We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 36 Comments

The best part of EV’s is that you can charge them at your home.

While your family sleeps.

General Motors says it has expanded a recall of its Chevy Bolt electric vehicles to include all model years because of a risk the battery cells could catch fire.

This latest recall includes about 73,000 Bolts from model years 2019 through 2022, including just over 10,000 in Canada. A previous recalled announced in July was for 69,000 Bolts from between 2017 and 2019.

The company says that in rare cases, two manufacturing defects in the battery cells create a risk of fire.

It warns that owners should limit charging to 90 per cent of battery capacity, park vehicles outside immediately after charging and not leave vehicles charging indoors overnight.

h/t Chris

36 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars”

    1. Bolt has written off $1.8 Billion on this battery defect. The batteries are made by LG (South Korea … from factories in Red China). That’s a LOT of $Green cabbage to eat. China say so sawwyy

  3. Yup. Electric pets should always stay outdoors.

    Is it the way they’re charged or the size of them or the type? Why the defects? Its making me rethink the charging of my tools.

    1. This is a direct quote from GM’s press release:

      “In rare circumstances, the batteries supplied to GM for these vehicles may have two manufacturing defects – a torn anode tab and folded separator – present in the same battery cell, which increases the risk of fire.”

      I know nothing about this stuff, but I’m sure someone here does and can say something specifically in layman’s terms about why this is a problem.

      Of course, the same press release makes it clear they’re pressing on with “transitioning to an all-electric future”. So while they’re doing a massive recall as a CYA, as a PR matter this is just a bit of a bump in the road.

      1. Those defects can cause small shorts that can then escalate into a cascade effect to nearby cells.
        Overheating the battery causes swelling that moves the guts of the battery around causing more shorts.
        Soon you have major heat and then your fire.

        1. Thanks to you and JD just below for the explanations.

          (I’m also proud of myself for not having to look up endothermic and exothermic, since it’s been a while since I’ve taken a science class.)

    2. the defects on these batteries increase the chance of a short circuit in the batteries.

      the charge reaction of li-ion batteries is endothermic, and the discharge is exothermic.

      A short creates a unwanted path which discharges the battery, usually uncontrollably, creating lots of heat and expansion, which then ends up affecting the adjacent cells, rinse and repeat until you have a blazing fire that requires thousands upon thousands of gallons of water to extinguish .

      each of the cells in the battery packs are typically slightly bigger than an AA battery, and if you have ever disassembled a tool li-ion battery are the same. just the car batteries have lots more cells

    1. Insurance rates will go,up. And building codes, fire safety specifically, will have to change. Future building codes will require these vehicles must be housed in areas separate from living quarters or divided from such by a fire wall.

      1. I assure you that NO fire wall assembly has been tested and rated for a battery fire. I suspect the reality is that a 1-hour fire wall may in reality offer 5 minutes of fire protection.

        UL is gonna need a whole new genre of testing

        1. the problem is that the fires are both self igniting, and take a lot of water to deal with, the most popular version is shove the vehicle into a dumpster and fill it full of water until it goes out in a few days…

          maybe that’s an idea for a new design feature for a home, thermal sensors in the garage which drop your EV into a pit of water if the temperature exceeds a certain value (say 90 degrees C).

          2. And the Li-on battery fires I’ve seen go off like blowtorches. Anything in the path of those accelerated fires is going up in fames almost instantly!

          3. Imagine near future Rainbow Pony Green World when, O Happy Days, most cars are electric. Thus when one goes thermite flair burning sun fire, there is another electric on both sides.

      2. I wonder if we’ll start seeing currently-existing HOA-run townhouse communities with garages literally built into the houses either banning EVs or mandating that they are kept outside and if they’re being charged inside the garage the garage door has to be open. I wouldn’t put it past some HOAs to do it.

      3. There will be prohibitions to parking cars in covered or underground parking lots just as there are for propane or LNG fuelled cars. Never park an EV in an attached garage. A battery fire would be catastrophic. If the fire doesn’t destroy your home the enormous amount of water will destroy it. It takes up to 30,000 gallons of water to put out an EV battery fire over several days.

        1. Does anyone here know why they haven’t used foam instead. I understand that the battery must burn out because it can’t be extinguished but to prevent spread, foam is more effective than water as it suffocates rather than simply cools down the fire. You just bury the vehicle in foam which takes comparatively little water.

          1. FYI, these are the same people who stopped forest management in California, Oregon, Washington, BC, …

            They are against anything that actually works.

          2. John.Apparently the Li-ion battery provides its own oxygen for the combustion cycle.
            So smothering the fire does not wrk.
            The huge volumes of water is attempting to cool the combusting material below that point.

  9. “There is no way, for the foreseeable future, for 8 billion people to live long, healthy, opportunity-filled lives unless the world’s massive use of CO2-emitting fossil not only continues, but expands

    Alex Epstein

    If governments and the financial sector demand…. we starve and freeze in the dark so they can feel better about the weather, they might just learn the meaning of Thomas Jefferson’s Tree of Liberty Letter:
    “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

    The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

  10. Electric vehicles advocates, like those of solar power, wind power, etc. are a cult. Impervious to facts and rational argument, their ideology trumps the reality that is right in front of their eyes. These technologies can never replace fossil fuels on a scale that allows our economies and life-styles to continue as is.

  11. putting out an electric car fire uses about 40 times more water than putting out a gasoline car fire.

    I lost the link, but I read it in an article about a year ago, the fire department was telling journalists they must use 40 times more water and then it is possible the battery reignites hours later or the next day and then they must use more water.

    one solution which is damn complex is immersing the whole car in a water tank to prevent the battery to reigniting another fire…

    wasting all that water helps in saving the planet I am sure ! ( sarcasm )

    Maybe one day green energy will work, but right now that technology is absolutely not ready.

    1. One thing that isn’t considered when that massive amount of water is used to put out an EV fire is the toxic metal run off in the water. It will be contaminated by heavy metals such as cobalt, copper and nickel; other metals such as lithium and aluminium; and rare earth metals. These will enter into ditches, sewers and eventually into the ecosystem.

  12. Think of all that lithium wasted. The mined out holes, production facilities, power used, tailing ponds and….birds. It’s almost as bad as TAHRRRR SANDS, eh Billy? Ever seen the pics of reclaimed TAHRRR SANDS, Billy? You can grow stuff on it. Lithium pits, not so much. Hell, ever been to the TAHRR SANDS? It’s bog country to start. To FAHRR from Tronna to visit.

    1. The answer may be fairly simple really. Just build the carport over the swimming pool and make sure that it has a collapsible floor that is automatically triggered by the appropriate rise in temperature.

  14. Gee that “Doctor” who stabbed his wife to death a few years back must be just kicking himself.
    If only he had bought her an electric car instead.
    Am I seeing a pattern here?
    In the name of saving the “environment” the Libtards are imposing all kinds of new ways for the Woke to die.
    Funny how the Environmental Protection Agency can produce a multipage document on “How to dispose of a compact fluorescent lamp”..
    So what is the proper environmentally friendly way to clean up after your virtue signalling toy burns you out of house and home?
    All those toxins spread all over your home environment.
    Those long black soot molecules do not go away easily.

  16. I may have mis-judged the greenies. Perhaps they are quite brave to be driving electric cars.
    In the same way Tom Wolf noted in “The Right Stuff’ ‘The US Astronauts were much braver than their Russian counterparts. The Soviet rockets didn’t blow up.’

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