How Electric-Vehicle Battery Fires Happen—and How You Should React

Lithium-ion battery fires could be intense and scary. As somebody who used to restore second-hand smartphones, I’ve extinguished my fair proportion of flaming iPhones with punctured lithium-ion batteries. And the kind of smartphone battery in your pocket proper now, is much like what’s inside electric vehicles. Besides, the EV battery shops far more energy—a lot power that some firefighters are receiving special training to extinguish the extra-intense EV flames which can be emitted by burning EV batteries after street accidents.

If you’ve been studying the information about EVs, you’ve possible encountered loads of scary articles about battery fires on the rise. Just lately, the US Nationwide Transportation Security Board and the California Freeway Patrol announced they’re investigating a Tesla semi truck fire that ignited after the automobile struck a tree. The lithium-ion battery burned for round 4 hours.

Does this imply that you must fear about your private electrical automobile as a possible fire hazard? Not likely. It makes extra sense to fret a few gas-powered automobile going up in flames than an electrical automobile, since EVs are less likely to catch fire than their extra conventional transportation counterparts.

“Fires due to battery manufacturing defects are actually very uncommon,” says Matthew McDowell, a codirector of Georgia Tech’s Advanced Battery Center. “Particularly in electrical autos, as a result of additionally they have battery administration programs.” The software program retains tabs on the completely different cells that comprise an EV’s battery and may help forestall the battery from being pushed past its limits.

How Do Electrical Automobile Fires Occur?

Throughout a crash that damages the EV battery, a fireplace might begin with what’s referred to as thermal runaway. EV batteries aren’t one stable brick. Slightly, consider these batteries as a set of many smaller batteries, referred to as cells, pressed up in opposition to one another. With thermal runaway, a chemical response situated in one of many cells lights an preliminary hearth, and the warmth quickly spreads to every adjoining cell till your entire EV battery is burning.

Greg Much less, director of the University of Michigan’s Battery Lab, breaks down EV battery fires into two, distinct classes: accidents and manufacturing defects. He considers accidents to be the whole lot from a collision that punctures the battery to a charging mishap. “Let’s take these off the desk,” says Much less. “As a result of, I believe folks perceive that, whatever the automobile sort, for those who’re in an accident, there may very well be a fireplace.”

Whereas all EV battery fires are arduous to place out, fires from manufacturing defects are possible extra regarding to customers, resulting from their seeming randomness. (Suppose again to when all these Samsung phones had to be recalled as a result of battery points made them hearth hazards.) How do these uncommon points with EV batteries manufacturing trigger fires, at what might really feel like random moments?

All of it comes all the way down to how the batteries are engineered. “There’s some stage of the engineering that has gone mistaken and brought on the cell to quick, which then begins producing warmth,” says Much less. “Warmth causes the liquid electrolyte to evaporate, making a fuel contained in the cell. When the warmth will get excessive sufficient, it catches hearth, explodes, after which propagates to different cells.” These sorts of defects are possible what brought on the extremely publicized latest EV fires in South Korea, considered one of which broken over 100 autos in a car parking zone.

Easy methods to React if Your EV Catches Fireplace

In line with the National Fire Prevention Agency, if an EV ever catches hearth whereas you’re behind the wheel, instantly discover a secure technique to pull over and get the automotive away from the principle street. Then, flip off the engine and ensure everybody leaves the automobile instantly. Don’t delay issues by grabbing private belongings, simply get out. Stay over 100 ft away from the burning automotive as you name 911 and request the hearth division.

Additionally, you shouldn’t try and put out the flame your self. This can be a chemical hearth, so a pair buckets of water won’t sufficiently smother the flames. EV battery fires can take first responders around ten times more water to extinguish than a fireplace in a gas-powered automobile. Typically the firefighters might resolve to let the battery simply burn itself out, fairly than dousing it with water.