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might want to put it into context though... there are on average 160,000 passenger car fires per year and about 360 deaths due to that. i'd like to see that fig
by weaksauce 5y ago
might want to put it into context though... there are on average 160,000 passenger car fires per year and about 360 deaths due to that. i'd like to see that figure broken down per 100k miles driven or per 100k cars of the type but i can't seem to find that easily.
https://www.nfpa.org/vehiclefires https://www.nfpa.org/vehiclefires
- bubbleRefuge 5y agoHow many of those are with the car off and at rest ?
- OJFord 5y agoIs that actually relevant though, or just an implementation detail? Perhaps you could argue a moving car seems more potentially hazardous? But then that's only learned from extant behaviour anyway?
- sbierwagen 5y agoA car being driven is guaranteed to have a person behind the wheel. (For now...) A electric car in an attached garage spontaneously bursting into flame at 2 am is a recipe for burning a house to the ground.
- tialaramex 5y agoIn the former case there's definitely a person inside the thing that's on fire, and in the latter case there almost definitely isn't a person inside the thing (I guess once in a while somebody sleeps in their car but this isn't recommended) and that seems like a much safer situation. Houses are replaceable, that's why people have insurance.
- fomine3 5y agoHumans are replaceable, that's why people have insurance. Just kidding.
- inside65 5y agoHow is it safer for a car to catch fire in your garage while you're asleep? This is clearly the more dangerous situation.
- tialaramex 5y agoSafer than being in a car which is on fire. That's what we're comparing here.
- inside65 5y agoI still dont understand how that is safer. If the car is on fire, you can get out. I have been to many car fires when I volunteered with the FD and unless it's a wreck with entrapment, there's never any injury. In comparison, there are plenty of deaths from fires starting while people are sleeping.
- Hamuko 5y agoSafer if you don't expect the person to get out when they see black smoke and flames coming from under their hood. Cars don't usually catch fire explosively.
- curryst 5y agoThe major issue in these fires is the lack of someone attentive. We can leverage the existing horn in the same way as anti-theft systems to fix that. We need a way to detect the issue, but I would hope there's a thermometer somewhere we can use to sense dangerous thermals. Even more interestingly, the car could communicate with your smoke detectors to set off the fire alarm. It would be a great value proposition for something like Nest. It can let you know that there's going to be a fire before it even starts. I would hope that honking the horn in case of fire is something we could achieve with a software update, but maybe not. The pipe dream would be for the car to be able to get itself somewhere safe-ish in bad conditions. We're probably a good ways off from it, and safer batteries may take over first, but worst case scenario we may be able to program some kind of "escape path" into the cars. My car has the ability to save garage door opener codes. It's not too far fetched to be able to tell it to roll up the garage door and pull out into the driveway in case of potential fire situations. You might need an automatic ejector for the charger cable, but that doesn't seem insurmountable either. I do agree that electric cars are more dangerous for now, and will continue to be even after the updates. We can narrow that gap with software, and even more with some integrated hardware. It's not all doom and gloom for EVs, though.
- wombatpm 5y agoSo automated ejection of the warp core in case of a pending breach?
- mensetmanusman 5y agoWell at this rate the refrigerator will text you if your house is burning down.
- trianglesphere 5y agoMy dad's gas car (20 years ago) caught on fire in the garage while he wasn't there. The house was fine b/c of a a code required fire break between the garage and house. It's probably more rare nowadays, but not impossible.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lmm 5y agoCatching fire when no-one's around seems like it could go a lot worse than catching fire with a driver present.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- api 5y agoI would much rather my car catch on fire when I am not in it. Well I’d really prefer it not catch on fire at all but you get the idea…
- rootusrootus 5y agoThere have been a couple of big recalls in the not-to-distant past for ICE vehicles spontaneously combusting. They have electric components too, which can short out and start a fire.
- wombatpm 5y agoSaturn had a recall over generator fires when the car was off. When running the generator would over heat, when the car was off the residual heat would cause a fire since there was no cooling airflow. My sister had her Chrysler LeBarron go up in flames in her parking garage. Happens more often than you think
- ineedasername 5y agoYes, but an important part of that context is that electric car fires also burn longer and hotter and take significantly more effort to put out. Too little water can actually make the fire worse. Annecdotally, my recollection from other articles is that electric cars do in fact catch on fire less often. But it also seems like they may be more difficult to deal with. This may change as EV's become more mainstream & fire departments adapt: Graphite may be effective in putting out these fires, and maybe it will become a common tool in fire departments. For the time being, rare or not, they post a much larger problem to deal with when they do occur.
- Voloskaya 5y ago> For the time being, rare or not, they post a much larger problem to deal with when they do occur. It seems to me that being harder to put off but occurring less frequently, and most importantly not exploding (leaving significant amount of time for occupants to get out, if they are able) is a pretty good trade off.
- ineedasername 5y agoIt could be a good trade off, it depends on more details though. Do electric car fires flame up faster, giving passengers less time to exit the car? What about toxic fumes emanating from the burning batteries? Since they they burn hotter and for much longer, are they more likely to damage surrounding infrastructure, like a bridge, before being extinguished? I don't know the answer to these questions. They could all be "no". But before judging the trade off those are important factors to understand.
- JshWright 5y agoLithium batteries are far more explodey than modern gas tanks. Battery fires burn much hotter and faster than "regular" vehicle fires (which are generally just the contents of the vehicle burning, not the fuel).
- ineedasername 5y agoAlso a gasoline car actually exploding is exceedingly rare. It generally takes a bit of effort to get gasoline to explode, rather than simply catch on fire. The tiny explosions that occur in the engine are only possibly due to gasoline being aerosolized into a fine mist. Take a gas can with a soaked rag & trail of gasoline leading to it & set it on fire and you'll have quite a fire on your hands, but no explosion. Now, add a tiny bit a black powder to the equation to disperse the flaming gasoline into the air and you've got a small fuel-air bomb on your hands. But that-- or similarly explosive circumstances-- just don't happen with cars much at all. Pop culture, where a few guns shots result in an explosion, gives the wrong impression here.
- mcguire 5y agohttps://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osvehiclefires.pdf https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-st... 56 vehicle fires / billion miles driven. 15 vehicle fire deaths / hundred billion miles driven.
- dangs_dingdong 5y agoThen go break it down and tell us what you find, big guy.