11 ms·

Thermal runaway in Lithium-ion battery packs is one reason that I don't ever want an EV parked inside my garage. These fires are hard to put out.

samatman 5y ago
I'm not really seeing a scenario where an out-of-control car fire has worse results in a garage for gasoline vs. lithium ion. In both cases it's an absolutely massive thermal conflagration, with no hope of putting it out using anything a homeowner has on hand, and it will proceed so rapidly that the house is going to be totaled by the time the fire department shows up. I have to figure this is just bias toward the familiar. I will grant you that I don't refill an ICE car inside my own garage, so maybe charging genuinely makes the electric more dangerous. But it probably doesn't do so in fact, I would guess in both cases the biggest risk is something like leaving rags soaked in linseed oil and getting spontaneous combustion.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I haven't heard of any ICE engines spontaneously combusting. I have heard of many lithium batteries, primarily in phones, combusting. We're better at keeping gasoline safe than charged electrical energy.
  - sgt101 5y ago
    Electrical fires regularly kick off gasoline fires in ice vehicles.
  - jhealy 5y ago
    When I was a kid in the early 90s our family car caught fire while parked in the driveway and turned off. It'd been parked for an hour or two, and the trigger was something electrical in the engine cavity.
  - tlb 5y ago
    They are fairly common. 233,300 fires and 329 deaths per year in the US according to http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/vehicle-fires/vehicle-fire-trends-and-patterns http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      That covers the number of times vehicles have caught fire. It doesn't reference the cause (e.g. spontaneous combustion vs. as a result of a crash).
      - davidgould 5y ago
        I personally have had the car I was driving catch fire spontaneously. Once I was inside, once nearby. Funny thing, same car, different causes.
        HWR_14 5y ago
        I'm glad you got out safely. Judging by all the replies it's far more likely than I guessed. I've been lucky.
      - tlb 5y ago
        The NFPA has data on that too. Fire causes are: - 47% mechanical - 21% electrical - 7% intentional - 6% exposure - 4% crash, overturn, run-over - 2% smoking So crashes are a relatively rare cause. They also break it down by the area the fire started: - 63% engine area, running gear, or wheel area - 11% passenger/operator area - 5% cargo/trunk - 3% exterior - 2% fuel tank or line Interpolating between those numbers, you might guess that between 20% and 40% of fires could be described as "engine spontaneously combusting." That would be 45,000 - 90,000 per year in the US. So despite you never having heard of it, it does happen. [0] https://www.nfpa.org/vehiclefires https://www.nfpa.org/vehiclefires, numbers above from report table 8 & 9
        HWR_14 5y ago
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    FWIW, a friend's Aston Martin V8 Vantage spontaneously combusted in front of his house a few years ago. Car was a total loss and took the insurance and manufacturer months to sort out who was liable for damages (fortunately, just replacement of the car - no other cars were parked nearby, and friend kept it in the street).
  - greedo 5y ago
    My friends house burned down due to a car fire inside his garage. The engine didn't spontaneously combust (any more than the Tesla power-ask in the article), but having a car in a garage does pose some risk.
  - wrycoder 5y ago
    I had a friend whose block heater shorted out while the car was in his garage. He was alerted by a smoke detector, went out in his PJ's, opened the garage door, and pushed the car outside, whereupon it burst into a pillar of flame. He noticed significant tingling in his feet while pushing the car out. This was in the days before GFCIs. He's lucky he wasn't electrocuted.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      Cars have stopped catching on fire nearly as often since GFCIs were introduced. My guess is that is coincidence.
