One for the EV sceptics

According to what I looked up on how to prepare a car for shipping, they should not have more than a quarter full tank and preferably less.

The people who he had the most experience of high power lithium batteries in crashes are RC modellers, since around 2005, and the short answer is that yes, damage is often a precursor to dire, as is a hot summers day in California, or a fault in charging or taking too much current out. And with the multi-celled nature of car batteries it is too expensive to individually protect every cell.

AS with windmills and solar panels we are being mandated to adopt an immature technology whose downsides are being hidden: It will not end well

Garages are built into peoples homes. you might be sleeping over one

An EV has a cooling loop for the battery pack. And typically a heat pump, used to heat or cool the battery to its operational temperature range. This means the environment for the cells, is quite controlled.

eBikes come in all shapes and sizes, with various degrees of attention to detail. They have no cooling system. You can overheat the batteries by going up long hills. An eBike is just a random number generator, when it comes to fire risk. a BEV is NOT the same.

Where BEVs get in trouble, is when there are known fabrication errors (improperly crimped items inside battery cell, lithium particles in electrolyte, etc).

There have been at least four auto-transport incidents to date. One problem with events at sea, is gathering failure info before the ship sinks. For one of the incidents, it was noted that the staff on the vessel were not aware there were recommended steps to be carried out for each BEV placed on board. (Which would be, disconnecting the HT wires under the bonnet before departure.) Now, these have nothing that bears directly on the problem - disconnecting the HT wires does not prevent much from happening. But you do begin to wonder, exactly how much of a "hands off" approach to shipping that this product can take.

Until a ship remains afloat after being burned to a crisp, and a proper study can be done, we won't know what the f*ck they're doing wrong. That is the essence of the problem.

There is really no excuse you can make up for this. I've pretty sure the cars are filled to less than 80%. Nobody charges a BEV car to exactly 100% as part of preparation at the BEV factory. The optimal fill before shipping will always be well-less than that. You only need enough fill, so that it does not self-discharge below "zero", before the customer gets it. A 50% fill would be plenty. And a 50% fill would be "safe" and not encourage failure.

A puncture wound (driving a forklift into the side of a BEV), that would start a nice fire, but... wouldn't someone admit (eventually), to having done that ???

At work once, I was sent on a "fact finding mission", because of some field failures coming from a certain (company!) site. They were using our product, the product had a high failure rate.

So I flew in. I watched. Nothing untoward the first couple days. Then Saturday came. The staff were telling me there was a local football game they would all be attending, so their heads were filled with mush. Then I caught them abusing the equipment. They didn't seem to realize what they were doing. Now, if I was back at my office, I would immediately emitted one of my famous "OH FFS people!". But I could not do that. Had to keep my mouth shut, and take my recommendations home, to be diplomatically written up. They were in effect, damaging multiple items costing $1500 a piece.

And I'm sure, if an insurance agent were on board the vessel, something will be going on there which will result in a face-palm. I've had other people at work, people sent to manufacturing facilities of our suppliers, relate all sorts of horror stories. There really are no limits to the human condition, that is for sure. "You're just lucky there are no bodies in the crate". Faith in mankind ??? Um. OK.

Some of the BEVs are fitted with always-online capabilities. But you can't get a wireless signal out of the hold of a ship. Even if the ship were fitted with wireless inside, so the BEVs could transmit environmental data, that would be a start. BEVs can even record video while sitting at rest (as part of a car alarm system). They have plenty of technical capabilities, but would need a little help when inside a ship, to transmit the info elsewhere.

Paul

BEVS have environmental controls. They have a heat pump, and depending on conditions, they engage the heat pump to heat or cool the battery. The battery packs have a liquid cooling loop. As do the motors, they have some provision for cooling as well.

For example, in a cold environment, you can command the car, while it is cabled and charging, to "pre-condition" the car for usage at 8AM. The heat pump (using mains energy), can heat the cabin, and can condition the battery packs to the correct temperature.

The batteries in a BEV receive much better treatment than any eBike.

The eBikes have no protection at all, from stuff like overheating. eBikes are not built to standards. They're thrown together from individual component parts. I can set up an eBike factory with "home boys", who have never seen and don't know how to use, a multimeter. Then I sell the bike to you, and you have no idea what shortcuts are in the design. If the bike catches fire, who do we sue ? Is the corporate name trace-able ?

Paul

There's a difference here too between EVs. Some don't disconnect the main battery when in "engine off" mode and some do, those that do have a lot more power electronics running all the time.

nib

I have travelled on car ferries on many occasions and never been asked to display the fuel gauge to any duly authorised officer of the company.

Water on a lithium fire - bad news!

I was watching a YouTube video about this and it was suggested that the vehicle may have damaged its battery while being loaded because of the steep angle of the loading ramp, which cars are driven up at speed in order to reduce the ship turnaround.

Same YT video mentioned this website -

Those car carriers generally do have CO2 systems and can isolate the decks from each other but a BEV fire is difficult to extinguish. You cannot use water because those car carriers are potentially top heavy if water gets inside.

Perhaps the global shipping industry needs to insist that BEV's are only carried when there is less than 5% charge in the battery (assuming that would make them less likely to burn badly).

It now appears to be about 500 EVs.

By confusing the accelerator with the brake. Bill

This is not a car ferry, but a ship transporting cars as freight. They can apply more stringent rules. All the car ferries can do is to request that you don't go aboard with a full tank.

Not sure how much this would help. There's the same amount of lithium after all.

Liquid nitrogen can apparently stop a thermal runaway.

But then, once a ship is on fire, how do you get close enough, to hook up the fittings to apply it ?

The battery packs would need space on them, to have fittings suited for that.

The problem needs more than inert gas. It needs some way of achieving temperature reduction.

Paul

Inert gas is pointless. The batteries supply their own own oxygen, or don't need any. One or the other.

I read a news item recently, where some scientists tried liquid nitrogen, and they make the claim you can apply it to a battery pack, and the pack remains functional afterwards. (So if you applied it to a pack which was not on fire, it has no long term consequences.) I find it a bit hard to believe. I believe the cold part of it, could stop a thermal runaway, but I don't know whether the battery pack would still be usable later.

Paul

Offhand. I cant see why it wouldn't be

Maybe the angle varies depending which port it's visiting, but it doesn't look steep here ...