Batteries in Electric Cars Examined After Chevy Volt Fire

[alp227]

Source: NY Times

Federal safety regulators said Friday that they are examining lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars after a Chevrolet Volt caught fire three weeks after it underwent a crash test.

General Motors, which began selling the Volt plug-in hybrid last December, defended it as “a safe car” and said the fire would not have occurred if G.M.’s protocols for deactivating the battery after the crash had been followed.

In a statement, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it is working with all automakers to develop post-crash procedures to keep occupants of electric vehicles and emergency personnel who respond to crash scenes safe.

The large, high-voltage batteries used in electric vehicles can be more easily damaged in a crash than traditional car batteries, and create more potential to electrically shock occupants and rescuers.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/business/energy-environment/regulators-examine-electric-car-batteries-after-fire.html

[RoccoR5955]

1. FYI...

Did you know that brake fluid is more flammable than gasoline?
My point being that the batteries are not the most flammable material in these cars.

[Gregorian]

7. Brake fluid is not more flammable than gasoline.

Where did that come from.

Lithium when exposed to oxygen ignites. It's not the battery per se, it's when a Lithium battery breaks up and exposes the metal to air.

[RoccoR5955]

10. Well maybe it was power steering fluid.

At any rate, there are many flammable fluids, besides gasoline in the average automobile.

[nilram]

9. But, by volume and by weight, there's a huge amount more battery than brake fluid.

They'll figure it out, though, and I look forward to buying an electric car someday. If ever I can afford one.

[Gregorian]

11. I try to avoid being padantic. (oops, this was supposed to be posted up there ^^^)

I hate it when people beat me over the head like that.

But none of the other fluids come close to gas. It's way refined, with a super high volatility.

Really, it's pretty much a non-issue. This stuff all gets engineered to death.

I recently saw an example of a cellphone battery, which is a lithium ion battery, that was used to start a fire. Pretty dramatic. I can see the concern over a massive car battery. We typically have some extreme safety rules for engineering this stuff.

Personally I think we're in far greater danger due to what we're doing to the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere than isolated instances of these types. But that's so slow that few are paying much attention to it.

[greenman3610]

2. fire rescue people

can fill you in on all the things on a car that can burn, blow up, or
otherwise become hazardous in an accident.

[Kennah]

3. Undeployed airbags can ruin your day

[tech3149]

4. I've flown RC airplanes for years The latest thing is electric

power. We got sold that fear story of Li-poly batteries bursting into flames and exploding.
Can it happen? Yes, but only under certain conditions.
1:Physical damage from impact. That can only happen if they are lightweight cells with little to no protection. A reasonably well designed vehicle should have their cells fairly well protected just as a gas tank would be.

2: Discharging at a much higher current rate than possible for the cells. If that happens, it's a case of poor design or failure of the motor controller.

In five years of flying electric powered planes with Li-poly batteries, the only flame out I've encountered was a failed motor controller.

Oh, another possibility. Charging at too high a current rate. Li-poly's can only be charged at their rated capacity. Try to push any harder and you will heat up the battery and it could reach the tip over point.

[and-justice-for-all]

5. Hmmm....interesting...

but I am not at all convinced that the car is a danger.

[IamK]

6. will they switch to the chinese made batteries????

thats the rumor....

[truthisfreedom]

8. Folks, this is identical to having a gas-filled car crash, then not draining the leaking tank, and

finding it engulfed in flames 3 weeks later when something finally sparked the gas leak.

Total non-story.

[Fumesucker]

12. Here's an EV that had a battery fire, it melted the windows and the transmission..

http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1825