ said:
I've seen that video on YouTube as well and thought the same, the next thought is the disbelief at the number of morons who actually drive through that ford rather than go round it.
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What amazes me is that these people are allowed a driving license.
A functioning brain should be prerequisite to obtaining a driving license. Having an IQ comparable to that of a gherkin should be a valid reason for permanent exclusion from the club.
 
Saul Goodman said:
Are you sure about that? :hmm:
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I was, but looks like I was wrong - and tbf you can still find plenty of older articles talking about them being incombustible or inflammable but

www.pv-magazine.com

How safe are lithium iron phosphate batteries?

Researchers in the United Kingdom have analyzed lithium-ion battery thermal runaway off-gas and have found that nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries generate larger specific off-gas volumes, while lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries are a greater flammability hazard and show greater...
www.pv-magazine.com www.pv-magazine.com

linking to: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X24008739#fig1

“Hence LFP presents a greater flammability hazard even though they show less occurrence of flames in cell thermal runaway tests,” the researchers said."

(published very recently, the edition is dated 15th May 2024!)

So I'm thinking that earlier tests had just been looking at the occurence of flames.

Still harder to make it catch fire than Li-ion as needs a higher temperature, and I think less likely to create a flame itself so needs an external flame, which is why they could create those tests pretty easily.

Thankfully of course, there's nothing else that might cause a spark or fire in a car crash... I suppose that this comes down to protecting the battery from external flames properly, which is definitely a better issue to be dealing with than the internal battery chemistry.
 
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