  - vel0city 5y ago
    You've never heard of any ICE car spontaneously combusting? You must not follow any car recalls, tons of cars have been recalled in the past due to fire risks. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35782883/kia-cadenza-sportage-recall-fire-risk/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35782883/kia-cadenza-spor... https://www.autosafety.org/ford-ignition-switch-fires/ https://www.autosafety.org/ford-ignition-switch-fires/ https://www.mlive.com/news/2021/03/2021-ram-truck-owner-encouraged-to-park-vehicle-outside-due-to-fire-risk-recall-announced.html https://www.mlive.com/news/2021/03/2021-ram-truck-owner-enco... https://www.industryweek.com/operations/safety/article/21963739/new-toyota-recall-suspension-flaw-fuels-fire-risk https://www.industryweek.com/operations/safety/article/21963... https://www.auto123.com/en/news/gm-recall-risk-of-fire/61360/ https://www.auto123.com/en/news/gm-recall-risk-of-fire/61360... ICE vehicles can have strange failure modes leaking flammable fluids places where they should go where its really hot. Sometimes this gets mixed with a spark from a bad electrical connector, sometimes it drips on something hot.
- testfoobar 5y ago
  Many newly built homes have automatic sprinklers - capable of containing and localizing the damage from fires. A sprinkler system running on regular water supply pressure is not going to put out a lithium ion fire.
  - greedo 5y ago
    This is not common by any stretch. I have never seen a residential home with automatic sprinklers, only commercial real estate and apartments. The cost is prohibitive, and in many climates (where freezing is a norm) would be useless in garages.
    - testfoobar 5y ago
      California is a big EV market. Sprinklers are required in new construction in CA. https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/advocacy/docs/top-priorities/codes/fire-sprinklers/fire-sprinkler-state-adoption-2019.pdf https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/advocacy/docs/top-prioriti...
      - greedo 5y ago
        Your link shows that 48 out of 50 states don't require sprinklers. I would guess that less than 5% of SFR in the US have sprinklers.
        harambae 5y ago
        >Your link shows that 48 out of 50 states don't require sprinklers. Partial Mandate: NY, Mass Full Mandate: CA, Maryland Those are 2 big states in there. By population the four are ~73 million, or a fifth of America.
        greedo 5y ago
        Massachusetts only requires them in townhomes and houses over 14K square feet. In other words mansions. NY only requires them in three story buildings, otherwise it's up to the buyer. So these are nonsense arguments. Considering how many existing houses are exempt from all of this, I would estimate that less than 10% of the homes in CA have them, and less than 2% in these other four states.
- testfoobar 5y ago
  This is a good discussion on StackExchange about the fire risk of Li-Ion batteries: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/230155/why-is-there-so-much-fear-surrounding-lipo-batteries https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/230155/why-i...
extropy 5y ago
Gasoline has way more thermal energy. Yes, it's easier to put out, bit it gives you way less time before things really get out of hand.
- foepys 5y ago
  Gasoline is not what makes a car fire bad. It's everything else of the car which is almost identical between ICE and EV.
rybosworld 5y ago
I don't believe EV cars are anymore likely to catch fire than gasoline cars. Either way, if a car catches fire in your garage you are in for a bad time. It's definitely good to spread the awareness that many fire extinguishers are not suitable to put out lithium fires, though.
- dreamcompiler 5y ago
  > fire extinguishers are not suitable to put out lithium fires Only Class D fire extinguishers can put out lithium metal fires. But lithium-ion batteries do not contain lithium metal. Lithium metal batteries do so, but no EV uses lithium metal batteries because they're too dangerous. Class B fire extinguishers work just fine on lithium-ion battery fires. The difficulty with lithium-ion EV fires is that they tend to re-light, but water is still the tool of choice for putting them out.
