We’ll be teaching our children different fire safety lessons soon — starting with “don’t try this IN your home?”.
All the kilojoules came out at once.
Commentary sent with the video:
The battery of a scooter explodes while it is being charged. The person still had the presence of mind to remove the socket, but it was too late because the chemical reaction was already underway. This is what firefighters fear when it comes to electric cars.
As well as the battery of your ebike! Charging in a fireproof box or outside is not a luxury.
h/t Alistair P, and Helen D.
I do wonder if EV outlets in Underground parking-public and private- might need to be restricted or at the very least be placed in a secure area.
Does anyone know if an EV stopped working (electrical fault or run out of juice) whilst travelling on a road at say 50mph, would it glide to a halt over the course of say a hundred yards as Conventional vehicles do?
Someone said they would stop abruptly but that seems unlikely as it would be incredibly dangerous.
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You would hope they had a failsafe backup power source to operate the brakes etc if the main battery / system failed.
EVs are pointless, the only reason they are pushing them is due to the climate religion…
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There was a recent recall on some Tesla’s for suddenly stopping. The emergency braking is being falsely triggered.
https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1134101_tesla-ota-triggers-false-emergency-braking-causes-recall-fixed-by-another-ota
This braking is due to false detection. If the electrical circuit to the motors is shorted then that can result in uncontrolled stop. I have seen a diesel engine powering a generator stall due to an electrical fault in the generator. It is not a lot different to jamming something in the wheel spokes.
I know of the tail shaft of a 1970 model Holden car breaking at high speed causing loss of control and killing the driver and passenger. So some failures can lead to deadly consequences.
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According to the article the Tesla cars have a software problem that generates a false-collision warning.
The false collision warning which caused by a software error for those Tesla’s that have the ‘Full-Self Driving’ option. The Full-Self Driving software creases a false emergency stop of the Tesla by the automatic Tesla care. That Tesla car emergency stop on a highway is likely going to result in a rear collision.
From the article above.
“The 11,704 affected vehicles across the electric car maker’s lineup came equipped with its misnamed “Full-Self Driving” in Beta testing mode. Tesla patched through another over-the-air update to fix the issue.
Vehicles operating firmware release 2021.36.5.2 sent over-the-air (OTA) on Oct. 23, 2021 were subjected to false forward-collision warnings or automatic emergency braking events under a certain sequence of events.”
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An electric car uses an electric motor, whether accelerating of regenerative braking. The battery doesn’t control the motor, the electronics do. A battery fault CAN fry the electronics or trick it to perform differently to normal software settings though, maybe causing 100% regenerative braking due to a sensor saying the battery is near flat, etc.
Under fault conditions, the options include: – If the power wires to the motor are left effectively open circuit, then the motor will work like a generator with no load. It will roll on like a car in neutral. However, if the power wires are connected across a load, even a dead short, then the motor will be acting like a generator and will be brought to a stop, the higher the generator load the quicker the stop. But note…. The motor, when acting as a generator will develop a stopping force PROPORTIONAL to the speed of rotation, so you’re braking will be harsh to start with but at near zero speed the ‘brakes’ will not be on, you should be able to roll the car at walking pace off the road.
Car manufacturers could ensure that a car can AND will roll on by placing a circuit breaker on all power wires leading from the motor but since the current through that breaker is probably in the hundreds of amps, (and DC which loves to cause arcs), similar for voltage, then the breaker is going to be large, very large. AND expensive. So who thinks they put one in? They could use MOSFETs back to back on each wire but the cost is starting to mount, especially when you have very high current and very high voltages, that means lots of parallel mosfets and lots of protection circuitry.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts, I was looking into the design of an electronic breaker for a solar panel array, 100V, 50A and the mosfet solution was getting up to $200, (for two conductor, MOhm isolation), a DC relay breaker was in excess of $400. And that is for a relatively benign energy source, peak current and peak voltage easily known, now consider a car battery designed with extremely low internal resistance and an electric motor being turned into a generator by a 2 tonne mass traveling at highway speeds. With everything packed adjacent to passengers, do you put the breaker near the driver or the passengers?
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For an EV to stop suddenly there would have to be a reversal of polarity to the motors switching them to regenerative braking mode. If they simply lost power they would slow down like an electric fan does.
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Even EVs have mechanical brakes. Surely a frontal collision warning would apply them.
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The person reacted calmly, others might panic. So that was only a small ride on scooter, not even an Ebike
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The low cost scooters often have LiPoly batteries with high power density cells in plastic envelopes. By comparison, the E-Bikes usually have metal can cells that are less prone to explosive failure.
Fat LiPo cells should be carefully discharged and taken to a battery recycler:
https://learningrc.com/puffed-lipos/
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Not true Rick…
Most scooters , hoverboards , ebikes , etc, these days use the metal cased cylindrical cells as used in Vape pipes, decent LED flashlights, power tools, cordless vacuum cleaners, laptops, and increasingly in , ICE car starter batteries , caravans, etc.
Those pouch cells are still mostly the domain of RC hobbies, and (in bigger format) , in some EVs, (GM Bolt, Hyundai etc etc)
So, you wont escape the fire risk by banning scooters and Ebikes ( remember the exploding Sony laptops, or the flaming Samsung phones. .?
Previously there was a spate of flaming “hoverboards” whilst being charged,….they were all cylindrical cells.
The cause is invariably poor quality BMS ( battery management systems) that are intended as a safety system to prevent over/under charging, ..or poor quality assembly, ( wireing faults etc)
But that can happen in you laptop, vacuum cleaner, cordless drill, lawnmower , etc etc. !
