Ah, that explains why there aren’t any Teslas in existence any more, then.
Or Tesla owners. Mine has killed me several times.
It will be interesting to see if the safety of EV batteries change when people get cheap-o EV cars from Craigslist with salvage titles and the owners keep them running with batteries from junkyards and ebay.
Perhaps e-bikes and e-scooters give us a preview of the situation?
NY Times gift link: How E-Bike Battery Fires Became a Deadly Crisis in New York City
In summary, e-bikes and e-scooters have become ubiquitous in NYC, but the quality control of the batteries varies and the charging is not always done safely. These batteries have started fires while charging, and some of those fires have killed people. While it’s true that car batteries have more testing than e-bike and scooter batteries, that’s only the case for new cars and batteries from approved suppliers. Just like e-bikes, owners of EV cars looking to save a bit of money may turn to cheaper batteries which may not be built to the same level of quality control.
This might be a case where some government regulation is needed to ensure things stay safe. Have annual inspections of EV cars where the batteries need to be approved. Have stiff penalties and fines for using unapproved batteries.
Although all this can be fixed, there are the practical issues of what to do about someone who is having some financial issues when their batteries are getting sketchy. Similar issues happen with ICE cars, but cars are often still pretty safe even if the catalytic converter is going out, there are holes in the mufflers, etc. There aren’t too many car issues which would cause the car to burn up in the garage overnight. But someone who is having some financial problems may try to eek out as much as they can from their batteries and end up with a garage fire.
I was basing my statement on this Reddit post : Reddit - Dive into anything
There’s also this one: Condo Association Bans Owners From Parking EVs In The Garage
Cheap e-bike and scooter batteries are commodity items made from off-the-shelf parts. I’ve seen Tesla and Chevy Bolt batteries prior to installation and those are large, semi-structural units with integrated coolant systems. I don’t see 3rd party knockoffs of those coming any time soon.
Agreed. At least for Tesla, the packs are essentially not repairable. They’re glued together and packaged as a unit. And it has enough internal monitoring that it can determine its own health. In short, getting dodgy packs into the aftermarket supply line is going to be really difficult.
Some people do disassemble the packs and repurpose the modules for home energy systems and the like. But that’s very different from reassembling them into functional EV packs.
To defend Tesla under Elon Musk’s ownership looks like participating in corporate propaganda to me.
And there we have it. You could have led with that argument and not wasted everyone’s time.
If only we had some kind of Administration of some sort dedicated to our Nation’s Highway Traffic Safety. Certainly, we never needed such a thing in the era of internal combustion.
Oh wait, we do have one. And what do they say about recalls due to fire risk? There seems to be plenty of ICE models in that list.
Can you explain this failure mode? From what I understand, batteries lose charge - i.e. the amount of energy they can store - over time, which would seem to me to make a thermal runaway less likely, not more. Do batteries get more hazardous over time? Or is there something an EV owner might be tempted to do to their battery that would create such a risk?
So your argument is “Musk is a dick, and therefore Teslas catch fire”?
You need to produce some facts to support your statements.
I’m not an expert in batteries or anything. I’m more making an observation that the current crop of EV owners are likely more affluent and are willing and able to take care of their cars. The future crop of EV owners will include people who drive cars with bald tires, smoke coming out the exhaust, cracked windshield, etc. If older batteries get safer and safer, great! If it’s impossible to put in cheap-o batteries from secondary markets, great! But if the safety of the batteries are dependent on owner themselves doing proper maintenance and proper charging, then the human aspect of battery safety will become more of a factor as the demographics of EV ownership changes.
Brain : swear to God, Snake, I *thought you were dead . Snake Plissken : Yeah. You and everybody else.
Musk did not appear to be the eccentric oddity he is now when he founded Tesla.
Yet you extrapolate that because e-bike batteries are bursting into flames, EV batteries, especially those bought from aftermarket suppliers, will do the same.
As others have shown, this is simply not the case.
And oh by the way, current EV batteries will outlast the car in which they’re installed.
Most EV Batteries will Outlast Their Vehicles According to Geotab Analysis - News (eepower.com)
Proper battery maintenance is nonexistent. There’s no maintenance of any kind needed.
There’s no reasoning with people on this issue on either side. It’s either “electric cars are useless because I need to tow a barn 612 miles up a mountain every day,” or " electric cars are perfect for everyone and if you don’t like that why don’t you just ride a horse?"
Electric vehicles are inevitable. There’s no point in arguing the finer details for or against, they’re here, and they aren’t going away. We need an alternative to fossil fuel-using internal combustion engines because we are running out of the resource, and it needs to be replaced with something sustainable. This isn’t about saving the environment, or energy efficiency, it’s about practical vehicles for future generations.
And those generations will grow up with them as the default, so to them all this bickering is meaningless. It will be their new normal. The rest of us will be long gone before they become 90% ubiquitous (the 2035 date is for selling new vehicles, there will still be second hand and collector ICE vehicles around for decades beyond).
A lot of the arguments against are outdated - they are issues that all EV manufacturers are well aware of, and are being addressed, and indeed most of them have already been addressed. New battery technologies, new sources of renewables, improved infrastructure, standardised equipment, efficient batteries. Do some basic research, there is a wealth of accessible, easily digestible information out there.
This isn’t about you, it’s about the future.
Also it’s just for selling vehicles in California, not the United States. Odds are it’s going to be easy enough to drive to Reno and buy a new ICE car for a good long while. It’s aspirational and like I said a good bit back, that’s fine. CA is not remotely going to be in a place to go all electric even just in sales in 2035 or anything close to it. There will be probably extensions and/or loopholes galore (the Reno option).
Electric cars will become the new normal in the United States when ICE cars stop being produced, driven by consumer demand. That will likely happen eventually, but not in 2035 or even 2050, I’m pretty sure.
Supposedly some manufacturers plan to stop selling ICE vehicles by 2035, so it should be harder to keep buying new ones.
There even used to be a website called flamingfords.com dedicated to the problem of Ford vehicles bursting into flames, 20 years ago. It hasn’t existed since some time in 2003, but courtesy of the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030220102229/http://www.flamingfords.com/