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Tesla fires after hurricane raises alarm for Florida officials
- gw99 4y agoWhen insurers get on this you know there's a problem. Our insurers void our building insurance if anyone parks an EV in the underground car park...
- ironmagma 4y agoLuckily, FL has an abundance of currently wasted land. It should be easily solvable. In CA, a bigger challenge as the land is actually used efficiently so there is little room to shuffle parking spots around.
- t-writescode 4y agoUh, what? Do you mean all the national parks and farmland?
- sidewndr46 4y agoThey must be referring to those pesky wetlands. We can just fill those in and convert the entire state of Florida into one giant parking lot.
- ironmagma 4y agoIronically, what I meant was the land that is currently undrivable asphalt. Have you ever been to Plantation? It’s just one big tarmac basically.
- ironmagma 4y agoNo, I mean the unnecessary margins around literally every structure “minimum setback requirements.”
- toast0 4y agoIf you mark all of FL as uninhabitable (which is true to a first approximation), you would have a whole lot fewer EVs parked in the state, for sure.
- ironmagma 4y agoThere are a lot of people living here considering it is unlivable.
- marcinzm 4y ago>a bigger challenge as the land is actually used efficiently You've never seen a population density map of California have you?
- ironmagma 4y agoYes, I have driven all over CA and lived there as well. The places EVs are, mainly LA and SF, all the land is being used reasonably, even if it’s not for people. In FL, there is about 500 feet of empty space around every object of interest serving no purpose basically.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoThose are drainage ponds usually filled with water because much of Florida is swamp.
- ironmagma 4y agoI’ve lived in FL all of my life save for 6 years spent in CA. We’re not talking about the same thing.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoGood luck getting insurance at all in Florida these days. All those hurricane claims add up.
- CamperBob2 4y agoOur insurers void our building insurance if anyone parks an EV in the underground car park... Got a link that backs that up?
- gw99 4y agoIt's the leaseholders who handled it. They sent out updated terms for the apartment building which extended insurance exclusions. Not in USA for ref...
- astura 4y agoYou want this person to post their insurance policy?
- CamperBob2 4y agoThat would be a pretty damned important part of the policy's public documentation and advertising, now, wouldn't it?
- astura 4y agoNo? I've never been able to read a policy before underwriting? The same insurance carriers have different sub-companies they put different customers in depending on the specifics of the customer, one sub-company might have the restrictions and one might not. Might also depend on the specifics of the car park - how close to the building it is, if it's attached, etc. You really don't know what you're going to get until you get your personal quote - For example, my previous insurance policy has a separate, much higher, deductible for hurricane claims which wasn't disclosed until after I got the quote. I shopped around quite a bit because I wasn't happy with that provision of the policy and was able to find one that didn't have a separate hurricane deductible for cheaper.
- CamperBob2 4y agoYou really don't know what you're going to get until you get your personal quote Exactly. You get a quote, you read the attached policy, it says "No EVs can be parked on premises," you have a good chuckle and toss the quote in the trash. I don't understand any of this "You have to buy the policy to see what is in it" reasoning.
- denimnerd42 4y agohow can you even police that? is there security monitoring this or something? what about hybrid electrics that use li-on. what about ebikes?
- gw99 4y agoNo if the place burns down and there's an EV of any kind in there then they don't pay out. Covers explicitly eBikes and hybrids as well.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nomel 4y ago> how can you even police that? Trivially, after the investigators identify the cause of the fire. With all insurance, it’s not a matter of policing, it’s what will be covered when you try to make the claim.
- denimnerd42 4y agoI don't mean the insurance company. That's obvious. I mean how does the owner cover itself.
- nomel 4y ago> how can you even police that? is there security monitoring this or something? I don’t understand how that applies to an owner. Police and monitor themselves? Owners cover cars with car insurance, house damage (including from cars and e-bikes) with homeowners insurance. The homeowners insurance policy describes the details and requirements of what’s covered.
- astura 4y agoInsurance companies do actually do reconnaissance occasionally; my parents had their homeowners insurance cancelled this way. More commonly, they will deny a claim if, during the claims process, they found there was an EV in the parking lot at the time of the loss, even if the EV isn't related to the loss. Friend of mine is an insurance adjuster and he says he denies claims all the time when he finds out people were violating their policy terms at the time of the loss. Read your insurance policies, people.