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And by 2030 governments will end gasoline cars and force us to buy electric flaming death traps?
I can’t wait..
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Governments don’t want you to own your own vehicle, they want you to be dependent on a fleet of them. much easier to keep an eye on where you are going, and to make it hard to go where they don’t want you to.
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Two years ago that would have been a laughable conspiracy theory. Today, not so much.
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I wouldn’t worry too much Klem. By 2030 those countries won’t have enough power available to charge electric vehicles. Sunshine and breezes ya know!
I have convinced 3 people of the madness of ‘unreliables’. They were previously all for the CHEAP and CLEAN ‘unreliables’ as our main source of power generation.
Unfortunately there are still millions of people, including the MSM who have drunk the kool aid and won’t hear a bad word said about the ‘unreliables’.
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Still shaking my head after listening to a local radio talkback presenter and caller on EV, won’t they be good, we can power our homes in an emergency or go camping and power lights, television, and other “stuff”.
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Yeah, go camping where there is nothing to recharge your toys and run your batteries down. Well, about as smart of getting rid of ICE to begin with.
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The same radio guy cut a caller short who wanted to point out that a semi-trailer road freight transport truck or larger would require a trailer of batteries to obtain a reasonable commercially viable range, and then swap the trailer or wait and lose money while recharging.
The radio guy ignored the batteries and responded that Etrucks would be vert powerful and more than capable of handling the loads.
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Considering the millions of batteries charged everyday from tools to phones to transport you’d think this type of failure would be commonplace if it was a serious problem with the technology.
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The seriousness is the imprevisibility of an accident that can be VERY dangerous. If that accident would be just stop working, no problem: something like a flat tire, very small risk. But starting a fire in the basement (when sleeping or absent) is a very different matter. The probability of accident may be very low, but when the accident occurss, the risk is very high.
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You need to read up on the charging of batteries for electric MODEL planes. All sensible people charge them in fireproof boxes, designed to keep the contents inside the box. The marketplace is full of adverts for the boxes. Not easy to fit a whole car into the box though and the industry frowns upon the continued use of a battery that has been involved in a ‘bad’ landing.
The information is out there, you just need to know where to look, try RCME magazine for some more info.
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and drones with LiPo. It is really better practice to remove the battery and charge it in a ventilated box, though not so practical for a car (obviously)
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There are different lithium battery chemistry and packaging.
Cells that fail explosively are usually LiPoly pouch cells in plastic wrapping:
https://learningrc.com/puffed-lipos/
Pouch cells are used in phones.
All hand tools use metal cans. As do most E-Bikes. These are less prone to explosive failure. Computers use metal cans.
Tesla use metal cans. Some carmakers are using pouches but inside metal battery casings.
Bombs are the result of chemical reactions. Batteries rely on chemical reactions and some failures can cause explosions. The essence of good battery design is packing as much energy into a given package without is having a serious risk of explosion.
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And one article I read showed how certain battery chemical mixes were bordering on dangerous, in their efforts to obtain more energy density.
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Pouch cells expand, split , and burn rapidly..
Can cells , ( aka Tesla, power tools, Ebikes, scooters etc)..get very hot and eventually “explode” voilently.. !
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Look at the trouble Boeing had with the 787 Dreamliner when it was new, megawatts of lithium batteries burning while kms up in the sky, they eventually had to put the batteries in steel boxes.
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I’ve fitted a smoke detector directly above the spot in my garage where I charge my e-bike. At least my garage is separate from my dwelling. Would not ever contemplate putting a battery bank in there though.
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Depends on the format, phones arent indicative of anything much when looking at batteries made up of large numbers of cells, large numbers of connections and battery management systems.
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There’s been plenty of phones catch fire.
Manufacturers have had very expensive recalls after admitting a design fault … even the big names.
Apple had a fire safety recall on Macbook Pro as recently as 2019 and Samsung had problems with their phones catching fire back in 2016.
Thing is that the safety demands are quite stringant, in the statistical sense. If one device per million starts a fire that’s already enough to get the design recalled. On the other hand … at one time they were talking about putting mini gas turbines into laptops and even had some working prototypes but the airlines killed it real quick.
Batteries are a solid win for small devices, liquid fuel wins for medium size mobile machines, and solid fuel is the best for large stationary machines. It’s a well established heirarchy at this stage … with some room around the zone of scooters and hoverboards to quibble about exactly where the crossover point sits.
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The German city of Bremen has abandoned a fleet of E busses it proudly had because several of them blew up in the depot. There are places where parking your EV in a garage is forbidden. Does the E stand for Exploding sooner or later?
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E-vehicles exploding is very rare and is at a similar rate to ICE engines exploding, HOWEVER there are a couple of factors that make it a much bigger deal for E-vehicles versus ICE vehicles.
1. ICE engine explosions are almost always due to some kind of crash or trauma. They don’t blow up while sitting in a garage or (in the case of this scooter) in your home.
2. E-vehicle fires are notoriously hard/impossible to put out. The best most fire departments can do is contain the fire by dousing it for hours (or even DAYS if the battery in question is big enough) until it runs out of fuel. The only other solution is to completely enclose it with concrete, like they did when Chernobyl blew up.
Long story short, if you are thinking of buying an E-vehicle, you might want to look into getting a building permit to construct a detached garage. And if you run a parking facility, you might want to think twice about installing charging ports.
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You can add the detail about the lithium released through the fire and its effects on the surrounding environment, in particular the humans and other living things. Lithium in medicines can be used to treat mental disorders, in VERY small doses, products released from fires are neither small, nor regulated in content.
