By Jo Nova
Geoff Buys Cars is a car nerd commentator who spent hours trying to find evidence that the Luton airport fire was caused by an EV. To recap — 1,200 cars died, the floor collapsed, the airport fielded 16,000 calls from people who needed help, answers, another flight, or their charred car. It was a big deal to a lot of people, and he argues, a turning point in the quest to get everyone driving an electric vehicle.
In the end officials say it was a diesel, and Geoff couldn’t definitively show it was or wasn’t an EV, but he said it doesn’t matter — everyone thought it was an EV anyway, and he argues — it will destroy electric car sales either way.
If everyone else thinks it’s an EV then there is no way people are walking into car dealerships this morning with that in the news and saying “you know what, I really fancy parking one of those lithium powered electric vehicles right outside my house. I think that’s exactly what I need to do to save the planet and look after my wallet and my family.”
Today, he said, people are phoning car dealers and asking if they change their order to the 1.2 Petrol…
That was the first day after the Luton fire, but a week later he’s still hunting for the details and the plot thickens, what a hunt, through an ocean of contradictory information. He’s got quite the witty style…
Start at 1
The shortest summary I can make:
Early news reports said it was an EV or a hybrid but try finding those now… he says. Then they said it was an Evoke, but it wasn’t, then it might be a “Sport”, and the story kept changing. He wonders why images of the numberplate started circulating when he could not see those details in the video, no matter how he enhanced, magnified or worked on the image. And did the numberplate start with an A or an E? Days later, why did someone suddenly form a new account that had not posted before, and release a video from the front of the car that was only 4 seconds long? Why are the owners staying silent. Why haven’t they told us what the car was?
With so many mysterious questions he adds:
It’s not like some nefarious group within the government wants to suppress the news of the frequency and severity EV Failings
It’s not like EV sales are stalling…
It’s not the one guy who contacted me about a Tesla fire who said the police even told him to delete the photos, not take any more and don’t tell anyone… (the police!)
Maybe this is a bigger story than we think.
So if we assume that every car in that fire was a diesel or a petrol car, after the fire broke out it spread so quickly that soon, every floor was affected. …how the hell did the fire go downwards? The only way you’d breach the floor below was if there was some sort of ridiculously intense fuel that burns hotter than both diesel or petrol. What would that be? I don’t know, but a 400 kilo electric car battery would do the trick.
If there was no EV involved it would have been a one floor fire involving a few cars. Instead it was an inferno.
He does some polar bear maths:
If Dave buys an EV he saves 5 polar bears. If John buys a hybrid he saves two polar bears but if Craig’s electric car catches fire that kills 50 bears. And if Craig’s car catches fire in a carpark and takes out 1,200 cars that’s 500 polar bears.
Impartially he wonders if it was just grand incompetence, with no sprinkler system, no fire extinguishers, greed and cost cutting? In the end he thinks it’s both:
It’s systemic either way. There’s a problem with modern technology, and it’s the same old age of greed and cost cutting. We live in a world where your log burner is going to be taken away to save the environment, and a council can remove a play park due to the risk it poses to children. But a manufacturer can sell you a 6 figure car and you can park it in an 8 figure carpark that’s not safe and it can all go to s… and that’s OK.
Geoff Buys Cars: Video one on Luton: The Luton Airport Fire just KILLED the EV market. Here’s why.
h/t David of Cooyal in Oz