View Full Version : Feds to study fire risks in EV batteries
Fed launching $8.75M study into fire risks from EV batteries Autoblog (http://www.autoblog.com/2011/06/10/fed-launching-8-75m-study-into-fire-risks-from-ev-batteries/)
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an extended investigation into any possible fire risk associated with the lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles. The $8.75 million study will last through 2014 and will specifically focus on whether or not the cells can catch fire while being charged at home or when in an accident. Automotive News reports that the study was spurred by a recall initiated by computer maker Dell for potentially faulty laptop cells. In certain rare circumstances, the Sony-manufactured cells could overheat and cause a fire.
Good; vindication of the safety of Li-ION over gasoline... by 2014. Let's watch as armchair pundits come out and spend the next two years speculating on just how dangerous EVs are.
richkae
06-10-2011, 06:45 PM
Data from here shows that in the late 90s there were about 280,000 passenger vehicle fires per year.
http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/osvehicle.pdf
There are about 130 million cars and 110 million trucks in the US. I am not sure how many of the trucks are passenger vehicles.
That means about 1 in 900 ICE vehicles has a fire each year.
That gasoline is dangerous stuff.
Yes, interesting. Where's the "Fed launching $8.75M study into fire risks from gasoline - Autoblognik"
William13
06-10-2011, 07:13 PM
Can anyone say conspiracy? Has there actually been an electric car fire reported?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRmgMHNud2o
ckessel
06-10-2011, 07:55 PM
Cute video, but "4 million of us run out of gasoline every day"? I've never run out of gas nor do I ever remember talking to someone who has ever mentioned running out. Granted, it happens, but 4 million a day sounds preposterously high.
Doug_G
06-10-2011, 09:54 PM
Cute video, but "4 million of us run out of gasoline every day"? I've never run out of gas nor do I ever remember talking to someone who has ever mentioned running out. Granted, it happens, but 4 million a day sounds preposterously high.
I've actually done it twice. :redface: I'm talking quite a few years ago. Once I was just stupid, the other time I had a faulty fuel gauge. I've taken to using the trip odometer instead of the fuel gauge; much more reliable.
Cute video, but "4 million of us run out of gasoline every day"? I've never run out of gas nor do I ever remember talking to someone who has ever mentioned running out. Granted, it happens, but 4 million a day sounds preposterously high.
I did once in undergrad, driving a borrowed car with a nonfunctional fuel gauge.
But lets try to stay on topic which is fires.
Has there actually been an electric car fire reported?
Honestly, yes. I've even seen one in person (a couple years ago at Laguna Seca).
In recent memory there was Niel Young's LincVolt (http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/15/neil-youngs-lincvolt-severly-damaged-in-warehouse-fire-w-video/) which went up in a warehouse in nearby San Carlos (taking $1M in memorabilia with it), a "professionally" converted Nissan SUV that caught fire on a ferry in Europe destroying the surrounding cars and putting the company out of business, and a homebrew EV (http://www.autoblog.com/2011/04/15/video-garage-fire-claims-chevy-volt-and-homebuilt-ev/) in Connecticut that also destroyed the owner's new Chevy Volt parked next to it.
The common thread is these are all conversions. Some of those fires were likely due to cheap Chinese cells and/or an inadequate BMS. I've never heard of a fire from an OEM EV. Certainly Tesla, Nissan, and GM have taken a lot of care in the design and safety of their battery packs.
AndrewBissell
06-11-2011, 03:31 AM
I know of two more in the UK, again both related to conversions.
Doug_G
06-11-2011, 12:55 PM
I've personally seen two ICE cars burn. Man do they ever go up! I'll bet the rate of car fires for OEM vehicles will be a tiny fraction compared to ICE cars. One wonders why they are even studying this...
ckessel
06-11-2011, 01:54 PM
I've personally seen two ICE cars burn. Man do they ever go up! I'll bet the rate of car fires for OEM vehicles will be a tiny fraction compared to ICE cars. One wonders why they are even studying this...
Because it's always good to know the answer rather than think you know, particularly from a liability viewpoint. Sometimes you get surprised or find out something tangential that turns out useful.