Don’t breathe it, don’t get it on your skin and don’t ingest it. Other than that, it’s just fine to have around the house.
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Mr. Ian: Even if true, what you say could persuade people not to buy EVs to save the planet. That makes it misinformation, which is forbidden, and you must be cancelled for spreading true misinformation.
Not really, I just wondered how it felt.
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https://www.expaturm.com/german-lifestyle/electric-buses-fire-danger/
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EV….. Exploding Vehicle.
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How come we can even see this? A lot of questions come to mind.
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The video date is 29 July 2018.
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I watched a more recent video where an electric delivery truck caught fire at a charging station, and the resultant fire was intense, and engulfed about three other cars. It was a spectacular sight from a safe distance, and the fires are incredibly hard to put out.
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High power lithium battery devices should never be charged in an enclosed area or in the vicinity of flammable items. Or if they are, they should be not left unattended.
Having said that, I think properly designed lithium battery devices are safe, with the exception of some notable incidents.
I don’t however advocate the use of EV’s as replacements for gasoline or diesel cars. They make fun toys for the rich and possibly useful shopping trolleys for others.
In Europe a manufacturer has dwveloped a fireproof ^Firebox” to place over a burning EV. See:
https://www.blubox.ch/download/firebox-presentation-english.pdf
(For those interested I wrote a three part series on battery technology for Silicon Chip magazine, Jan, Feb and Mar 2022.)
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Bit like airline flying really, quite safe, till it isnt, then its really bad.
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Mr. Maddison: Was that article peer reviewed? Asking for Gee Aye. Can’t believe I beat him to it.
/s/- not a real question to Mr. M.
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Why would that need peer review?
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As part of Australia’s fanatical commitment to UN policies such as “Agenda 2030” and “sustainable cities” more and more people will be living in high density apartments with associated underground parking*. This will mean many EV’s have to be charged in enclosed underground spaces.
Where all the power us coming from to charge these EV’s is another question. It certainly won’t be from solar or wind…. We’ll have to build more coal, gas or (gasp!) nuclear power stations to charge the EV’s LoL.
*Note that many new apartment complexes don’t even have parking for every apartment. You are expected to walk or catch the bus.
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I don’t think our brilliant leaders have thought about the charging problem….but it will become a big problem if they keep pushing EV sales to replace ICE. If we could magically change the private vehicle fleet here in Australia to all EV, we would create a massive short fall in energy…i.e the grid would fail when most are all plugged in at night to top up the charge.
Without more coal/nuclear power station construction, it is inevitable.
We also face the problem of charging station congestion for those who cannot charge at home, or when on an extended trip, as even the best brands can take 20-30 minutes to top up to 80% charge. If you arrive at a charge station to find all the outlets are in use, you are going to be standing around for a while…in the hot sun or the rain or something in between.
EV’s make great city runabouts it would appear, if you can overnight charge, but you then have the risk of fire, particularly if they are in a garage of some sort.
Where I live, in a regional Town, a trip to the big City would have an extra 45 minutes to an hour added to it if I had an EV, to make sure I made it to the City, and back home.
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Following the “law of unintended consequences” we run into things like Snowy 2. I assume that the current thinking is, when is the most power available to pump water up hill?
The wee small hours hours of course when people are tucked up in bed. However as more E vehicles flood the system, when are they most likely to be charged? Why, when you are tucked up in bed of course.
So we build a giant battery to consume the cheapest power available today, this power availabliity will diminish as more and more E vehicles get plugged in at night, and, lo and behold we are left with a refillable lake that costs more to fill than it ever generates in returns. I can follow this. ( No I can’t )
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Going by South Africa’s pumped storage systems – they only work when there’s an excess of NORMALLY generated power. Close down too many coal-fired plants and presto! no power excess! Also, SA had a drought problem two years ago – no water running to the lower dams -nothing to pump!
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Example a news story a couple of years ago about a residential and commercial building in Port Melbourne Victoria, the strata title owners were considering the installation of EV recharging facilities in the carpark but an electrical contractor advised that his firm could not proceed if they received the order without gaining approval from the electricity suppliers.
Approval was applied for but refused because firstly the local grid would need upgrading including new sub-stations and the cost would be substantial, and if the body corporate wanted approval the costs would have to be paid by the owners.
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“and if the body corporate wanted approval the costs would have to be paid by the owners.”
Bet the inner city green loons sat down and had a serious think about that, and no mention of the fire risk either.
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I wont repeat the details again….as i have posted them multiple times before when this comment crops up…. but in Australia we CURRENTLY have sufficient electricity generation capacity available to provide charging capacity for at least 50 %(10 million), of our car fleet being EVs
Please check facts before posting unsubstantiated statements.
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Yes of course and on average I am sure it will all be available in the right places, at the right time and affordable as needed.
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” but in Australia we CURRENTLY have sufficient electricity generation capacity”
Yeah, that’s until the climate loonies shut down existing coal and gas facilities, then where’s your surplus.
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Do you really believe any flavour of government would allow power generation to reduce to that level ?
Already, Labour have backflipped and support a new Gas fired generator as proposed by ScoMo.
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And the blackouts were caused by ????
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This video shows the loss of a fleet of parked buses in a very short time.
And there have already been many reports around Australia about fires caused by electric bike fires etc and of course the big battery pack fire near Geelong Vic last year.
EVs are very bad news and are very dangerous and don’t forget passengers are sitting on top of HALF TONNE batteries while driving EV cars on the road.
Once the fire starts you have very little time to pull over and get out.
Check out this very short video and THINK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T71cVhxG_v4
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From the Comments
– I can’t believe how fast and how severe the fire was
– Imagine being that person who fell asleep the whole ride back.
