this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
347 points (95.8% liked)

News

23627 readers
2505 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water to extinguish flames after a crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

In addition to the huge amount of water, firefighters used an aircraft to drop fire retardant on the “immediate area” of the electric truck as a precautionary measure, the agency said in a preliminary report.

Firefighters said previously that the battery reached temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 Celsius) while it was in flames.

The NTSB sent investigators to the Aug. 19 crash along Interstate 80 near Emigrant Gap, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento. The agency said it would look into fire risks posed by the truck’s large lithium-ion battery.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn't be surprised Tesla uses shit quality batteries

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

All ev batteries will burn like this, though. It's the nature of this type of battery.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not all EVs need Li-Po batteries. They probably won't be in the next couple of years. The cheap end of the market will use sodium-ion, and the more expensive end solid state lithium. Both have much better fire protection and puncture resilience than Li-Po. Both types of batteries are at the manufacturing stage, but aren't in cars yet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

So what you’re saying is that, in fact, all EV’s do have lithium batteries

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Today, yes, but there's no reason to think it'll stay this way. The lithium batteries that will stick around aren't likely to have this problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yep yep surely, but I think batteries could be manufactured to be just more or less resistant

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The batteries (a battery is a bunch of cells) actually are made to be resistant. Be it firewalls between the cells, fuses, fire retardant, exhaust systems, BMS for thermal management etc.

The cells it's just the nature of the chemistry and form.

The pouch cells used in many EVs are actually more fire prone than the cells used in a Tesla or Rivian. They are very easy to puncture, so in an accident or from manufacturing defects their fire risks are higher. They're also larger in format and each cell contains more energy, resulting in a risk of more fire if something goes bad.

Prismatic and cylindrical cells are less fire prone and IMO should be the only choices. I wouldn't be surprised if pouch cells were deemed unfit for vehicles far in the future, but probably not before the industry moves away from them naturally. Many have already announced moving away from pouch cells. One of the reasons they're used in cars today is there was excess pouch manufacturing capacity compared to prismatic/cylindrical. The existing OEMs had to cobble together a battery supply chain with very few options.

Then the chemistry is important too. Lithium iron phosphate cells are more tolerant and less likely to have thermal runaway than the NCA or NMC (nickle coblat aluminum / nickle manganese cobalt), but their power density is lower, so you aren't making long range vehicles (or semis with good range) today. LiPo cells are prismatic as well due to the nature of how they are made, so less fire risk from chemistry, and less risk from battery cell form.

Sodium Ion are even less likely, but it'll be well over a decade before you make more than a commuter car with those, if ever. Toss them in a cheap to build car though and we can make a really great and cheap commuter vehicle in the near future.

Edit: more details.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You seem very informed on the matter, thank you for your clarification

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Thanks! I've been following this for a very long time. I think the Lithium Iron Phosphate cells are going to be the best option we have for a long while in terms of fire risk/energy density/cost. Watching them improve over the years and make their way into more cars has been great.