Fault Found in Battery Pack of Flaming China Taxi | PluginCars.com (http://www.plugincars.com/fault-found-battery-pack-flaming-china-taxi-107285.html)
cheap Chinese cells and/or an inadequate BMS...
chimpanzee
06-18-2011, 06:10 AM
http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2005/HZB0501.pdf
Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the fire
in a unit load device at the Federal Express Corporation hub in Memphis, Tennessee, on
August 7, 2004, was the failure of the unapproved packaging used by AC Propulsion, Inc., which
was inadequate to protect the lithium-ion battery modules from short circuits during
transportation.
Other Incidents Involving Lithium Batteries
On April 28, 1999, a fire destroyed freight, including primary lithium batteries, on two
cargo pallets at the Northwest Airlines cargo facility at Los Angeles International Airport. The
pallets had been taken off a passenger flight from Osaka, Japan. (The airplane was a Boeing 747,
which Northwest Airlines had operated as flight 0026.) The Safety Board investigated the
accident and issued safety recommendations to both RSPA and the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA). The recommendations asked them to evaluate the fire hazards posed by
lithium batteries in an air transportation environment and require that appropriate safety
measures be taken to protect aircraft and occupants (Safety Recommendations A-99-80 and -85,
respectively).
According to RSPA, from January 1, 1989, through May 31, 2005, six other incidents in
air transportation involving lithium batteries have been reported.8 In one incident, the batteries
were damaged, but there was no evidence of fire or charring. In the other five incidents, there
was some evidence that the batteries had caused fire or charring of the packaging.
On May 24, 1989, a box of 25 lithium-ion batteries that had been transported on a
FedEx Express airplane caught fire in the FedEx Express freight sorting facility in
Memphis. The fire burned a hole “completely though the inner and through the outer
box.”
7 For more information, see “Memphis Event,” Federal Express Battery Fire Evaluation Report, Winchester,
Clinton, and DeJarnette; Hampton; Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, West Bethesda, MD;
August 1, 2005.
8 These are incidents reported to RSPA under 49 CFR 171.16. There may be other unreported incidents.
8 NTSB/HZB-05/01
On September 26, 1996, wires connected to eight lithium batteries (type unknown)
apparently shorted and burned a hole in their package, which was in the Airborne
Express sorting area in Wilmington, Ohio. The batteries were connected in series
inside a plastic express envelope.
On November 3, 2000, a package of primary lithium batteries in a FedEx Express
truck near Portland, Oregon, showed evidence of internal leakage and charring
around one battery.
On April 12, 2002, a fiberboard box started smoking while it was inside a FedEx
Express ULD in Indianapolis, Indiana. The box contained lithium batteries (type
unknown) that had short-circuited, starting a fire and damaging the interior of the
box.
On August 9, 2002, a lithium-ion battery in a Samsung minicomputer/Palm Pilot
wrapped in bubble wrap inside a fiberboard box short-circuited, causing the bubble
wrap to catch fire and start to melt. The box was discovered by a sorter at the FedEx
Express hub in Los Angeles, California.
During the same period, six incidents or accidents involving lithium batteries in other
modes of transportation were reported, but only one included a fire that was directly related to
the transport of lithium batteries. On March 5, 2002, near Houston, Texas, a fiberboard box of
lithium batteries (type unknown) inside an American Freightways truck was crushed when other
freight fell on top of it. The batteries and box caught on fire.
RSPA mentioned another incident involving metallic lithium batteries in a 1999
advisory:9 (Because the incident did not happen in this country, it is not listed in the RSPA
database.)
In May 1994, while being delivered to a handling agent by road, a shipment of
small [primary] lithium batteries destined for Gatwick Airport in London,
England, was found emitting smoke from a Unit Loading Device. The shipment
consisted of batteries, approximately the size of a dime and about 5 millimeters
high, which had been tossed loosely in a box. The batteries apparently shortcircuited
when exposed battery terminal tabs came into contact with other
batteries, and subsequently started a fire that significantly damaged the shipment.
