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EVs catch fire drastically less than combustion fueled vehicles because they don't involve explosive materials. Also we ship giant ships full of oil and gas all

EVs catch fire drastically less than combustion fueled vehicles because they don't involve explosive materials. Also we ship giant ships full of oil and gas all over the world every single day which is vastly more combustible than batteries.

kec 4y ago
ICE vehicles aren't filled with fuel when shipped, and oil and gas both have to aerosolize in an oxygen rich environment before ignition is possible. Batteries just have to get hot, and that can occur from simple mechanical damage.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  ICE vehicles contain enough gas to be driven around at the plant lots, in/out of autocars (rail cars that carry cars), around at port lots, on and off ships, and so on. "Simple mechanical damage" to the battery in an EV is a lot harder than you think. The packs are designed to remain intact in crashes...
IshKebab 4y ago
Oil and gas require oxygen to burn.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  And heat. And you know what is around ships? Near infinite amount of easily handled high heat capacity coolant. Okay, usually the stuff is pretty contaminated, but some cleaning and resurfacing is better than everything staying burning.
Ekaros 4y ago
Maybe we should demand same safety standards from EVs. Fill those parts that could cause fire with inert gas if that helps. Yearly or as often checks that these systems operate correctly.
krisoft 4y ago
> Also we ship giant ships full of oil and gas all over the world every single day which is vastly more combustible than batteries. I see what you are saying, but the way we mitigate the fire and explosion hazards on oil and gas transport ships is not really applicable to roll-on/roll-off ships. The oil tankers and LNG ships use a technic called innert atmosphere to protect their cargo from fire hazard. The idea is that they fill the ulage spaces with a gas low in oxygen to make sure an explosive mixture can’t form. It would be very hard to innert the whole cargo space of a RO/RO ship the same way, might damage the cargo, would be hazardous to the operators and wouldn’t actually help with a potential thermal runaway of a battery anyway. I will discuss these points in detail: How do they generate this innerting gas usually? There are two main options. You either use nitrogen, or you pipe in the exhaust gas of the engines. Nitrogen would probably be cost prohibitive. The RO/RO ships are cavernous. The exhaust gas based sytem would cost less, but would damage the cargo. Nobody would want a car which reeks like an ashtray. The innerted atmosphere is obviously incompatible with human occupancy, yet the cars are usually driven on and off these carriers by a small army of operators. So you need to have processes to vent the innert atmosphere before the vehicles can be embarked/dissembarked, and you need other processes to ensure the venting worked properly otherwise your shore crew will suffocate. This adds complexity, and risks to the operation. This is not a problem on tankers because there nobody needs to enter the tanks during normal operations. And then finaly why it might not help after all? The nature of electric vehicle battery thermal runaway is such that it doesn’t require oxygen from the atmosphere. It is an exotermic reaction, but not a “fire” in the fire-triangle sense. So all in all, the one big trick of the tankers can’t be used with vehicle carrying operations. Thus the analogy is less than useful. Not saying that we can’t carry EVs safely, just that our ability to carry fuels safely does not in any way correlate with our ability to carry EVs safely.
- _ph_ 4y ago
  The problem is, that a lack of oxygene might prevent fires, but not battery shorts and the consequential heat. For treating battery fires, water is the best. Fortunately, water is easy to come by for a ship. So one component to transition car carriers is to add large sprinkler systems, which can quickly cool down a car with a thermal runaway. Ironically, what is often claimed as a fundamental problem with batteries, their lower energy density than fuel, should make them less dangerous in the case of a disaster in the case of a fire. But the nature of the fire is differently and needs to be handled accordingly. (Of course, shipped cars probably only contain a minimum amount of fuel, but likewise, electric cars would only be minimally charged)

kec 4y ago

ICE vehicles aren't filled with fuel when shipped, and oil and gas both have to aerosolize in an oxygen rich environment before ignition is possible. Batteries just have to get hot, and that can occur from simple mechanical damage.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
ICE vehicles contain enough gas to be driven around at the plant lots, in/out of autocars (rail cars that carry cars), around at port lots, on and off ships, and so on. "Simple mechanical damage" to the battery in an EV is a lot harder than you think. The packs are designed to remain intact in crashes...

IshKebab 4y ago

Oil and gas require oxygen to burn.

Ekaros 4y ago
And heat. And you know what is around ships? Near infinite amount of easily handled high heat capacity coolant. Okay, usually the stuff is pretty contaminated, but some cleaning and resurfacing is better than everything staying burning.

Ekaros 4y ago

Maybe we should demand same safety standards from EVs. Fill those parts that could cause fire with inert gas if that helps. Yearly or as often checks that these systems operate correctly.

krisoft 4y ago

> Also we ship giant ships full of oil and gas all over the world every single day which is vastly more combustible than batteries. I see what you are saying, but the way we mitigate the fire and explosion hazards on oil and gas transport ships is not really applicable to roll-on/roll-off ships. The oil tankers and LNG ships use a technic called innert atmosphere to protect their cargo from fire hazard. The idea is that they fill the ulage spaces with a gas low in oxygen to make sure an explosive mixture can’t form. It would be very hard to innert the whole cargo space of a RO/RO ship the same way, might damage the cargo, would be hazardous to the operators and wouldn’t actually help with a potential thermal runaway of a battery anyway. I will discuss these points in detail: How do they generate this innerting gas usually? There are two main options. You either use nitrogen, or you pipe in the exhaust gas of the engines. Nitrogen would probably be cost prohibitive. The RO/RO ships are cavernous. The exhaust gas based sytem would cost less, but would damage the cargo. Nobody would want a car which reeks like an ashtray. The innerted atmosphere is obviously incompatible with human occupancy, yet the cars are usually driven on and off these carriers by a small army of operators. So you need to have processes to vent the innert atmosphere before the vehicles can be embarked/dissembarked, and you need other processes to ensure the venting worked properly otherwise your shore crew will suffocate. This adds complexity, and risks to the operation. This is not a problem on tankers because there nobody needs to enter the tanks during normal operations. And then finaly why it might not help after all? The nature of electric vehicle battery thermal runaway is such that it doesn’t require oxygen from the atmosphere. It is an exotermic reaction, but not a “fire” in the fire-triangle sense. So all in all, the one big trick of the tankers can’t be used with vehicle carrying operations. Thus the analogy is less than useful. Not saying that we can’t carry EVs safely, just that our ability to carry fuels safely does not in any way correlate with our ability to carry EVs safely.

_ph_ 4y ago
The problem is, that a lack of oxygene might prevent fires, but not battery shorts and the consequential heat. For treating battery fires, water is the best. Fortunately, water is easy to come by for a ship. So one component to transition car carriers is to add large sprinkler systems, which can quickly cool down a car with a thermal runaway. Ironically, what is often claimed as a fundamental problem with batteries, their lower energy density than fuel, should make them less dangerous in the case of a disaster in the case of a fire. But the nature of the fire is differently and needs to be handled accordingly. (Of course, shipped cars probably only contain a minimum amount of fuel, but likewise, electric cars would only be minimally charged)