Yep. One thing I recall from not that long ago was relating the numbers in that chart above to age of vehicle and road miles traveled. The metrics shown on that chart just aren’t transferable to real world relevancy if you’re comparing 2 year old EVs to 50 year old ICEs.
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OK, thanks to you both, I will look when I get a chance. I was hoping for more than a thread on a BBS that actively hates anything remotely associated with Elon Musk, but I’ll do the assigned homework.
I’m a fairly accomplished mechanic, owner of two EVs and former owner of a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid, and a person who has seen a few car fires, including one or two in cars where I was a passenger. I can confirm that gas cars are more flammable than others. That’s just physics. Electric cars are inherently safer and more reliable.
Of course, the Hyundai Kona and the Chevy Bolt support the idea that a car’s flammability has a lot more to do with the quality of the design and build than it does with theory and physics.
There are several posts discussing the issues with the numbers from autoinsuranceez and at least one article.
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So far all I am finding is links to the Car and Driver article… which appears to be fake news, because it claims the NTSB doesn’t track EV fires, and here’s a screenshot from the NTSB website:
Here is a link to the report on EV fires published by the NTSB in 2018.
The car and driver article is thus demonstrably not reliable.
I have to split, but I will search again later and see if there are any other links in the BB threads that will bear real scrutiny. Or if anyone wants to post them here I will be duly grateful.
Must be physics from a different universe, then. Once lithium ion batteries start to burn, there’s no stopping them. And there are conditions where they are prone to start, like charging, discharging, or even minor damage to the battery pack; whether it’s a EV, phone, or laptop.
In contrast, ICE vehicles might have a fire, but it takes massive damage to start one and they can be put out with a fire extinguisher: I’ve done so, and there was only minor damage to the vehicle. Finally, fire hazard was much greater on older ICE vehicles, especially carbuerated vehicles, or vehicles intended for racing only. Which is what a lot of the debunking of the stupid graphic involved; comparing an equal number of modern ICE vehicles to Teslas, the catastrophic fire rate of the Teslas was much higher.
Enough higher that the NTSB is constantly threatening to stop Tesla production and force a recall that Tesla refuses to issue voluntarily.
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I don’t mean to tone police, but I think you’ve been around here long enough to recognize this is not the case. For every thread I’ve taken the time to read about Musk around here, there are a lot of posters who, as you say, actively hate Musk or what he does or stands for, but there are an equal amount of posters who love and defend Musk and his actions. That’s what leads to the robust discussions.
I feel it’s a disservice to the community to pretend like we’re a monolith who always agree on everything. There’s a lot of good info on those threads. It’s important to be able to discuss things we disagree about, and you know we do that here all the time.
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Easy there. I love EVs and have owned two. However, “gasoline cars are more flammable” is a stretch. EV batteries have enormous energy in them just like gasoline, and lithium fires are way worse than gasoline fires. Lithium makes its own oxygen when it burns so firefighters basically can’t put it out except by dousing it with insane amounts of water to deny the fire heat. Gasoline fires are out with a little foam from a handheld and often the car is fixable after. Small under hood electrical fires on old gasoline cars are not actually that serious and not super uncommon. EV fires reduce the vehicle to a puddle of slag every time.
Your data on this “more flammable” claim is “I can confirm” because you’ve owned both? You know what an anecdote is and what they are worth, right? As for “it’s just physics”, go look up the physics of lithium fires.
Again, I’m maximum pro-EV and we can’t get the world converted fast enough for me, but that’s no reason to say things that are untrue about them.
It’s not at all clear that, over the long term, EVs will be more fire-safe than gasoline. It’s all moot though, because you know what is on fire? The goddam planet. Even if EVs stab every 10000th driver with a knife we still need them because the entire goddam planet will die if we don’t.
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