– If this happened with passengers inside, imagine how bad it would’ve been. This needs to be investigated thoroughly and the bus company or parts suppliers should be held responsible
– I’m feel bad for the last bus. He witnessed his friends burns to death
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Here’s the news video report of the Tesla big battery pack fire near Geelong in 2021.
Why are we installing these TOXIC disasters or EVs or E bikes or whatever? They drive up costs around the world and are very dangerous.
And they obviously will not change the climate by 2050 or 2100. Tell us why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXCqee5SXAM
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Another issue related to “the law of unintended consequences” is that a lot of the attraction of EV’s will be lost once government taxes on gasoline and diesel are lost due to increasing EV penetration.
Governments will make up the loss by a tax on distance driven or a charging tax. Already one Australian state, Vicdanistan, charges a 2.5c per km tax for distance driven, which currently is much less than the equivalent gasoline tax (although that is Federal only, there are no State fuel taxes).
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David M:
Unless things have changed South Australia has a 3 cent per litre tax on fuel. Introduced years ago (2005) as a “temporary” measure.
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Graeme, according to Wikipedia there are no Australian state fuel taxes at present.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_Australia?wprov=sfla1
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Put into perspective, the GST 10% is a state revenue tax, it is collected by the Federal ATO and the revenue is accounted for in Federal revenue however all of it, one hundred per cent of it is distributed to states and territories based on an agreed formula as changed from time to time by agreement.
So fuel excise (Federal) is plus GST.
The Greens often try to deceive unwary people by claiming that fuel tax rebate is a subsidy, when Greens are trying to deflect criticism of the wind and solar business specific subsidy for profit, but the rebate is for fuel used off-road for whatever purpose because the fuel excise or tax is for on-road users. So mines, farms, heavy construction machinery and others apply for the rebate. It is not a subsidy.
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Temporary energy taxes never go away. Then after awhile they are no longer enough. For example, the state here sought for an additional (it was already over 40 cents per gal going to various levels of government) 9 cents per gal fuel tax about five years ago. Last year they sought for an additional increase.
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And like all taxes, it is introduced at a low rate and will gradually be increased at every state budget until the rate is oppressive.
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Here’s the Nissan Leaf price for Aussies in 2022.
The very basic car is $50,000 and the top range is $60,000. Seriously, what a joke and what foolish dummy would pay such a price for this very small TOXIC , dangerous EV?
https://www.carsguide.com.au/nissan/leaf/price/2022
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For the price a family could buy two equivalent internal combustion engine small cars.
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It really is as simple as this:
[1]. “Global Warming” = a Leftist ploy to dismantle Western industry.
[2]. Electric Vehicles = a Leftist ploy to destroy personal mobility.
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Yes, there is no doubt that the Left have a war against personal mobility. They hate the Freedom to go anywhere as you please, when you please (except for the Elites who have chauffeured cars or fly private jets).
You can even see it how Leftist councils are constantly removing parking spaces or increasing parking meter fees or as I mentioned elsewhere, requiring that not all new apartments have allocated parking places.
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Correct.
The whole climate religion is unhinged, and frankly quite loopy…
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Due to the intentional dumbing down of the population over the last 50 years or so, few people understand the difference in energy density between fossil fuels and batteries.
Here is an explanation from the American Physical Society:
https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201208/backpage.cfm
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I believe modern ICEs now have efficiencies over 30%, some even close to 40%.
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Yes, the 15% figure seemed low to me but erring on the conservative side so batteries would seem even worse.
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I read a cost-benefit analysis comparing EV to ICEV and when all costs are accounted for the EV is not as cost effective.
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but the virtue Dennis, think about the virtue
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But a Church of Climate Change congregation or friend of the church could save money on an ICEV and but carbon credits to display as virtue signalling.
lol
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In South Park when they all went E.V. the town disappeared in a cloud of smug.
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Most of the energy used by a vehicle in city driving is accelerating and then lost to braking. Hybrids are able to recover the energy from braking and use half the fuel of a vehicle of similar mass in city driving.
Windage and rolling resistance are the main energy losses in highway operation. Electric vehicles have considerable design detail to lower these losses.
33
in benign weather
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I don’t want to leave my ebike outside while charging, so I recharge it in the garage using a timer that switches the power off after 1, 2 or 4 hours, depending on how discharged the battery was. It has a 14.4Ah Samsung battery pack.
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I’ve read reports that E bikes etc can be safely charged in a “safety box” that will protect your house and the people asleep inside.
So will this be a part answer to safely charging your car in the street or your house garage or at work etc?
Who knows but it doesn’t seem very practical and an EV car box or a monster E Bus box would have to be very expensive .
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Australian Standards prohibit locating a house battery under an occupied dwelling. That precludes placing house batteries in many car garages located under living spaces.
I do not know if the Standard is now included in regulations but likely will be.
Some underground carparks are prohibiting BEVs. The carparks usually have good fire suppression but water doesn’t not work on lithium batteries.
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To add to this very serious problem condensation greatly increases the fire risk. Charging outside is essential but cover the bike to avoid condensation.
Note these fire fumes are toxic.
Eliectric cars are crazy and should not be in public car parks or charged in a garage.
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Depending on the cover, would not but cover the bike to avoid condensation cause condensation?
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I agree oldOzzie and made sure I said cover the bike to avoid condensation.
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Don’t forget that we are turning our lives upside down because so called scientists, pollies and MSM etc keep telling us we Humans are facing an EXISTENTIAL THREAT.