- jackmott 4y ago
- s1artibartfast 4y agoSigh, another article focusing on Tesla battery fires when it is a common failure mode to most of not all EVs. In the end, the inconsistency makes the article more confusing. The quoted officials all talk about EVs in general while the author talks about Teslas, and the reader doesnt know what actually happened.
- lbotos 4y agoIsn't this just "the kleenex effect" where the most prominent brand becomes the "defacto name". Do you see this as some form of "slander" against Tesla?
- furyofantares 4y agoI've never heard someone IRL talking about Teslas when they mean some other EV or EVs in general. So no, it doesn't seem like the kleenex effect at all, it's just much more attention grabbing to talk about Teslas specifically in an article, so it's done even thigh it's misleading. Like, the actual article mostly only mentions EVs but then the headline says Tesla. It's clickbait. IMO the HN title should be edited to "Electric Vehicle fires..."
- bestnameever 4y ago> The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is aware of multiple fires in Tesla vehicles, the agency said in a letter sent Friday (Oct 14) to a Florida official and obtained by Bloomberg Government. Perhaps due to the popularity of Teslas, it is being seen in them more so than other vehicles
- s1artibartfast 4y agoIs it being seen more in Teslas? It is unclear from this shitty article
- lazide 4y agoIf it bleeds, it leads.
- ajross 4y agoA historically bad hurricane comes through and floods SW Florida, causing (per a quick google) $50-200B in damage, including dangerous situations of all kinds (downed power, building failures, hell, even public health issues like mold and sewage risk are real and genuine problems). But four cars catch fire and... that's what we all want to talk about? Is it time yet to start talking about Tesla Derangement Syndrome?
- sg47 4y agoWhat a horrible website. Asks to send notifications before even loading the page.
- almost_usual 4y agoThis will likely be worse after a large earthquake.
- guelo 4y agoWhy? I don't see the connection.
- almost_usual 4y agoLast time I spoke to someone in SFFD (2016) there were about 40 pumper trucks total for the entire city. Their biggest concern with earthquakes was fire. They pretty much said everyone is on their own after an earthquake to deal with fires because there are not enough resources to handle them all. Now throw in EV batteries that could be ruptured, crushed, punctured, and burning uncontrollably that require special treatment to be extinguished. Edit: 60 total engines listed here with 42 active https://sfbos.org/18-apparatus-and-vehicle-management https://sfbos.org/18-apparatus-and-vehicle-management
- natch 4y agoFearful people will fear.
- almost_usual 4y agoAnd programs like NERT and CERT exist in the Bay Area so unprepared people have someone to hopefully take care of them.
- russdill 4y agoBecause there'll also be a large number of ICE fires to deal with?
- mizzao 4y agoIf the car isn't crushed, is a bunch of shaking back and forth really as bad as saltwater damage with effects that happen over time?
- Gordonjcp 4y agoIt's worth pointing out that we managed to make cars for over a hundred years that didn't go even a little bit on fire if you got them wet. Remind me why EVs are supposed to be good, again?
- mattnewton 4y agoEnergy Efficiency? (In terms of the amount of the stored energy put into the car that actually goes towards spinning wheels and not making loud noises and lots of heat) Electrical energy can be renewable generated without carbon emission unlike hydrocarbon energy? Oh and better acceleration and handling in my experience. Early cars were also dangerous death traps, and modern ICE cars can't just drive away after being submerged either. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater; There is work to be done to mitigate water shorts of completely submerged batteries but this seems like an edge case to fix not a reason to throw out the idea of electric cars.
- acidburnNSA 4y agoEVs + batteries take a lot more energy and raw materials to manufacture but break even relatively quickly on both accounts since you get to charge them with electricity that may come from clean non-carbon energy sources like nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal as opposed to filling up regularly with dirty and high-carbon fossil and biofuel. If you charge with coal or gas-generated electricity the breakeven is slower but still generally does happen over a period of some years.
- cmsonger 4y agoAnother poster already covered a number of the benefits. I'll add another: Never going to the gas station. If you've got overnight charging, your car is ready to go every morning. My wife and I bought an EV about 5 years ago. I go to the gas station about twice a year for our gas car that we use once in a while. And to reprise the other poster's point: If you are a car guy (I'm a car guy) you've not lived until you've stomped a Tesla's accelerator while going straight up a mountain. (Not sure about Taycan, think they have multiple gears.) OMGWTF, the direct drive surges the car uphill. No lag. No gear shift. It's like driving a 5 speed manual if you only had to say in one gear for the whole drive but I've never been in a sports car with a 5 speed manual and gotten to use just one gear up a mountain. EVs might be environmentally conscious. But don't miss the real headline -- they are spectacular cars to own. Best car I've had. (Sadly all their current offerings are moronic. Yoke? WTF. No display behind the wheel? WTF. I'd not buy a Tesla now because of unforced errors on behalf of Tesla.)