The Canadian Transportation Safety Board also is investigating an incident involving
lithium batteries. In April 2004, a flashlight began smoking in a seatback pocket on a Canadian
airplane. The flashlight became so hot that the flight attendants could not handle it without oven
mitts. The flashlight had a primary lithium battery and had been manufactured and bought in
Beijing, China.
9 Advisory Guidance; Transportation of Batteries and Devices that Contain Batteries, Docket No. RSPA-99-
5143, Federal Register, Vol. 64, Number 129, p. 36744. July 7, 1999.
9 NTSB/HZB-05/01
On November 3, 1999, the FAA Associate Administrator for Civil Aviation Security sent
a memo to several agencies, including RSPA’s Associate Administrator for the Office of
Hazardous Materials, identifying four incidents that had happened that year that were not on
aircraft but did involve the overheating and bursting of lithium-ion batteries in automatic
external defibrillators. Additionally, the FAA has a record of 30 other incidents involving a
variety of other types of batteries that shorted and caused damage ranging from smoke to fire and
explosion.
Since the August 2004 accident in Memphis, the FAA has begun investigating at least
two other fires involving lithium-ion batteries. On October 29, 2004, a fire and small explosion
involving a 9-volt lithium-ion battery occurred on a chartered flight from the Raleigh-Durham
airport in Morrisville, North Carolina, to Parkersburg, West Virginia. No one was injured, but an
aircraft seat sustained minor damage. On June 30, 2005, a package containing lithium-ion
batteries was discovered at the United Parcel Service (UPS) airfreight terminal in Ontario,
California. One of four battery packs within a package had caught fire and been completely
destroyed during transportation. The fire was out and the package cold when it was discovered.
The package containing the battery packs had flown on UPS aircraft from Shanghai, China, to
Anchorage, Alaska, and on to Ontario.
In August 2004, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled about 28,000
lithium-ion battery packs that LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea had manufactured for Apple
PowerBook computers. The problem was identified as an internal short, which can pose a fire
hazard. The recall was the response to four incidents: in two, the computers had caught fire; in
one, the computer had merely smoked; and in one, the odor of burning had come from the
ventilation grille. All of the batteries were lithium-ion.
"in order to push the limits, sometimes you have to EXCEED the limits"
-- B. Varsha, F1 commentator, Australian GP, 2xxx
One aspect of battery packs for EV use, is the long-term effects of shock/vibration:
batteries + packaging
You see bolts, littering roads, loosened up due to high-frequency vibration. Have there been any long-term Validation tests performed for battery-packs? Probably not!
You will recall the issues the Tesla Roadster had with multi-speed gear boxes (had never been done before)..they failed under Reliability/Validation tests. That 2006 MSNBC video where M. Eberhard took the reporter on a test-ride, where the Roadster pulled over due to a tranny problem. Multiple vendors weren't able to solve the problem. This contributed to the delays & cost over-runs, & EM unfairly blaming Martin & company (incl Wally Rippel, Caltech alumni, former ACP engineer).
Martin (legitimate Elec Eng degrees from UIUC, my former office-mate in grad-school) had advocated a single-speed, who had the engineering sense to use a conservative approach:
"Discretion is better part of valor"
It was EM (whose physics degree was challenge by the lawsuit, & even the Stanford grad-school story is suspect), who went with a risky
"all or nothing"
approach: electric door handles, re-design of chassis (inconvenient for his wife)
You can see EM take bigger & bigger risks (recent SpaceX development), which will eventually catch up with him.
I will quote R. Feynman (who taught W. Rippel, see Tesla's blog post "Feynman..a curious character"):
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster)
One of the commission's most well-known members was theoretical physicist Richard Feynman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman). During a televised hearing, he famously demonstrated how the O-rings became less resilient and subject to seal failures at ice-cold temperatures by immersing a sample of the material in a glass of ice water. He was so critical of flaws in NASA's "safety culture" that he threatened to remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations on the reliability of the shuttle, which appeared as Appendix F.[41] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#cite_note-40) In the appendix, he argued that the estimates of reliability offered by NASA management were wildly unrealistic, differing as much as a thousandfold from the estimates of working engineers. "For a successful technology," he concluded, "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
That Model S battery pack slung underneath the chassis is ANOTHER unproven concept, without long-term Reliability/Durability tests. Car chassis flex/twist, will also get HIT (high-centered, etc). The packaging better be robust, otherwise there could be a potential short-circuit, fire. A few bad accidents plus fire..major PR disaster. Recall the infamous Ford Pinto in 70's, fire hazard when rear-ended.