But who believes their idiocy and why are Humans today living much longer than 1950 (life exp 46) or 1970 ( life exp 56.5 yrs) or 1990 ( life exp 64 yrs) or 2022( 73 yrs)?
And Human pop has more than doubled since 1970, 3.7 bn then to 7.8 bn today. But our poorest continent Africa has increased pop by over 1 billion since 1970 or nearly a FOUR FOLD INCREASE in just 50 years.
BTW here’s the kicker—- Africa’s life expectancy today is higher than the Human world in 1970 and is the same as world life exp in 1990.
Plus they’ve also suffered an HIV/AIDs crisis for the last 40+ years.
But why doesn’t the average punter understand any of this very recent history? Are we really this stupid? If you disagree I’m sure you can tell me where I’m wrong? Here’s the Macrotrends link using UN life expectancy data since 1950.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/WLD/world/life-expectancy
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Good news is of no interest to the media. What motivates people is misery and disaster. The world in 2022 is better off than it has ever been, but you will not read that. And increasing wealth is starting to tip the curve of population growth because children are a choice in a modern world and their chance of survival to adulthood is incredibly high in most of the world, so people have far fewer children and those children have better, more stable, happier lives. Disaster sells. And after 34 years of rapid global warming and sea rise, we are all going to drown, soonish.
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It is amazing how incredibly rare this is in modern society. Consider every home in the world is stuffed with things recharging which do not catch fire and apparently there are over 7 million Electric Vehicles. At the same time high energy devices like the newly popular scooters have to be recognized for their stored power and the risk of having them inside. And that fact that they can have a very rough life mechanically, increasing the risk of short circuits.
You could not imagine someone refilling or parking their petrol scooter in the living room next to the television. We have great respect for petrol devices and flammable chemicals as high risk things which really can explode. And now we need to develop respect for any devices which have more power than a mobile phone or lap top. A home nearby had a major fire when a stick vacuum cleaner went up in flames suddenly. While they do not explode, the fires cannot be put out or contained and people have no idea what to do or any contingency plan.
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Electric Car batteries are mechanically insulated by large movement dampened suspension and wide rubber tyres, mobile electric devices like scooters which can be mechanically compromised in a potentially violent existence and should be treated as high risk. Scooters have just started to appear on the street in Melbourne as rental devices and unlike electric bicycles, are very likely to become compromised in high acceleration events like jumping off kerbs. They should not be brought inside.
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And I noted that few of the electric scooter riders wear the provided helmets and of course none have gel gloves. This means major accidents waiting to happen with the high acceleration and the fundamental instability, lousy braking plus the tendency of people to ride at high speed through slow pedestrian traffic in areas where even bikes are not allowed. There will be a lot of serious accidents with these new rental devices. And a few fires.
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The ACT and QLD have had these rental scooters for years..
Sydney also trialled them and had fleets of public rental Ebikes..
Whilst there are many adverse reports of idiots riding scooters on pavements or in dangerous road situations……
…i dont recall any major reports of flaming armageddon ?
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The damage to the house nearby was likely over $1M. The risk to life extreme and there were three fire engines in attendance and it was on the evening and morning news. But you have a point. The fact that it was caused by a stick vacuum cleaner battery was not mentioned.
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Sally Capp was our representative in England. Rental bikes were everywhere in London and very sensible.
Our cab driver told us that there were proposals to make helmets compulsary on bikes and considerable alarm that would destroy bike rentals.
I would not wear a helmet that had been on a variety of heads. At minimum that’s a lousy idea.
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Then don’t rent one. If you come off, as on a bicycle, it is certain that you will damage your hands and hit your head and likely on concrete. The risk from lice is manageable. The risk from a skull fracture is not.
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I did not say I would not use a bike. I would take my own helmet!
We know what happened to bikes in Melbourne. I think the English helmet concern was possibly right.
Helmets were compulsary on motor cycles in Taiwan. Very few were worn because helmets caused dizziness and hence accidents. The law was not enforced. The public considered helmets on bikes dangerous.
I do wonder if the same applies to bicycles. Perhaps the cure is worse than the problem. We do have ventatated hats that perhaps reduce risks.
Did the statistics justify the need for helmets. Who knows how many helmets have reduced deaths or head trauma?
In my 82 years I only know personally of 4 bike deaths and none of them were from head injuries.
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I now also wonder if the mass of the helmet increase the jerking of the neck and brain.
Lice are not the only risk in sharing helmets. The probabilities of hitting heads on concrte are remote. This great idea will probably fail because of helmets. Shoul pedestrians wear helmets? They fall over and get hit.
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Yep, lithium batteries bad. In other news, I’ve just posted a comment to the” Australian” containing the word ivermectin and it didn’t get moderated. Either the usual moderator is off sick with COVID or there’s a bug in their Trusted News Initiative software 🙂
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I saw that and did a double take! The great unmentionable actually named. Wasn’t that in the comments on Nick Cater’s article?
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Yes, and today Adam Creighton mentioned both ivermectin and HCQ in his article along with Dr Robert Clancey.
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There are quite a number of videos such as this one now via the Internet; and there’s no doubt that as more electric vehicles come into use there will be more.
I’ve assembled a series of PDFs to introduce the concept of ‘modern nuclear power’ (both fission and fusion), and this includes both the perils and true environmental consequences of ‘renewables’ (including ultimate waste disposal, etc.) as well as the development of something about which most people are blissfully aware: The production of super-clean and highly-efficient petrol/jet fuel from dihydrogen monoxide that can be extracted from sea-water using excess heat from nuclear power generation.
