How safe is battery powered transport?

I’m not sure there’s a rush to electric vehicles after all we had electric milk floats in the seventies perhaps it’s the type of battery that’s the problem. I have been using an electric mobility scooter for over twenty years - recommended to be charged overnight but it doesn’t have lithium batteries.

What kind of batteries were used in the bike that went on fire while charging?

In Denmark, we are advised to either keep or bikes indoors during the autumn and winter, or at the very least to take the batteries inside and no-one has mentioned the slightest risk of fire in this connection.

Right now, it is unknown what actually caused the fire on that ship - until it is proved, if indeed it ever is, that a car battery was the cause, it seems pointless to worry that electricly powered cars could be a fire hazard. After all, petrol is infammable and we have lived happily with that risk all my life!

How about agitating for smoke alarms, fire extinguishers and safe electrical wiring, checked regularly by an electrician should be made compulsory in private homes?

Milest0ne

I was not listening too closely, but a tv programme said that Lithium had been identified in Cornwall and would be able to supply our need for Lithium so that we are not dependant on China. Always checks and balances to consider.

I did listen a bit closer and one of the sources is seawater so not likely to run out soon

GrannyGravy13

I have mixed feelings regarding EV’s wether cars, bikes or scooters.

The fire on the transporter is worrying.

.....and don't forget portable laptops and mobile phones. It's not so long ago that there were horror stories about them smouldering away in aircraft over luggage bins and Samsung had a real problem with its phone/laptop battery fires. The batteries in EVs are lethal - as lethal as the DC juice rail on many electric railways.

Katie59

I’m not knocking diesels but if you do a lot of short journeys the particulate filters do cause problems, more hybrids are now on the market and seem to be selling better. I have a Yaris hybrid suits me well with short journeys to work, shops and family, no mountains here just lots of traffic jams.

My last 2 cars have been hybrids and I have been very happy with them because I do a lot of shorter journeys. The longer journeys aren't quite so efficient economically but also very happy with them. However, I am very lucky to be able to afford them, a lot of people would find them unattainable. I won't go over to an EV until the recharging network is much better.

icanhandthemback I disagree, old cars now are now much more reliable than in the past.

Until last year I was driving a 20 year old car and would be driving it still had someone not driven into the side of it. I had owne it 13 years and it had never broken down, never needed an expensive repair and had only failed its MOT once, on something trivial.

Last year DD sold a 15 year old car to a friend, who has since driven nearly 20,000 miles in it carrying her, the others in her folk group, with instrumenst and luggage all over the UK and to France reliably.

I do not think I have ever owned a car les than 5 years old, and most have been older. When I had a new company car. it broke down the first day, and gave me endless trouble the two years I had it. I was really glad to get back to old well seasoned cars that I owned when I left the job.

It is apparently much more environmentally friendly to keep running our cars for as long as possible..NOT to replace them with new ones

pascal30

It is apparently much more environmentally friendly to keep running our cars for as long as possible..NOT to replace them with new ones

True but most cars do have a 15-20yr life - with different owners, just like furniture or electrical goods should we really expect them to last longer?

If we want to reduce the number of cars someone is going to have to give up theirs, maybe car sharing will increase.

I was just going to say the same thing. It isn't as if you take a five year old car to the breaker's yard is it? Second hand cars get sold on down the chain and hopefully the ones causing the most pollution do eventually get scrapped.

I've heard stories about various types of rechargeable batteries catching fire and always put my mobile on a non-flammable surface when it's charging though I doubt it would really make much difference if the whole thing exploded! I know that some of the "stick" type of rechargeable vacuums were supposed to be a problem some years ago, but you can't charge everything in the open air away from the house.

pascal30

It is apparently much more environmentally friendly to keep running our cars for as long as possible..NOT to replace them with new ones

This has always been our view, we had two high quality old cars, regularly serviced and MOT'd with good results in emission tests. However they've both had to go because we live very close to the current ULEZ (and will shortly be inside the zone). So now we have our newly manufactured cars with all the emissions that caused, and two cars have been scrapped which probably caused yet more.

maddyone

I agree with Monica and MadeInYorkshire.
Not to mention the rush towards heat pumps. They cost £10 - £14 thousand, plus all the new radiators needed which are apparently much larger than usual radiators, and add to that, they don’t warm houses in colder climates properly! Even if they did, how is everyone expected to be able to afford one? How are they going to be fitted in tower blocks?

I heard a Radio 4 programme about heat pumps and only one of the many users interviewed had their system working properly, he was in a new-build eco house. They're incredibly expensive to install and not all the people doing the installations really know what they are doing. It's true that the water temperature is lower than with a "normal" boiler so you need larger radiators to get the same heat output.
One of the points the programme raised was that houses need to have a very high level of insulation built in to be able to reach a comfortable temperature, and that to achieve this by adding insulation after the house has been built is very difficult if not impossible.