RoadsterWarrior
06-18-2011, 07:14 AM
Forget the theoretical risk of fire in EV's--
How about today's NY Times, about the fire danger in "millions of Jeep Cherokees"
Crash Tests Suggest Jeep Fire Risk, Safety Group Says - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/automobiles/19FIRES.html?hpw)
roblab
06-18-2011, 04:41 PM
Data from here shows that in the late 90s there were about 280,000 passenger vehicle fires per year.
http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/osvehicle.pdf
There are about 130 million cars and 110 million trucks in the US. I am not sure how many of the trucks are passenger vehicles.
That means about 1 in 900 ICE vehicles has a fire each year.
That gasoline is dangerous stuff.
That Same NFPA also quotes that there are 33 reported fires an hour. More than one every two minutes. For me, that's easier to understand. And with the Model S batteries being water cooled, it will be hard to have your "incident of self immolation" at all.
Report: Electric bus catches fire in Shanghai Autoblog Green (http://green.autoblog.com/2011/07/22/report-electric-bus-catches-fire-in-shanghai/)
photos (http://photo.eastday.com/slideshow/20110718_11/index.html)
http://fj.eastday.com/slideshow/20110718_11/images/01933782.jpg
Fortunately no one was injured. Contrast that with this diesel bus fire mentioned in the comments:
Channel 6 News -- Bus fire kills 41 passengers in central China (http://channel6newsonline.com/2011/07/bus-fire-kills-41-passengers-in-central-china/)
This time suspicions seems to be on the EVSE.
Chevy Volt possibly involved in second garage fire, this time in North Carolina (http://green.autoblog.com/2011/11/07/chevy-volt-possibly-involved-in-second-garage-fire-in-north-caro/)
Warning issued for electric car owners after Mooresville house fire - News Story - WSOC Charlotte (http://www.wsoctv.com/news/29687054/detail.html)
rolosrevenge
11-07-2011, 03:07 PM
Chevy Volt possibly involved in second garage fire, this time in North Carolina I'll have to ask the people at Duke about this. We are working on a smart grid project with them.
arondaniel
11-12-2011, 07:29 PM
Regulators Examine Electric Car Batteries After Fire - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/business/energy-environment/regulators-examine-electric-car-batteries-after-fire.html)
According to TFA, they didn't follow GM's procedure to disable the battery after a crash. Just goes to show though... with a new technology there will be road bumps and perceived safety is a big deal.
I hope Tesla is way out in front of this. A 5-star rating won't help much with a reactionary press and a couple isolated incidents. From Tesla website: "In the event of a crash, the battery structure protects cells from impact and automatically disconnects the power supply". Anyone know if the Volt has such a safety feature?
FYI, slightly OT but it's been confirmed; the cause of the fire in North Carolina was not the Volt Fire Marshal Says NC Garage Fire Started Away From Chevy Volt: Exclusive (http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1068564_fire-marshal-says-nc-garage-fire-started-away-from-chevy-volt-exclusive)
VolkerP
11-14-2011, 07:02 AM
The article mentions that experts from GM "rescued the black box" from the destroyed Volt.
Will Model S have a black box, too?