Perhaps you might care to check it all out? The start is by way of an ‘introduction to an introduction’: http://www.galileomovement.com.au/media/SaveThePlanet.pdf which leads ultimately to http://www.galileomovement.com.au/media/SaveThePlanetStart.pdf. This introduces nuclear power (without ‘blowing brains’ at the outset), as well as revealing the unsuspected side-benefits of nuclear power, including making petrol from water. The subsequent Part 2 highlights the folly of ‘renewables’, including quite a bit about electric vehicle disasters – with the video that Joanne has highlighted today: http://www.galileomovement.com.au/media/SaveThePlanetPart2.pdf.
Any comments/feed-back/suggestions will be appreciated. I’m hoping that material like this circulated ‘out there’ might start to educate a few people – especially our propagandised Youth!
100
Thanks to TdeF above and at last I’ve received a response to my questions about life exp and our so called Human EXISTENTIAL threat. I’ve used UN data so it’s difficult to challenge my numbers and the very OBVIOUS conclusions I’ve drawn for the last 200 K years of Human history or the last 200 or 100 or 50 or 30 years.
But I still have to pinch myself that most so called educated people have very little understanding about what I’ve been trying to say now for a very long time.
Indeed Dr Rosling’s lectures prove the case when he asked tertiary educated people very easy questions about our modern world. Their answers were dreadful, but then again the leaders of our various countries seem to believe in a fantasy world as well.
Just check out the loonies at the recent Glasgow COP idiocy in NOV 2021.
BTW here AGAIN is Dr Rosling’s “BBC Joy of Stats video”, where he tries to educate us about our amazing journey from 1810 to 2010.
This takes less than 5 minutes of your time, but what a pity that kids today are not shown this video and then discuss it in the classroom and then test their understanding of the REAL world? But I always tell myself I’m dreaming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahp7QhbB8G4
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Excellent. And Global Warming is the least of anyone’s problems. If it is a problem anyway. Frankly, I would like some. +1C seems absolutely nothing for all the money we are paying. Does the IPCC have a complaints department?
50
An excellent article on the folly of electric cars by Bjorn Lomborg, in the UK’s Daily Mail:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10483317/Are-electric-cars-new-diesel-scandal-Expert-looks-future-road-travel.html
50
Please consider why Electric Vehicles including Hybrids must display a blue sticker on the front and read registration plates to identify they for road traffic emergency authorities in case of being involved in a road accident.
Petrol and Diesel internal combustion engine vehicles do not have a warning sticker unless LPG dual fuel or LPG only is on board and then a red sticker must be displayed.
50
you realise that the lack of a sticker means petrol or diesel is powering the vehicle? The “warning” stickers are not there to alert about added risk rather they alert for different risks that, mainly first responders, need to be aware of.
No sticker means that the risks are those presented by petrol and diesel.
19
“NSW uses a warning triangle for EVs, Victoria uses a diamond shaped electric-car label for licence plates. In NSW, hydrogen cars must display a pentagonal-shaped label (see examples below).
The warning signs are designed to advise emergency service workers responding to a crash that the vehicle may be equipped with a large battery pack and may need to be disabled or disconnected to prevent a potential fire.
While the design of certain vehicles such as the Toyota Prius hybrid and Tesla electric cars are distinctive and easier for emergency crews to identify, it is becoming more difficult for emergency crews to distinguish which vehicles may have battery packs on board given the widespread rollout of hybrid tech on mainstream models such as the Toyota Corolla, Camry and RAV4.
Hydrogen vehicles such as the upcoming Hyundai Nexo will also need to display yellow ‘H’ warning labels on their plates, whereas models such as the Hyundai Ioniq (pictured above) will wear a triangular ‘EV’ tag whether it is a hybrid, plug-in hybrid or fully electric car.
In the US, Tesla is currently facing a lawsuit after an owner died when the vehicle’s battery pack caught fire following a crash. It was alleged the crash would have been otherwise survivable.
The NSW requirement to display an EV warning triangle (pictured above and below) on the front and rear registration plates of hybrid and electric cars – and the rear only on hybrid or electric motorbikes and scooters – was introduced in NSW in 1 January 2019.
All vehicles manufactured after this date must display the ‘EV’ labels – which are supplied by transport authorities – however enforcement of the new law won’t come into effect until 1 January 2020.
In Victoria, hybrid and electric cars not displaying a ‘hybrid’ or ‘EV’ label are subject to a fine or a defect, although the VicRoads website does not nominate the cost of the penalty.
A letter sent by Roads and Maritime Services in NSW says the labels have been introduced “as a safety initiative to help Emergency Services staff and first responders in the event of a crash”.
“They will allow vehicles to be quickly identified as having an electric or hydrogen component, so specific procedures can be used to make the incident safer for everyone,” the letter says.
Customers are then advised to “please ensure the enclosed self-adhesive labels are securely fixed to your vehicle’s front and rear number plates”.
The letter does not explain what the NSW penalty will be for not displaying the ‘EV’ warning label, however it will likely be similar to Victoria: a defect or a fine at the officer’s discretion.”
40
Thanks for writing such a long letter of support.
16
I thought the stickers were just to ensure that the cache of driving an EV was duly noted in traffic, in case people thought you were driving a low virtue ICE car now that modern cars all look the same and have the same styling themes.
50
Maybe they should have a sticker in the shape if a dumpster .. …i.e. what you need to be filled with water to dump burning EV into to extinguish it, 4 days later….
40
First responders to an EV , just remove the victims from the vehicle and stand back and enjoy the spectacle, it’s the insurance company who should be worried.
30
A slight dissenting opinion about EV’s:
(But first, let me say that climate change theory is complete crap.)
My fun car is a 2004 GTO – made by y’all down there in AUS. 360 hp, fun fun fun!
