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Yep. Moreover, the issue isn't new cars today. You know when you saw that old Chrysler Grand Caravan burning on the side of the road, and you hear the story t
by MrFoof 5y ago
Yep. Moreover, the issue isn't new cars today.
You know when you saw that old Chrysler Grand Caravan burning on the side of the road, and you hear the story that the person has been holding it together solely with thoughts and prayers and maybe $500 between tires and oil for the last 7 years of its 19 year life?
That's the current inevitability. I'm not worried about someone's 6-month old Bolt or 2-year old Model 3. The issue is when we're eventually talking about a 22-year old Model 3 that's had 13 years of deferred maintenance, is totally clapped out, and is only on the road because someone paid some mechanic off to look the other way during a state vehicle inspection for the past 5 years.
Germany is starting to standardize on towing an electric car away to dunk it in a tank to ultimately handle fires.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago> Germany is starting to standardize on towing an electric car away to dunk it in a tank to ultimately handle fires. I suppose if the problem is widespread enough, every city will have a mobile dunk truck at the ready for electric vehicle fires.
- chrisco255 5y agoAnd what do you do if those fires cause other things to burn in the vicinity?
- acmdas 5y agoNot if, when.
- avianlyric 5y agoSame thing you do when an ICE car sets a building on fire. Apply water and put it out.
- ineedasername 5y agoExcept for an ICE you only need to dump about 300 gallons on it. For an EV, it can take 24 hours to get the thing fully dealt with.
- Armisael16 5y agoThat's only relevant for the EV itself, not for the stuff it lit on fire.
- chipsa 5y agoYou put out the fire, then dunk the EV in a tank when it's out to keep it from reigniting, while not having to monitor it.
- burnished 5y agoBring the regular truck filled with water to hose it down.
- beamatronic 5y agoThis is yet another good reason to decouple the battery from the rest of the vehicle. Hit the emergency release, battery drops out of the car, and push the rest of the vehicle away.
- InvertedRhodium 5y ago> and is only on the road because someone paid some mechanic off to look the other way during a state vehicle inspection for the past 5 years. Making mechanics liable - maybe jointly as a business and an individual - for their failure to inspect vehicles properly would be a pretty simple mechanic to reduce this risk.
- jimmaswell 5y agoThese inspections are nothing but pointless revenue generation for the state, checking for the check engine light and inspecting 1 wheel at most usually. Lots of states don't even have them.
- thescriptkiddie 5y agoIn Germany they are very serious about vehicle inspections, and insurance requirements.
- beambot 5y agoDidn't the big German auto manufacturers literally develop the hacks to bypass diesel emissions inspections? I'm not sure I'd hold anyone up in a pedestal on this score...
- brokenmachine 5y agoThey got caught.
- dagw 5y agoNot by any German regulator or agency.
- bildung 5y agoThose have nothing to do with each other: Germany indeed has a company level corruption problem (especially in combination with the conservative party), but pretty low corruption at the citizen level, i.e. where vehicle inspections happen.
- Valgrim 5y agoTowing the car in a tank seems a sensible solution, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be simpler to tow the tank near the vehicle, lift it and dunk it there?
- ineedasername 5y agoIt could be hard to get a car up into the tank... connecting a winch might not be possible due to the heat, but I wonder how they get around that to tow it? Also, needing to plan for larger vehicles like a pickup truck would mean > 4,000 lbs of water to submerge one, base an approximate dimensions of such trucks & the corresponding volume of water. Than again with batteries generally in the bottom of the car, maybe you'd only need to submerge a few feet? I can definitely see the need for new emergency response equipment in the EV future.
- steelframe 5y ago> It could be hard to get a car up into the tank... connecting a winch might not be possible due to the heat, but I wonder how they get around that to tow it? Seems like something similar in design to this would do the trick, maybe with sufficiently thick steel plating on the side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaYN6yC4bnI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaYN6yC4bnI
- outworlder 5y ago> The issue is when we're eventually talking about a 22-year old Model 3 that's had 13 years of deferred maintenance, is totally clapped out, and is only on the road because someone paid some mechanic off to look the other way during a state vehicle inspection for the past 5 years. Except that the 22 year Model 3 also has a computer inside the battery that should be keeping things in check. Assuming the battery can even hold any charge at that age.
- beamatronic 5y agoAnd said computer was likely receiving software updates and sending telemetry for most, if not all, of that time.
- Ekaros 5y agoOr it have been hacked either to send fake data or no data at all... Knowing the general level of security in industry and even with some high end smartphones, I expect it to happen.
- rdtwo 5y agoIf it’s a Chrysler product it doesn’t need thoughts prayers or old age to spontaneously combust. A brand new one will sometimes so it all on its own due to bad design
- RickJWagner 5y agoI kind of hope that gets to be an (infrequent) problem. As it is, I've lately been wondering about what happens to 14 year-old electric cars with dead batteries that cost more than the car is worth.
- theodric 5y agoPeople like me buy them for $500 and put the motor in a grass kart
- RickJWagner 5y agoI had no idea what a 'grass kart' was, so I looked it up. Cool stuff! And thanks for repurposing the motors.
- clusterfish 5y agoSome countries have mandatory regular inspections for critical vehicle functionality like brakes. We will probably require EV battery checks like this as well, if the BMS / firmware is not enough to keep the battery pack safe.
- TeMPOraL 5y agoGP covered that: "(...) and is only on the road because someone paid some mechanic off to look the other way during a state vehicle inspection for the past 5 years".
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoSafety inspections are close to worthless for safety on a macro level (they are great if you own a BHPH dealer or are a government regulator trying to give shops a reason not to fudge emissions inspections though). You implement mild inspection laws and they do nothing because people can just pay the fine or whatever. You implement invasive inspections where people are rich and they do nothing because rich people already don't drive on bald tires and whatnot. You implement invasive inspections where people are poor and you create incentives to circumvent the law and hardship among those who don't ignore the law. Mechanical failure is a negligible cause of accidents and injury so applying lots of effort co chase something that's only a source of the minority of problems is kind of a fools errand to throw a ton of societal resources at it. If inspections really make the roads safer it would be an insurance thing and you'd see differences in premiums that reflect differences in law, insurers setting up their own programs where none exist and lobbying states for inspection programs. You basically never even hear a peep out of them about safety inspections unless it's in the context of getting people to upgrade to a newer car with better safety tech. Contrast with intoxication, distraction and driver training which are issues that insurers and their lobbyists constantly weigh in on.