  - rybosworld 5y ago
    Today I learned!
brianwawok 5y ago
I have literally never heard of a Tesla bursting into flames while parked in a garage. Have you? I mean that’s fine if this is the hill you want to die on, but right now I think it’s just as likely your gas car fireball explodes like a Hollywood movie while parked in your garage.
- alrs 5y ago
  aside from running into fire trucks, isn't that their primary claim to fame? https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-fire-shanghai-parking-garage https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-fire-shanghai-parking-ga...
- lancesells 5y ago
  I've also never heard of people burning alive in a car without a driver.
- fhrow4484 5y ago
  > I have literally never heard of a Tesla bursting into flames while parked in a garage. Maybe a quick search would help you find the answer for yourself before making such comment. See for instance this article compiling a couple examples: https://www.thedrive.com/news/28420/parked-teslas-keep-catching-on-fire-randomly-and-theres-no-recall-in-sight https://www.thedrive.com/news/28420/parked-teslas-keep-catch... Some of the occurrences are while the vehicle is being charged, some are simply when the car is parked.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-cars-catch-on-fire-2019-4?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-cars-catch-on-fire... Now you have.
m0llusk 5y ago
Many promising alternatives to lithium ion batteries are being experimented with now, so saying you don't ever want an EV parked inside your garage based on problems with lithium ion batteries may not be entirely reasonable.
- carlhjerpe 5y ago
  I interpreted it as "I would never want an EV with the current tech in my garage". Considering he probably keeps his ICE car with a 12volt lead battery in his garage.
- asddubs 5y ago
  that seems like a pretty nitpicky response. I mean contextually it's clear what was meant
29083011397778 5y ago
Everybody else keeps trying to tell you ICE cars store more energy, or could spontaneously combust just as easily, and they're not wrong. But when I'm filling up my car with a jerry can, I'm literally holding it. I know to have some sense of caution, and I can see spills. I do not leave it to slowly trickle fill overnight, like one would with an EV; not only am I not there in that scenario, but odds are I'm not even awake. The odds are minuscule, and you're more likely to die in many other ways. But the fix is so easy - assuming it's not going to hit -30, just keep it outside. And the risk (probability multiplied by chances for it to happen) is going to get so great when everyone has an EV, that I can at least see your point. I don't agree, and were I able to afford a house with a garage and a Tesla to park in it, I probably would. Doubly so as it hits -50 with wind chill here. But to dismiss your concerns outright doesn't feel quite right to me.
- caf 5y ago
  But when I'm filling up my car with a jerry can, I'm literally holding it. I know to have some sense of caution, and I can see spills. This is true, but you can't see the static electrical charge on the can that's going to discharge with a spark when it touches the filler tube...
- fortran77 5y ago
  Well, you're not going to park a Tesla outside because you need to charge it overnight. And many people have to park their ICE cars in a garage not because it gets too cold, but because they live in a place (like San Francisco) where cars out on the street will all get broken into, vandalized, or stripped.
fastball 5y ago
Probably not a major concern in your garage. These battery packs are built with fairly well-isolated cells that even if one fails should not result in a domino effect. The reason you see issues in cases like this is because the wreck totally decimated that isolation with mechanical force and so you get runaway effects.

