OT: EV Insurance Rates Soar!

[Steve]

The non-nutcase (majority) population of the UK would never tolerate that.

Or that.

Or that.

Or any of that.

And that wouldn't happen either.

[Paul]

Well, what I thought was funny, is when I checked for fire propagation articles, they're using a pool of burning petrol under the BEV, as a worst case for external fire application. Rather than trying to get one BEV, to ignite another BEV (via battery pack jet). They're not using a battery pack jet emulation, to test fire resistance on BEVs.

In one reported fire, the fire brigade punched holes in the battery pack, to admit water. The material they punched holes in, was a fire wall. When the fire flared up again, it was made worse by the fact the firemen had compromised one of the mitigations the pack was designed with. Which is a good reason for future packs to have injection ports for fire fighting measures. As apparently, at the current time, they have quite a problem getting water into the affected area. So rather than "the cooling not being enough", it's a matter of "no cooling liquid getting to the area that needs it". This is why they're immersing vehicles in a pool, as a solution to extinguishing, since it's not possible to get water inside the thing, without making things worse (by puncturing to gain access).

The stationary battery banks (the one in Australia), that design has racks that are stacked next to one another. They could do that, because they spent a lot of effort studying fire spread, and how much material to add to stop propagation. And when there was a real fire, there were two or three racks involved (the one causing the event, the ones singed on either side). But an entire row of the battery plant didn't burn down. Neither was the entire 100MW battery incinerated.

This is why I would wait for the official report from Luton.

The thing that bothers me most about Luton ? The fire start time is one hour, before the Bedford fire brigade announces there is an issue at Luton. (And the language used in the current timeline description, leaves a lot to be desired, the language lacks precision.)

A whole hour seemingly wasted, because the fire was not reported right away. That's the *first* detail I want to see in a report, why a £20,000,000 facility had to burn down, because... nobody cared.

We need a time line. We also need to hear what an interview with the driver revealed (was it functionally arson? by just leaving the vehicle where it was left?).

I think it's great, when people can stand around shooting video of a fire. Well, what else could they have been doing? Oh, oh, yeah. Using tiny pint-sized fire extinguishers. The only thing missing, was roasting sticks and a bag of marshmallow.

Paul

[charles]

It would also remove that protection from those who live here.

ID cards - fine.

the prisons are already full.

[Paul]

A start, would be not allowing charging while on board the vessel.

At least one fire, it was caused by a cord plugged into some random outlet, to charge the car. That's why one of the "best practices" documents for ships, mentions dedicated outlets intended for charging, rather than random (customer-supplied) cords slung about.

They also mention putting the BEVs in a designated area. That way, if one BEV catches fire, there won't be a pool of burning petrol spreading the fire to other BEVs. When they test BEVs for external fire resistance, the test case they use, is to place a pool of burning petrol underneath the BEV. Which is their considered opinion, of the worst case source.

Ships with vehicles, to be equipped with cameras to detect fires sooner.

Ships crews to be equipped with portable IR viewing devices, for detecting hots spots.

One of the problems with extinguishing battery fires, is the material you apply "doesn't stay on the battery more than a fraction of a second". A company has been testing stuff, and as you would expect "applying water dropped the pack temperature initially, but the pack temperature went back up after the water stopped". It was the same for applying gaseous CO2 to the pack area. Temp drops initially, then goes back up with the CO2 runs out.

They did find a couple kinds of foam that cooled the pack enough to stop runaway behavior. So there are some efforts, to come up with better fire suppression systems. And having sprinklers or other water-borne suppression, also helps a bit to control the spread. On a ship, you need pumps to remove the water as it arrives.

Paul

[Tim Streater]

Well gee fella, thanks for that useful summary of what you wouldn't do. Now tell us what you would do.

[Tim Streater]

No it wouldn't. There are already plenty of laws to deal with that. Actual laws, that is, dealing with specifics, unlike the ECHR, which was designed in another era and in any case is just a set of pious hopes, which allow any sort of vague sounding bollocks to be groups for refusing deportation.

The law should be simple and straightforward, otherwise people lose confidence in it. Simple - non-citizens of this country arriving illegally by an illegal method. Straightforward - those in this group are subject to deportation - no exceptions.

[Fredxx]

Because they can't.

The irony is that illegal immigration is a small fraction of legal immigration:

2022 figures: Illegal immigration 76,000 Legal immigration 1.2million

Of course you won't be able to counter that any of your unsubstantiated claims.

Quite. Democracy trumps loud mouthed climate deniers.

[charles]

And how do you deport them? make them walk the plank?

[Vir Campestris]

Leaving data out of your quote doesn't help.

"Total long-term immigration was estimated at around 1.2 million in

2022, and emigration was 557,000, which means migration continues to add to the population with net migration at 606,000;"

That does of course mean that whether or not the 1.2M includes illegals is unimportant.

Andy

[Vir Campestris]

Interesting. The Torygraph obviously reads the Grauniad :)

Today's has an article on the same subject. Insurance is apparently going up because of the difficulty of mending battery packs. And repairers are advised to keep damaged vehicles 50ft away from any others.

Andy

[John J]

Until you have to start fannying about with a landrover throwing up the three amigos brake fault

[alan_m]

There are also around 650,000 deaths in the UK per annum.

[John J]

I invented new curses when I had to replace the starter motor on my 2003 discovery after fitting new solenoid contacts.

[Tim Streater]

A useless stat unless you also indicate the number of births.

[Andy Burns]

And 670,000 births (decreasing)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Simple, but effective.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You should have put the 'difficulty of mending battery packs' in quotes. That is what they are *saying*. It is not necessarily the reason.

This is the post modern, post truth world

[The Natural Philosopher]

...to people not born in this country...

[Joe]

I haven't followed this thread, so apologies if it has already been pointed out, but it's not just EV insurance rates rising.

Car insurance rates have risen about 40% over a year for all types of car. Basically, there have been some real problems for insurers over the last few years, and everyone is paying the bill. 'Excess deaths' sounds a bit abstract unless you are one of the underwriters who calculated premiums and payouts on the basis of actuary-expected deaths.

[Cursitor Doom]

Be a lot easier just to ban EVs from ships until an alternative to lithium can be found.