Exploding with the force of a bomb blasting 2,000°C super-heated jets of flame into surrounding areas, melting and decomposing nearby structural materials including metal and concrete, and sending vast amounts of toxic fumes into any enclosed atmosphere. Thinking about putting the conflagration out – forget it – run (if you can) for your life. Welcome to a future where electric cars become common and are to be found packed like sardines into ferries and underground car parks beneath apartment buildings. A recent freedom of information request from the insurer QBE found that electric vehicle battery fires in the U.K. jumped by 46% last year. Car and bus fires were up 33% and 22% respectively and it is noted that there are now three battery fires a day compared with two in 2022.
QBE provides the following data from 50 U.K. fire brigades, although some figures are incomplete. For instance, fires involving e-trucks, which quadrupled last year, were only provided by seven brigades.
It is a sobering thought that any one of the incidents catalogued above had the ability to turn into a major catastrophe with potential loss of life. For their part, insurance companies around the world are on an obvious high alert for the potential consequences of widespread adoption of EVs, whether voluntary or forced by state diktat. The leading marine insurer GARD notes:
Lithium-ion battery fires can be difficult to extinguish. Additional although infrequent events can result in Li-ion batteries experiencing thermal runaway, a chain reaction leading to a violent release of stored energy and flammable and toxic gas, potentially resulting in large scale thermal events with severe consequences.
Avoiding these bomb explosions, or thermal events as they are usually called, was likely to be behind a reported Chinese move in places across Zhejiang Province banning EVs from entering underground garages. One sign is said to instruct vehicle owners to divert to a nearby parking lot with “wide open spaces”. It is reported that local property owners took the action following 11 intense battery fires in Zhejiang’s capital Hangzhou last May. Last year, Havila Kystruten, which operates car ferries around the coast of Norway, banned the transportation of electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles. Internal combustion engine fires are easy to extinguish and can be handled at sea, but EVs present enormous challenges. In fact they are almost impossible to put out. Havila’s managing director Bent Martini said an EV fire would require external efforts, “and could put people on board and the ships at risk”.
Fire and explosion are not the only risks with EV cars. The specialist freight insurer TT Club is seeking to put greater emphasis on the critical dangers of toxic gas emissions associated with lithium-ion fires. “The failure of such batteries has the potential to occur with no prior warning, or with such speed that there is typically no time to react to any warning signs,” it observes. Once thermal runaway starts there are only seconds to escape breathing in a lethal and potentially fatal cocktail of gases such as hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide, as well as carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and methane. TT Club notes particular dangers from hydrogen fluoride. The gas can be easily absorbed by the skin and lungs, depleting vital calcium and magnesium levels, “which can result in severe and possibly fatal systemic effects”.
A recent essay in Watts Up With That? reported that the ferocity and speed of lithium fires could not be overstated. “Lithium fires are more like tossing a match into a box of fireworks,” it was said. To illustrate this point, a YouTube video showing an e-scooter battery explosion in a Chinese apartment was posted.
It was noted that the people in the video were lucky to escape with their lives. This of course was just a scooter battery, many times smaller than a car, truck or bus power pack. The author asks that even if firefighters controlled the blaze, “would you really want to live in a house contaminated by lithium?” Sooner or later, it was suggested, insurers will catch on that there is a significant litigation risk from people claiming their health was damaged by exposure to highly toxic lithium.
As we can see, insurers are becoming increasingly aware of the risks posed by EVs, not least the dangers faced by people transporting potentially unstable lithium batteries around the world. But the general public seem to be catching on as well, with EV sales falling off a cliff around Europe. In the European Union, EV sales fell by 44% in August and this was the fourth consecutive monthly drop. The European Automobile Manufactures’ Association has demanded “urgent action” to prevent further decline.
It is difficult, however, to see what can be done in the face of increasing hostility. States can mandate increasing penalties for making hydrocarbon cars, as the Mad Miliband is doing in the U.K., but it risks destroying the traditional car industry with the loss of many thousands of direct and indirect jobs. This of course doesn’t seem to worry the weird wonks in charge at the U.K. energy department, who are busy with plans to slash high-paying jobs in deprived areas across many industrial processes. Miliband is secure at the moment to follow his destructive ideology, but his survival as a political force should not be taken for granted once adult realism starts to dawn. The public is becoming aware that EVs are an ecological and safety menace. It is debatable whether they have a lower ‘carbon footprint’ than internal combustion engines and the potential safety risks they pose scarcely bear thinking about. Combine that with poor second-hand values and range anxiety (constantly having to apologise for being late!) and it is becoming clear that they are another expensive and inferior change imposed by politicians hell bent on following a Net Zero fantasy.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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The vast majority of sales are corporate, with less than 5% being private sales.
Dealers find themselves encumbered by stock they cannot sell and shenanigans are afoot in terms of releasing their new stock into the market and using Auto trader ghost ads of not-for-sale vehicles at high prices to game the AT algorithm which decides whether the prices of the cars actually on sale are higher/lower than average (Geoff buys cars on YouTube).
They won’t take EV in part exchange either, so many people are beginning to realise they own a lemon.
The mandatory selling ratio of EV vs ICE will drive dealerships to the wall. They’ll need to make a massive and very public fuss or go out of business.
It looks like a case of “prevention is better than cure” re batteries catching fire. The risks may well be related to quality of manufacture, and also to the way they are used. It appears that there are a couple of different chemical structures in use for Lithium ion ones – Nickel/Manganese/Cobalt (NMC), and Iron/Phosphorous (LFP). Some say that LFP is less likely to incinerate than the other – but at the expense of being heavier and with lower capacity.
