Exploding with the force of a bomb blasting 2,000°C super-heated jets of flame into surrounding areas, melting and decomposing nearby structural materials including metal and concrete, and sending vast amounts of toxic fumes into any enclosed atmosphere. Thinking about putting the conflagration out – forget it – run (if you can) for your life. Welcome to a future where electric cars become common and are to be found packed like sardines into ferries and underground car parks beneath apartment buildings. A recent freedom of information request from the insurer QBE found that electric vehicle battery fires in the U.K. jumped by 46% last year. Car and bus fires were up 33% and 22% respectively and it is noted that there are now three battery fires a day compared with two in 2022.
QBE provides the following data from 50 U.K. fire brigades, although some figures are incomplete. For instance, fires involving e-trucks, which quadrupled last year, were only provided by seven brigades.
It is a sobering thought that any one of the incidents catalogued above had the ability to turn into a major catastrophe with potential loss of life. For their part, insurance companies around the world are on an obvious high alert for the potential consequences of widespread adoption of EVs, whether voluntary or forced by state diktat. The leading marine insurer GARD notes:
Lithium-ion battery fires can be difficult to extinguish. Additional although infrequent events can result in Li-ion batteries experiencing thermal runaway, a chain reaction leading to a violent release of stored energy and flammable and toxic gas, potentially resulting in large scale thermal events with severe consequences.
Avoiding these bomb explosions, or thermal events as they are usually called, was likely to be behind a reported Chinese move in places across Zhejiang Province banning EVs from entering underground garages. One sign is said to instruct vehicle owners to divert to a nearby parking lot with “wide open spaces”. It is reported that local property owners took the action following 11 intense battery fires in Zhejiang’s capital Hangzhou last May. Last year, Havila Kystruten, which operates car ferries around the coast of Norway, banned the transportation of electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles. Internal combustion engine fires are easy to extinguish and can be handled at sea, but EVs present enormous challenges. In fact they are almost impossible to put out. Havila’s managing director Bent Martini said an EV fire would require external efforts, “and could put people on board and the ships at risk”.
PERCEPTION RESET 