samatman 5y ago

I'm not really seeing a scenario where an out-of-control car fire has worse results in a garage for gasoline vs. lithium ion. In both cases it's an absolutely massive thermal conflagration, with no hope of putting it out using anything a homeowner has on hand, and it will proceed so rapidly that the house is going to be totaled by the time the fire department shows up. I have to figure this is just bias toward the familiar. I will grant you that I don't refill an ICE car inside my own garage, so maybe charging genuinely makes the electric more dangerous. But it probably doesn't do so in fact, I would guess in both cases the biggest risk is something like leaving rags soaked in linseed oil and getting spontaneous combustion.

HWR_14 5y ago
I haven't heard of any ICE engines spontaneously combusting. I have heard of many lithium batteries, primarily in phones, combusting. We're better at keeping gasoline safe than charged electrical energy.
- sgt101 5y ago
  Electrical fires regularly kick off gasoline fires in ice vehicles.
- jhealy 5y ago
  When I was a kid in the early 90s our family car caught fire while parked in the driveway and turned off. It'd been parked for an hour or two, and the trigger was something electrical in the engine cavity.
- tlb 5y ago
  They are fairly common. 233,300 fires and 329 deaths per year in the US according to http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/vehicle-fires/vehicle-fire-trends-and-patterns http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    That covers the number of times vehicles have caught fire. It doesn't reference the cause (e.g. spontaneous combustion vs. as a result of a crash).
    - davidgould 5y ago
      I personally have had the car I was driving catch fire spontaneously. Once I was inside, once nearby. Funny thing, same car, different causes.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        I'm glad you got out safely. Judging by all the replies it's far more likely than I guessed. I've been lucky.
    - tlb 5y ago
      The NFPA has data on that too. Fire causes are: - 47% mechanical - 21% electrical - 7% intentional - 6% exposure - 4% crash, overturn, run-over - 2% smoking So crashes are a relatively rare cause. They also break it down by the area the fire started: - 63% engine area, running gear, or wheel area - 11% passenger/operator area - 5% cargo/trunk - 3% exterior - 2% fuel tank or line Interpolating between those numbers, you might guess that between 20% and 40% of fires could be described as "engine spontaneously combusting." That would be 45,000 - 90,000 per year in the US. So despite you never having heard of it, it does happen. [0] https://www.nfpa.org/vehiclefires https://www.nfpa.org/vehiclefires, numbers above from report table 8 & 9
      - HWR_14 5y ago
- alistairSH 5y ago
  FWIW, a friend's Aston Martin V8 Vantage spontaneously combusted in front of his house a few years ago. Car was a total loss and took the insurance and manufacturer months to sort out who was liable for damages (fortunately, just replacement of the car - no other cars were parked nearby, and friend kept it in the street).
- greedo 5y ago
  My friends house burned down due to a car fire inside his garage. The engine didn't spontaneously combust (any more than the Tesla power-ask in the article), but having a car in a garage does pose some risk.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  I had a friend whose block heater shorted out while the car was in his garage. He was alerted by a smoke detector, went out in his PJ's, opened the garage door, and pushed the car outside, whereupon it burst into a pillar of flame. He noticed significant tingling in his feet while pushing the car out. This was in the days before GFCIs. He's lucky he wasn't electrocuted.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    Cars have stopped catching on fire nearly as often since GFCIs were introduced. My guess is that is coincidence.
- vel0city 5y ago
  You've never heard of any ICE car spontaneously combusting? You must not follow any car recalls, tons of cars have been recalled in the past due to fire risks. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35782883/kia-cadenza-sportage-recall-fire-risk/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35782883/kia-cadenza-spor... https://www.autosafety.org/ford-ignition-switch-fires/ https://www.autosafety.org/ford-ignition-switch-fires/ https://www.mlive.com/news/2021/03/2021-ram-truck-owner-encouraged-to-park-vehicle-outside-due-to-fire-risk-recall-announced.html https://www.mlive.com/news/2021/03/2021-ram-truck-owner-enco... https://www.industryweek.com/operations/safety/article/21963739/new-toyota-recall-suspension-flaw-fuels-fire-risk https://www.industryweek.com/operations/safety/article/21963... https://www.auto123.com/en/news/gm-recall-risk-of-fire/61360/ https://www.auto123.com/en/news/gm-recall-risk-of-fire/61360... ICE vehicles can have strange failure modes leaking flammable fluids places where they should go where its really hot. Sometimes this gets mixed with a spark from a bad electrical connector, sometimes it drips on something hot.
testfoobar 5y ago
Many newly built homes have automatic sprinklers - capable of containing and localizing the damage from fires. A sprinkler system running on regular water supply pressure is not going to put out a lithium ion fire.
- greedo 5y ago
  This is not common by any stretch. I have never seen a residential home with automatic sprinklers, only commercial real estate and apartments. The cost is prohibitive, and in many climates (where freezing is a norm) would be useless in garages.
  - testfoobar 5y ago
    California is a big EV market. Sprinklers are required in new construction in CA. https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/advocacy/docs/top-priorities/codes/fire-sprinklers/fire-sprinkler-state-adoption-2019.pdf https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/advocacy/docs/top-prioriti...
    - greedo 5y ago
      Your link shows that 48 out of 50 states don't require sprinklers. I would guess that less than 5% of SFR in the US have sprinklers.
      - harambae 5y ago
        >Your link shows that 48 out of 50 states don't require sprinklers. Partial Mandate: NY, Mass Full Mandate: CA, Maryland Those are 2 big states in there. By population the four are ~73 million, or a fifth of America.
        greedo 5y ago
        Massachusetts only requires them in townhomes and houses over 14K square feet. In other words mansions. NY only requires them in three story buildings, otherwise it's up to the buyer. So these are nonsense arguments. Considering how many existing houses are exempt from all of this, I would estimate that less than 10% of the homes in CA have them, and less than 2% in these other four states.
testfoobar 5y ago
This is a good discussion on StackExchange about the fire risk of Li-Ion batteries: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/230155/why-is-there-so-much-fear-surrounding-lipo-batteries https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/230155/why-i...