But I’ve been driving a friend’s Tesla, and holy cow! The power! Puts my goat to shame.
EV’s have their place. They’re simpler to build and fix, they’re smooth to operate, and if you have adequate charging facilities, they can be the best choice for an urban vehicle. I’m looking to pick up a used one just for the fun. (Anyone want to buy a goat?)
So, aside from the fact that they are mostly loved by climate-truth deniers, they are a valid choice for many.
(ICE cars burn up too, more often in fact than EV’s. They just don’t make the news. Dog bites man, and all that.)
23
I have never heard of exothermic reaction in a petrol or diesel fuel tank, or thermal runaway.
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There are very many more ICE cars than EV.
40
There are more ants than tigers. Which is better?
09
clearly missed the point
50
…. sort of like a random one-line comment generator.
20
AI, but missing the “I”
20
.. ?? Utter rubbish !
How many local service shops, or even dealers ( ah, but Tesla doesnt have dealers , do they ?).. know how to fault find and repair a 3 phase power inverter, or battery management system ?
There are dozens of service shops and local mechanics in my local area that can rebuild most any ICE..
20
No, it’s not utter rubbish. I can repair and rebuild and renovate ICE vehicles. I can do the same for EV’s. I will attest that EV’s are simpler and easier to fix.
What you speak of is the infrastructure available for vehicle repair. Of course there are fewer places to take your EV right now. There are far fewer EV’s right now.
We ought not conflate the illogic of the climate change fables with the basic idea of electric vehicles.
20
Repair and rebuild electric vehicles-
Can you repair an 8 year old battery that has failed and is out-of-warranty?
01
EV or ICEV, the answer should be to let consumers decide, allow free enterprise (the left call capitalism) market consumers pick winners and losers on merit, no government interference like they do with wind and solar energy businesses and fossil fuelled power station businesses.
60
I just went by a Tesla dealership in Melbourne and it advertised the availability of a $3000 Government (i.e. taxpayer) subsidy.
More taxes upon hard working people for rich people’s toys.
160
The Turnbull Government with full support in Parliament introduced a $300 million incentive to be paid via fleet leasing firms to their fleet operator customers to encourage use of EV.
So, company cars for company executives.
70
Fair dinkum there are a lot of really stupid people around today.
The small Tesla Model 3 Aussie price ranges from $60,000 to $87,000 for the larger battery etc.
The Model S ranges in price from close to $90,000 to $150,000.
I hope the taxpayer gimme of $3,000 is the maximum that we have to hand over to the idiots who purchase these TOXIC disasters.
How this lunacy is supposed to change the climate or fix their delusional EXISTENTIAL threat etc is sure proof that we’ve lost the plot over the last 30 years.
https://www.carsguide.com.au/tesla/model-3/wheel-size
80
One of the things that annoy me about motor magazine reports and road tests is quoting theoretical range, usually as the manufacturer states, brand new battery pack and EV with no consideration for variable energy loss factors, beginning with the recommendation not to regularly recharge more than 80%, so a loss of 20% of energy and range. Next is that the battery management systems will not allow discharge below 10% to protect the batteries, another 10% of energy and range lost. So about 30% of theoretical range unobtainable, or risky if fully charged too often.
Next, for city driving the regenerative braking system will recharge the batteries each slowing down time, I read that very approximately based on going up a steep hill for every 100 units of energy used 30 will be recovered going downhill which is a useful feature and range extender.
But all EV use more energy the faster they are driven so at 100 kmh to 110 kmh highway legal speeds energy use is significantly more than at 80 kmh or less. Air conditioning or heating consumes energy, other accessories when in use consume energy, passengers and luggage loads weight consumers energy the heavier it gets. Variable factors.
ICEV consume less fuel at highway speeds and more at suburban area speeds. Therefore EV is best suited for city and suburban driving, but ICEV are suitable for both with some exceptions being for example V8 engines and other higher power engines, and larger heavier ICEV that consume a lot more fuel in stop and start traffic conditions.
I would have no opposition to EV, fire hazard potential a concern, if the price for a suitable model was equivalent to ICEV, same or similar range capability, recharging time not much longer than refuelling ICEV. As it stands even the cheapest mini-car EV is almost double the price of the equivalent ICEV.
50
I got banned from a motoring web site for politely telling the truth about how pointless EVs are and that climate change is bogus … clearly it caused some crying into soy lattes for a while ..
80
I know all about that, they are zealots.
40
I was banned from Birds In Backyards for saying birds are not at risk of extinction due to CC.
30
Tesla dont have “dealerships”….
….they have showrooms only…no stock, no negotiation etc.!
10
I’m no fan of EVs but all types of cars can burst into flames or explode: Aussies urged to check vehicles after spate of car explosions
00
Here’s an extract from the Lomborg article linked above……
“According to one authoritative study, even by 2050 electric cars will make up just 20 per cent of global car travel.
But perhaps none of that matters if electric cars will save the planet? And they will, won’t they? Er, no.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that if every nation achieves their ambitious targets on increasing electric car ownership, it will reduce CO2 emissions in this decade by 235 million tons.
That, according to the UN Climate Panel’s standard model, will reduce global temperatures by about one ten-thousandth of a degree Celsius (0.0001c) by the end of the century”. END of quote.
WHEN WILL WE WAKE UP? And this 0.0001c reduction will WASTE trillions of $ for ZERO change to climate or temp FOREVER.
Unless you believe in fairy stories, like the idiots at the Glasgow clown show.
