Lithium-ion battery fire Fires are intense and scary. In my years repairing used smartphones, I’ve put out many iPhones that were on fire because their lithium-ion batteries had burst. And the smartphone battery in your pocket right now is similar to an electric vehicle battery, except EV batteries store a lot more energy. So much so that some firefighters are receive special training To extinguish extremely intense EV fires released when EV batteries burn after a traffic accident.
When reading the news about EVs, Scary article about battery fires The trend is on the rise. Recently, the National Transportation Safety Board and the California Highway Patrol Announced They are investigating Tesla trailer fire The vehicle caught fire after hitting a tree. The lithium-ion battery burned for about four hours.
Does this mean we should be worried that our personal electric vehicles might be a fire hazard? Not really. It makes more sense to be worried about a gasoline-powered car catching fire than an electric car, because EVs are Low risk of fire It is better than traditional means of transportation.
“Fires caused by battery manufacturing defects are actually very rare,” Georgia Tech’s Advanced Battery Center“Especially with electric vehicles, they also have a battery management system.” This software monitors the various cells that make up an EV’s battery and helps prevent the battery from exceeding its limits.
How do electric car fires start?
If an EV battery is damaged in a crash, it can catch fire due to a phenomenon called thermal runaway. EV batteries are not one solid brick. Rather, think of them as a collection of many smaller batteries, called cells, pressed together. In thermal runaway, a chemical reaction occurs in one of the cells that starts a fire first, and that heat quickly spreads to adjacent cells, causing the entire EV battery to burn.
Greg Les, University of Michigan Battery Research Institutebreaks down EV battery fires into two clear categories: accidents and manufacturing defects. He considers accidents to be everything from a crash that punctures the battery to a charging error. “Let’s rule those out,” Les says, “because I think everyone understands that no matter what type of vehicle you have, if you have an accident, you can have a fire.”
While all EV battery fires are difficult to extinguish, fires caused by manufacturing defects are likely to be of more concern to consumers because they seem random. (Remember when Samsung recalled all of their phones because of battery issues that posed a fire hazard?) How do these rare issues in the manufacturing of EV batteries cause fires that feel like random moments?
It all comes down to the battery design. “There was a problem somewhere in the design, and the cells shorted out and started to heat up,” says Les. “The heat causes the liquid electrolyte to evaporate, creating gases inside the cell. If the heat gets high enough, it ignites and explodes, spreading to the other cells.” A flaw like this is likely what caused the recent highly publicized battery explosions. EV fire breaks out in South KoreaOne of the incidents damaged more than 100 vehicles in a parking lot.
What to do if your EV catches fire
According to National Fire AgencyIf your electric vehicle catches fire while you’re driving, immediately find a safe place to pull over and move your vehicle off the main road. Then turn off the engine and have everyone get out of the vehicle immediately. Don’t slow the situation down by grabbing personal belongings, just get out of the car. Stay at least 100 feet away from the burning vehicle when you call 911 to notify the fire department.
Also, don’t try to put out the fire yourself. This is a chemical fire, so a few buckets of water won’t be enough to put it out. EV battery fires may require the involvement of emergency medical personnel. About 10 times as much water It takes longer to put out than a gasoline-powered fire, and firefighters may decide to leave the battery in. BurnoutInstead of pouring water,