- labrador 4y agoI don't see a new problem here. In California, we have fires that destroy entire towns full of cars with tanks full of gasoline.
- throwawaaarrgh 4y agoUh..... Your example is forest fires taking out regular cars... The article is talking about flooding sea water starting battery fires... gas cars don't set on fire from sea water ..... making hurricane cleanup harder ......... They're.... completely different .....
- labrador 4y agoI always run into this problem with literal minded people on HN. They are literally not the same, but they are not completely different. They're both dangerous car events occurring due to a natural disaster.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoA wildfire will burn a car whether the car has a full tank of gas or no gas at all. I seriously doubt that gas in cars has ever played a meaningful role in the course of a wildfire.
- labrador 4y agoWe're talking about the danger to firefighters trying to put fires out. I'm not one, so I don't know which type - EV or gasoline - is more dangerous to firefighters. I'm sure it's a question they ask themselves. Is this a gas fire or an electrical fire?
- MichaelCollins 4y agoNo I don't think that's right. From the article: > “This emerging threat has forced local fire departments to divert resources away from hurricane recovery to control and contain these dangerous fires,” Scott said. “Car fires from electric vehicles have proven to be extremely dangerous and last for a prolonged period, taking in many cases up to six hours to burn out.” The concern is not the risk the fires pose to firefighers. The concern is the risk posed by fires diverting the attention of firefighters from other hurricane related matters. The electric car fires are particularly dangerous in this regard because they take much longer to put out, diverting firefighter resources for longer. Every firefighter spraying water on an electric car for six hours is a firefighter not helping people out of flooded buildings, or whatever else they'd otherwise be doing. In the hurricane scenario, electric cars are a unique concern because they catch fire in situations where ICE cars don't; when flooded. In a wildfire, car fires aren't a diversion from fighting the wildfire because it's all part of the same fire. And in a wildfire any car caught in the fire is going to burn until it is a pool of molten aluminum, regardless of what kind of car it was. Replace all the electric cars in a hurricane with ICE, and there will be fewer car fires. Replace all the ICE cars in a wildfire with electric, and there will be just as many car fires. tl;dr: Wildfires burn all cars. Hurricanes burn electric cars specifically.
- londons_explore 4y agoWhat is the actual mechanism that is causing these fires to start? Is it saltwater getting into the battery itself? Is it saltwater in the high voltage wiring outside the battery? Is it physical damage to waterproof seals that is simply revealed during a flood, but probably would have let rainwater in if you drove through a ford? Or is it maybe unrelated to the saltwater, and is simply physical damage to the batteries caused by the storm?
- londons_explore 4y agoIf the cause is saltwater in anything, the design fix is easy... Simply have single-use disconnects between groups of battery cells, such that say the ~400v battery gets split into five 80 volt batteries. Then, when there is only 80 volts across a bit of saltwater, not enough current will flow to get hot enough to start a fire. You'll just end up with some warm bleachy water and a lot of corrosion. Hydrogen gas is produced, but inside the battery there won't be sufficient oxygen for it to burn, and outside the battery hydrogen isn't too dangerous because it disperses incredibly fast. The same disconnects could be used for emergency situations - as soon as they have been disconnected, there is no risk of electric shock to any first responders, even if they cut through high voltage wires.
- robocat 4y agoThe design fix is to add regulations requiring vehicles to safely handle salt water immersion. Let the manufacturer choose implementation.
- robocat 4y agoSaw this factoid: The result? Hybrid-powered cars were involved in about 3,475 fires per every 100,000 sold. Gasoline-powered cars, about 1,530. Electric vehicles (EVs) saw just 25 fires per 100,000 sold. I wonder how that will change as the fleet ages: I would like to see a comparison from the same car demographic (pricepoint, end-user, vehicle age cohort, mileage). It is unobvious why hybrids should be so fire prone: perhaps because they are often high mileage taxi vehicles? (Is risk kilometre based, or technology dependency?)