extropy 5y ago

Gasoline has way more thermal energy. Yes, it's easier to put out, bit it gives you way less time before things really get out of hand.

foepys 5y ago
Gasoline is not what makes a car fire bad. It's everything else of the car which is almost identical between ICE and EV.

rybosworld 5y ago

I don't believe EV cars are anymore likely to catch fire than gasoline cars. Either way, if a car catches fire in your garage you are in for a bad time. It's definitely good to spread the awareness that many fire extinguishers are not suitable to put out lithium fires, though.

dreamcompiler 5y ago
> fire extinguishers are not suitable to put out lithium fires Only Class D fire extinguishers can put out lithium metal fires. But lithium-ion batteries do not contain lithium metal. Lithium metal batteries do so, but no EV uses lithium metal batteries because they're too dangerous. Class B fire extinguishers work just fine on lithium-ion battery fires. The difficulty with lithium-ion EV fires is that they tend to re-light, but water is still the tool of choice for putting them out.
- rybosworld 5y ago
  Today I learned!

brianwawok 5y ago

I have literally never heard of a Tesla bursting into flames while parked in a garage. Have you? I mean that’s fine if this is the hill you want to die on, but right now I think it’s just as likely your gas car fireball explodes like a Hollywood movie while parked in your garage.

alrs 5y ago
aside from running into fire trucks, isn't that their primary claim to fame? https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-fire-shanghai-parking-garage https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-fire-shanghai-parking-ga...
lancesells 5y ago
I've also never heard of people burning alive in a car without a driver.
fhrow4484 5y ago
> I have literally never heard of a Tesla bursting into flames while parked in a garage. Maybe a quick search would help you find the answer for yourself before making such comment. See for instance this article compiling a couple examples: https://www.thedrive.com/news/28420/parked-teslas-keep-catching-on-fire-randomly-and-theres-no-recall-in-sight https://www.thedrive.com/news/28420/parked-teslas-keep-catch... Some of the occurrences are while the vehicle is being charged, some are simply when the car is parked.
pessimizer 5y ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-cars-catch-on-fire-2019-4?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-cars-catch-on-fire... Now you have.

m0llusk 5y ago

Many promising alternatives to lithium ion batteries are being experimented with now, so saying you don't ever want an EV parked inside your garage based on problems with lithium ion batteries may not be entirely reasonable.

carlhjerpe 5y ago
I interpreted it as "I would never want an EV with the current tech in my garage". Considering he probably keeps his ICE car with a 12volt lead battery in his garage.
asddubs 5y ago
that seems like a pretty nitpicky response. I mean contextually it's clear what was meant

29083011397778 5y ago

Everybody else keeps trying to tell you ICE cars store more energy, or could spontaneously combust just as easily, and they're not wrong. But when I'm filling up my car with a jerry can, I'm literally holding it. I know to have some sense of caution, and I can see spills. I do not leave it to slowly trickle fill overnight, like one would with an EV; not only am I not there in that scenario, but odds are I'm not even awake. The odds are minuscule, and you're more likely to die in many other ways. But the fix is so easy - assuming it's not going to hit -30, just keep it outside. And the risk (probability multiplied by chances for it to happen) is going to get so great when everyone has an EV, that I can at least see your point. I don't agree, and were I able to afford a house with a garage and a Tesla to park in it, I probably would. Doubly so as it hits -50 with wind chill here. But to dismiss your concerns outright doesn't feel quite right to me.

caf 5y ago
But when I'm filling up my car with a jerry can, I'm literally holding it. I know to have some sense of caution, and I can see spills. This is true, but you can't see the static electrical charge on the can that's going to discharge with a spark when it touches the filler tube...
fortran77 5y ago
Well, you're not going to park a Tesla outside because you need to charge it overnight. And many people have to park their ICE cars in a garage not because it gets too cold, but because they live in a place (like San Francisco) where cars out on the street will all get broken into, vandalized, or stripped.

fastball 5y ago

Probably not a major concern in your garage. These battery packs are built with fairly well-isolated cells that even if one fails should not result in a domino effect. The reason you see issues in cases like this is because the wreck totally decimated that isolation with mechanical force and so you get runaway effects.