60
The one reason to convert transport to EVs is to reduce the consumption of oil which is far more valuable as a feed stock for chemicals, plastics, pharmacuticals etc. ..for which we have few if any alternatives. Transport could be powered by any one of several alternatives including Electricity, gas, synthetics, etc.
04
I wonder how the NATO loonies are progressing with their electric tanks strategy to fight the Russians and Chinese armies?
Yes this was considered by some of the top brass a few years ago, but they were embarrassed when the MSM started to ask some very obvious questions.
Putin and China’s president must have been laughing their socks off when they heard those mind numbing reports.
60
I wonder how the NATO loonies thought (if they think) about operating in very cold weather conditions or very hot deserts, and recharging in the field, diesel generators with many back up fuel tankers and logistics.
60
That will have to wait as far more important defense issues are sorted
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/02/cop-this-putin-xi-natos-got-your-gender-threats-covered.html
40
Heavy road transport, by now diesel-electric road prime movers would be the most common and popular choice if they were cost effective, that works well on railways.
But railways can handle hundreds of containers and other cargo but road transport is limited to road trains of up to four trailers, approximately four largest containers capacity. This relates to road load limits and traffic considerations, but also liquid fuel load required to achieve a commercially acceptable range.
E-Truck that I have read about, autonomous trucks in Sweden on trial, semi-trailer configuration, are limited to a couple of hundred kilometres of range in between recharges. In Australia, Canada, United States and other countries road transport covers thousands of kilometres a day. It would greatly reduce the all important payload of freight if a trailer of batteries was being towed. And the recharging waiting time would be a commercial disaster of downtime. The alternative would be swap battery pack trailers but at what cost and hazard risks?
In my opinion E-Trucks are not viable for long distances, maybe Hydrogen Fuel Cell E-Trucks will be viable, maybe?
40
YouTuber Thundef00t has debunked the idea of electric trucks. Most of the payload capacity would be used by batteries.
As for hydrogen fuel cells, generating hydrogen is energy intensive And costly, so is liquefying it plus no one wants to be sitting on a tank of hundreds of litres of liquid hydrogen at -253C.
And why would you want to with plentiful oil, including the possibility of coal to liquid fuel conversion if oil becomes too scarce?
60
Sorry, forgot the link.
https://youtu.be/56862W24HK8
30
The “genius” Anthony Albanese says solar panels can charge electric vehicles at night for free:
https://youtu.be/vyS9uqRLbB8
With politicians like this, no wonder Australia’s energy policies are a disaster.
130
One of the many worries I have about Albo leading a cabinet of government ministers is his work career, no business experience, Labor union and party staffer and worse a far-left faction member for life.
A natural partner for the Greens.
120
Albo and co have already proved to us they couldn’t run a kindergarten raffle, there’s no chance of them getting in.
50
I am very concerned about another Union controlled Labor Government with their Greens (recipients of Union donations as well) comrades in government again, as with Gillard Labor minority alliance 2010, carbon tax and renewable energy surcharge each 10% plus GST 10% and many other far-left lunatic policies, Greens Leader Bandt is already salivating and crowing about the Greens wish list if Albo was PM.
And behind Albo all the other Rudd, Gillard and Rudd MPs and former Ministers anxious to access the trough.
60
Ronin,never under-estimate the stupidity of the voters.
00
The WWE (World Wrestling Federation) implores fans to “DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME” (WRT injuring themselves and then suing the WWE). This equates exactly to EVs or scooters blowing up. Who is to blame… manufacturer or client?? The only group wringing their hands with glee are the lawyers.
60
Just think of this in context of the giant batteries that Morris Iemma and others are proposing to place around the countryside. Yes I hear people say its unlikely they will have a problem, but all I can say is that the situation when it occurs will end all battery installations thereafter. Many many tonnes of lithium will end up detonating and causing severe damage for a significant radius, and the fire will take days to put out. And hundreds of millions of $$$$ down the drain.
Cynically no insurer would touch them after the first catastrophy, so bad will be the damage. And nobody will want a battery near them. Reminds me of the wretched insurers refusing to insure fossil fuel plants….
80
Lost another house last night in Perth, due to a lithium battery being charged in the garage.
30
Is this why house insurance rose 35% for me this year?
30
Something I think that has been missed above is the standard of wiring of older homes, most likely urban where EV buyers live.
60 years ago I climbed into the ceiling of my future in-law’s home. The rats had been chewing the lead covered wiring. [Why would they do that?] That house exists today, has it been COMPLETELY rewired? The bride and I’s home of 40 years was much newer but we still had to renew the fuse/meter box for safety reasons. There must be hundreds of thousands of OLD timber homes on stilts in Qld where the car is parked under the bedrooms.
My contention is that poor wiring can handle light/intermittent loads for years but drawing max rated current from a substandard circuit for 8 hours is something else again.
40
These days a responsible “sparky” woudnt install a electric cooktop without ensuring the wireing and circuit breakers are suitably rated ( ask me how i know !)
So the chances of a EV charger being legally installed on a sub standard circuit, are zero..
02
OTOH there are chargers designed to run on a standard power point. Not strong enough to do a full charge in a hurry, but might not need a sparkie to upgrade it.
20
The Grand Jury started today
Initiated by Rainer Füllmich, German Lawyer. It was often announced previously.
50
Sorry, I would link that in the last “open thread”
20
the moto e fleet of motorbikes that were going to appear along side moto gp a few years ago were wiped out in the same way.
Also a lot of e pushbikes have advisories to not leave charging bicycles whilst charging for the 12 hours it takes
This after many house fires
10
The energy density of Li-Ion batteries is ~1 mega-joule / kg.
You can get a lot more energy out of them by burning them 🙂
10