I believe this is mostly Hollywood fiction.
Sodium ion batteries are much safer, cheaper, have faster charging speeds and less degradation than Lithium ion but their range is still not as good. It may be a possibility until solid state becomes productionized (which they’ve been promising for a few years now).
https://electrek.co/2024/01/05/byd-breaks-ground-first-sodium-ion-ev-battery-plant/
Frequency is Hollywood fiction and severity is exaggerated, but to a lesser extent as well, due to big strides in safety. But if you puncture your gas tank and it finds an ignition source, an explosion generally results. Gasoline vapor in air is quite explosive, liquid gasoline less so.
From the article:
I wonder if foam extinguishers work on these fires if they have a source of oxygen.
Also:
The oxygen is part of the chemical makeup of the electrolyte (IIRC), and is chemically stable at reasonable temperatures, but is released in a runaway thermal reaction.
The safety aspect is certainly to prevent the tank from rupturing, but the deadly issue is more that the gas gets everywhere if the tank ruptures and can come into contact with heat or sparks that quickly engulf a car in flames where an incapacitated passenger can’t escape.
The typical shooting a gas tank in Hollywood like scenario was a Mythbusters episode…it’s pretty much impossible. Even sparks around people filling up vehicles is generally a fire event usually made worse when someone panics and sprays gas all over everything.
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Like this??
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I remember that episode. They could not get gasoline to ignite no matter how hard they tried and eventually for the “duplicate the results” part they used TNT or something.
The myth of the car exploding after it fell or after it was shot in the gas tank was totally busted.
It kind of funny how exaggerated it is though. Gas cans and cars full of gas everywhere in America just waiting for Darwin to do its thing and…nothing.
U.S. highway vehicle fires 1980-2021 | Statista.
Yeah not really explosive, but there are fires.
huh, I never would have guessed they would have gone down by half since ~2000.
Can’t find a reason online as to what is driving that number down. Maybe more computers in cars turning things off automatically?
I’m guessing this trend would be even steeper if fires were per vehicle mile.
My first guess is perhaps fuel injection is a factor. While it became commonplace in the early 80’s, it took a while for older cars to age out.
But I stress : all of these shenanigans were elaborately carried out so that Tesla’s market value would rise above $650 billion, which would in turn, trigger the final milestone for Musk to receive his $55.6 billion bonus award. In the process, it also enriched Tesla’s Board of Directors and financiers .
That part you quoted sounds a bit… not legal.
^
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I suspect there could be a geographic concentration at play - in particular some states do not require regular inspection, and in those states it is more common to see cars driven to the point of combustion (car-beques).
So a few states changing their regulations over the years could have had a disproportionate impact on the number of car fires.
Is this true or just speculation?
I get that some states have inspections, but what i have seen is that most are safety related, things like making sure the brakes aren’t worn or and the car has enough blinker fluid.
Fire risk issues seem closer to catastrophic mechanical issues than safety issues but I’m sure there is some overlap?
Well, I learned the phrase “car-beque” years back from someone from Minneapolis, who said it was a regular occurrence there (no required inspections in Minnesota).
On the other hand, It wasn’t that common in Nashville when I lived there, but cars in the metro area had to pass emission (but not safety) inspections, which could have mitigated that.
I forget whether I learned the term “car-beque” in Baltimore or Atlanta.
Seems plausible. Looks like most safety inspections are more in the northeast, but I can’t find much on fires by state. I ran across this though:
Doubled in 5 years and highest in 30 years? Is that EV related?