And not actually being significantly safer either, I’ve seen LiFeP batteries burn in the past.
The battery packs are underneath and therefore vulnerable to damage – bumping up curbs, stones or other debris thrown up by the wheels and also water damage.
The effect may not be realised immediately.
True with full on battery electric ones. My Toyota hybrid’s traction battery is inside, under the back seat beside it’s petrol tank and 12V LA battery.
Battery next to petrol tank sounds interesting! Wonder if car ferries and channel trains have factored in the fire hazards of these bombs on wheels?
If you had criminal intentions, how easy it would be to trigger an explosion and EV fire and cause all sort of damage.
There are no recycling facilities nor end of life facilities for these products. Nor are there enough technicians to fix those that are damaged. I feat that we will see a lot of burnt out fly tipped evs before too long in gateways and hedgerows up and down the country. I hope I am wrong. The environmental damage will be great.
As more EVs are on the road we will see more of this – probably also will increase with the age of the EVs on the road.
They used to make good milk floats.
They did, when it was normal to have milk delivered at home most days, usually in glass bottles that got used again and again. Big lead acid batteries on those; no chance of it incinerating.
We still have milk delivered in glass bottles, though as the houses who take deliveries are far apart, a proper van is needed to get between them in a reasonable time.
Many years ago (maybe mid-80s) a friend crashed his Ford Fiesta into a milk float – he swore it was the float that crashed into him. Fortunately he and milko were unhurt.
The milk float barely moved – his car was in pieces across the road.
To be fair his car was a rust bucket – I did say it was a Fiesta of many years ago, didn’t I?
Milk floats had to be built like a brick outhouse, the batteries are large and very heavy and the milk is also heavy when in bottles and in quantity.
Doesn’t sound like it would float.
Oooo, images of Barbara Flynn have just passed through my mind….
We have our milk, eggs and fruit juice delivered direct from a farm 15 minutes away. They sadly deliver in a diesel van and not milk float these days.
I grew up with one like that. The local farmer had a small herd (only about 12 or 13 cows) and a little dairy at the farm. Untreated whole milk in glass bottles. He had a Morris Minor van, and collected the empties when delivering. Not many small farms like that now, in the dairy trade.
“Thermal events” is one of the best euphemisms ever. “Israeli rockets may or may not have caused 60 thermal events in Beirut last night…”
It’s a BBC type word to avoid saying the real word like “Terrorist”.
Imagine when, note when not if, one blows up on the school run in static traffic. So far they seem to be isolated incidents but look at the picture and tell me nobody gets hurt when it happens outside a school.
Net zero is a religious creed. Those who want to live by it will see a small percentage of vehicle fires (because let’s face it, it’s a tiny percentage.of the total number of vehicles) as a price worth paying for salvation. Especially if the bad luck is befalling someone else. (It’s a narcissistic religion, one that pretends to be about caring for others and but is actually completely self absorbed.)
It is the ‘net’ result of the left’s war on faith…
“Welcome to a future where electric cars become common…”
Daily almost, in Europe, the US reports of huge drop in sales of BEVs, automakers abandoning production plans, shutting down production lines, firing workers, losing £billions, car rental companies dumping BEVs as customers don’t want to hire them – yet commentators make statements like the one above, and Governments carry on as if BEVs will replace ICEVs because they have decreed it.
In what World do these folk live?
In 100 years time I predict that some new technology will have come to the fore and our descendants will not be driving petrol, diesel or lithium battery electric cars. I have no idea what that technology will be but it will not come about by meddling posturing politicians it will come about, as ever, by the inventiveness of mankind and the ability of the rest of mankind to recognise and take up a good idea when they see it.
As it is politicians are so full of net-zero hubris and arrogance that they are petulantly stamping their feet and shrieking at current technology to deliver something which, at present. current technology cannot deliver. It looks destined to by a bumpy ride into a right mess before there is any chance of it getting better.
I am delighted to learn that the common sense of ‘everyman’ and the market has seen through this. How long it will take politicians is another matter.
‘Clown World’
“Electric Vehicle Explosions Rise 46% in a Year”
– but only about 540 of the 921 report Li battery fires seem to be from vehicles, when you sum up the number of fires per vehicle category in the table. So what makes up the difference?
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/10/2875
A bit of insight into how flipping difficult it gets.
Oil is so beautifully simple.
Coincidentally, your house & building insurance goes up if unfortunately you have an EV as the reality is, is that an EV fire can burn your house down. EV’s are the Betamax of the automotive industry.
670 of those fires, over the two years, were most likely indoors as it’s unlikely that you would charge or keep your ebike or escooter outside due to it’s nickability.
How long until home insurance bans these things from coming indoors?
My company building insurance, recently renewed, now no longer accepts any liability for fire caused by lithium battery recharging on the premises. It won’t be long before they start applying this to domestic premises as well, I’m sure.
Do you have the figures for (seemingly spontaneous) fires in ICE cars? If so then a relevant comparison can be made.
Tesco are changing their fleet of over 5,000 delivery vans to full electric. How’s that for a £300m minimum virtue signal? That’s circa 10% of their gross profit. Glad I’m not a shareholder.
It would be nice if you had a balanced view on EV’s.
I have been a huge supporter of the dailysceptic but your utter bias on this has started me to wonder if you are as bad as the people you claim are polluting the public’s minds with utter rubbish.