This has always been our view, we had two high quality old cars, regularly serviced

That is probably why your older cars have been reliable. People with low incomes don't have the money to service the cars. This isn't a dig at you cc, but there seems to a lot of privilege talking when people are talking about how they manage to be eco friendly. Of course, I completely understand that we must do something about fuel pollution when children are dying but there is a lot of life shortening by poor standards of living too and right now, those people are struggling with higher costs all round.

cc I’m sure you’re right about the insulation in houses. Our house is pretty well insulated with walls filled, much loft insulation, double glazed doors and windows etc but I’m unconvinced about the arguments re heat pumps. In a cold and damp climate such as ours, people need reliable heating, particularly old and disabled people. I’m sure we don’t want to go back to the bad old days of many elderly people dying from the cold like we had in the past. In any case, how are people meant to afford them? We’re in a cost of living crisis, which I don’t see ending anytime soon. The government can’t afford to install them in the housing stock of the entire country because it spent all the money on Covid. Add to that, much of the housing stock, and high rise flats, are unsuitable for heat pumps.

The ISSUES with these batteries has been known fro a very long time and way before they became common. If hey are dmaged in any way or water gets into them then they can explode violently. The size of a Car Battery means an explosion equivilent to a 250 lb Wartime bomb. A city in China has completly banned Electric Cars due to several of them exploding. IN Paris an Electric bus caught fire when the battery pack on he roof failed. Fortunatly the bus was stopped. Just watch how fast it biurnt out entirely.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-yN8SugWM

icanhandthemback My cars only see a garage when they have their MOT. Most cars these days go 10,000 miles or more between aervices, and most things; tyre pressures, topping up oil, changing windscreen wipers etc can be done by anyone with a minimum of technical capacity. DS manages it and he would be hard pushed to know one end of a screw driver from another.

If there is a problem with battery safety then governments should address it through regulation.

Having watched that video and seen the comments on here I’m rather glad that the new car I have ordered is petrol run.

MadeInYorkshire I agree whole heartedly with your post regarding increased pollution. I was heavily involved in the motor trade on the repair side for most of my working life. As part of my job, I attended a seminar regarding lithium batteries and EVs. We were told of the danger from the batteries and how to treat the cars as they came in for repair. The EVs are 'alive' for a very long time and not safe to work on. It frightened me!! I will not have an EV or ride in one. The general public don't hear how many mechanics and recovery operators are killed by EVs. The numbers are frightening. The only way to put out an EV fire is to immerse the vehicle in a very large tank of water for 48 hours. Of course, the vehicle is then written off. Insurance companies know this and are increasing premiums for electric cars. If a petrol or diesel car catches fire it can be put out, in most cases, by removing the battery terminals, a fire extinguisher or the fire brigade. I've experienced both.

You must live in a parallel world to me, M0nica. I don't live in London but what I see around me with people with older cars, is somewhat different to you report. We will obviously never agree about the extended ULEZ and its effects on the lower paid. My one year old car has just been serviced and it cost over £300. On a low income, that is an awful lot of money.

This is our future and we need to get used to it. Every car has batteries inside whether they are in the engine, hybrid batteries, or electric.

Car companies are rushing, it’s true, but they are actually LATE with this technology. It’s getting more urgent to transition over to clean energy. With each year it’s getting more perfected.

Think how resistant some people were when calculators came out, computers!, smart phones arrived… everyone needs to adjust and start accepting the future. EV’s will get cheaper as mass sales occur with better batteries.
Cheers!
USA Gundy

I cannot remember anyone being resistant to calculators, nor mobile phones, they both filled a long felt want.

With computers and smart phones, it had more to do with people not knowing how to use them and afraid of doing something wrong and disastrous.

Batteries are a different all together. Battery explosions have always been a problem and the problems have been difficult to overcome, hence the delay in the development of the technology. Samsung had a problem with mobile phone batteries exploding on planes.

The question is not whether anything which contains a volatile fuel can burst into flames. There are usually rules and regulations in place to reduce or eliminate these problems, but battery fires are less predictable and more dangerous when they occur.

I am no dinosaur where future technology is concerned but neither am I someone who jumps on every technological bandwagon, that comes rolling past promising Nirvana and tipping into a ditch half a mile down the road.

Electric battery vehicles are a way forward, but the calculations that make them less damaging to the environment are complicated and contested. I am sure in the future they will be safer and cheaper, but that is not a reason for not treating them with caution now.

There have been some battery fires and we should not be complacent about the risk, as an energy source batteries are probably safer than petrol which if it leaks is very explosive. In the future Hydrogen may be a fuel for vehicles, the safety concerns for highly compressed gas is much greater

I also think people need to understand the difference between a main dealer car battery made under a strict regulatory system with a battery management system (which controls the speed and time of charging and prevents overheating) and a cheap electric bike or scooter of dodgy provenance.

mamie What difference does it make? a battery fire is a battery fire and the problems with battery fires are common to all batteries.