electric car fire for days, firefighters have no training to deal with them, and no standard equipment is ineffective. But new technology is being developed that should make all the difference.
Last month, in a South Korean apartment, a Mercedes Benz EQE 350 electric vehicle caught fire building an underground parking garage. Reportedly, 23 people were delivered to the hospital, and a maximum of 900 cars burned. The fire reached temperatures of more than 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius) and took firefighters, almost eight hours to bring to an end.
incident led to a series of swift policy changes in the country, including the quickening of a planned EV (electric vehicle) battery certification program and new rules in Seoul that should stop owners from overcharging for vehicles in underground parking garages. It has also forced automakers to do something they wouldn’t normally do such as reveal who makes the electric car batteries inside their EV cars.
”In early September, the South Korean government said it would require automakers to disclose this often secret information.”
Data from the “National Transportation Safety Board, the US’s independent federal investigation agency”, shows that the risks of EV battery fires are low. In fact, very low. A survey, of that data by one insurance company recommends that more than 1,500 gas cars catch on fire per 100,000 sales, compared to just 25 electric vehicles.
To a certain degree, battery fire of any kind of battery technology. Professionals talk about the “fire triangle,” the three-ingredient recipe for ignition. Fire needs a spark, oxygen, and fuel. Because the point of a lithium-ion battery electric vehicle is to store energy, the fuel is always there. Electric car batteries are meant to be tightly packed and isolated from other parts of the car, but an incident like a disastrous crash might quickly introduce oxygen and heat to the infuse.