A black box constitutes for me
1 logging all data relevant for disaster reconstruction
2 designed to survive crash, shock, fire, submersion (to some extend)
3 manufacturer trains experts (own/NHTSA) how to salvage the unit and how to extract the logged data
It can be a dedicated device or a hardened part of on board controller unit.
dpeilow
11-14-2011, 10:47 AM
The timing of the original story in this thread now matches up with that post crash test fire. All becomes clear.
dpeilow
11-25-2011, 03:18 PM
Good story on ABG
A sensible response to crashed Chevy Volt fire at NHTSA as GM updates rules (http://green.autoblog.com/2011/11/22/a-sensible-response-to-crashed-chevy-volt-fire-at-nhtsa-as-gm-up/)
Tommy
11-25-2011, 04:41 PM
(Reuters) - U.S. auto safety regulators are opening a formal investigation into fire risks in General Motors' Volt vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Friday.
The NHTSA said it was taking the action after recreation this month of a May crash test resulted in fires in two out of three tests.
Link to story:
U.S. opening formal probe into GM Volt fire risk - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/u-opening-formal-probe-gm-volt-fire-risk-000304239.html)
Lloyd
11-25-2011, 05:16 PM
Link to story:
U.S. opening formal probe into GM Volt fire risk - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/u-opening-formal-probe-gm-volt-fire-risk-000304239.html)
I hope they are honest and compare it to risk of fire in fuel tanks!
Shooting a bullet into an EV battery pack in a Hollywood Movie will engulf the car in a lightening display of bolts of Tesla-coil style electricity. The death of the Id comes to mind.
Was reviewing this thread due to the recent Fisker Karma fire (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/870-Fisker-Karma?p=136066&viewfull=1#post136066).
Shooting a bullet into an EV battery back in a Hollywood Movie will engulf the car in a lightening display of bolts of Tesla-coil style electricity. The death of the Id comes to mind.
Just noticed and wanted to acknowledge the Forbidden Planet Id monster reference. :smile:
5913
Wasn't there a similar electomonsterdeath in The Golden Child? Or was it Howard the Duck?
Nothing beat the Disneyesque Id monster though. Terrifyingly cute.
Thursday | May 31, 2012
America's love affair with the automobile has like many relationships come with some tradeoffs. For the past 100 years drivers of conventionally fueled Internal Combustion Engine (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) (ICE) automobiles have been comfortable with the idea of hauling around a couple of hundred sticks of dynamite in the trunk of their cars. Like having a significant-other that is perfect in every way except they smoke cigarettes or have a tendency to explode over the littlest things, we have comfortably settled into a codependency with ICEs that statistically catch fire on U.S. roads every 186 seconds.
Chinese fireworks give hope
Now with tens of thousands of US made Electric Vehicles (EVs) on the road and that number soon to grow exponentially, it's about time they catch up with gasoline (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) fueled vehicles. In order to even approach the flammability of petroleum the electric car (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) movement will have to step up their “burst factor” by ten or more or they will never be accepted as a viable transportation alternative. Now a recent horrific crash into a Chinese made EV shows that with a sufficiently high speed rear-ending that combustion (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) is eventually possible.
Flame anxiety
An unnamed source at one electric car maker (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) expressed concern by saying, "We know this is a perception problem we have and we hope thatnew car buyers (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) will find that our smooth ride and unmatched acceleration to be enough to sway them to our more “unflammable” [sic] cars. To date we have been unable to meet the 31 fires per hour bar set by ICE cars and their combustible liquid fuel. We are working with the NHTA to come up with at stop-gap solution by presenting our pathetically low fire numbers in a new numeric format to give ICE drivers the feeling that our EV can seemingly match the fire prone statistics they are used to.”
The American hope?
Industry watchers thought that GM’s new Chevy Volt (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) would be a contender when a recent NTSHA test car burned after a rollover but it was finally revealed the Volt event was a disappointing three weeks later. Not even close to what fire extinguisher carrying freeway (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) Americans are used to. A recent Fisker (http://evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?authorid=208#) Karma fire also looked promising but ICE makers are quick to point out that both the Volt and Karma are not true EVs since the both carry gasoline and ICE generators in them and therefore don’t count.
Man on the street
EVs clearly have some catching up to do if they want to be the new flame of ICE drivers in the US of A. As one driver in LA put it, “I won’t be buying an Electric car until I start hearing about them on the radio traffic reports. What’s a morning commute without a good ol’ American car-b-que?”
Opinion pieces denote the opinions of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of EV World.