Reports of fires believed caused by batteries, from scooters to electric vehicles, have increased nationally and globally.
The last month alone has seen news reports of U.S. battery fires in California, Louisiana and in Arizona, while videos of batteries exploding have gone viral. Lithium ion batteries pose a fire risk largely because they’re increasingly built to carry more power in smaller forms.
The chemical fire caused by a faulty battery can be much more difficult to extinguish than a normal fire.
EV, e-bike and electric scooter adoption has soared in the U.S. The Light Electric Vehicle Association estimates that the e-bike market is outpacing EV sales.
Subsequently, fires and loss of life from the technology have also risen. A December release from the CPSC says that “From Jan. 1, 2021 through Nov. 28, 2022, CPSC received reports of at least 208 micromobility fire or overheating incidents from 39 states, resulting in at least 19 fatalities.”
Low quality products and lack of market regulations have emerged as a key factor in the fires.
Paul Plante says
“LITHIUM JOE” Biden’s GREEN DREAM FUTURE for America – a pyrotechnic conflagration of exploding and burning E-cars, known as Biden-mobiles, along with solar panel arrays burning, lithium storage batteries burning, and E-cigarettes exploding in people’s pockets.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned – “LITHIUM JOE” Biden will merely dodder and drool while America burns.
Paul Plante says
There is another aspect of this BIDEN GREEN INSANITY that no one ever bothers to mention and it is this:
Each small BIDEN MOBILE will weigh about a thousand pounds more than an IC model of the same car.
Each large vehicle will weigh 2000 to 3000 pounds more than the IC equivalent.
So bridge loadings on multilane bridges are going to increase as a result.
We have one bridge up north of you that you can feel literally going up and down under you if you are crawling along it in a traffic jam.
So what happens as the dynamic loads increase?
Nobody is looking.
And if there should happen to be a multicar crash on that bridge, or any other bridge when the majority of cars are BIDEN MOBILES, and a multi-car fire gets going as one car sets off another, with the intense heat generated by a lithium fire, which burns at 3632 degrees Fahrenheit, while the melting temperature of steel is only 2597-2800°F, any speculations as to what is going to happen to any steel girders in the vicinity?
And consider further that according to Hemmings, it can take between approximately 3,000-8,000 gallons of water, applied directly to the battery, to fully extinguish and cool down a BIDEN MOBILE battery fire, while in a real-world case in California where a Tesla Model S “spontaneously” caught fire on a California highway over the weekend, firefighters were forced to use some 6,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames, authorities said.
So in a multicar crash involving E-cars, where oh where will all that water come from to put out the conflagration?
All we know to date is that Joe Biden doesn’t have a clue, Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg doesn’t have a clue, Gina Raimondo is also clueless, as is the entire Biden regime.
They would probably say it could never happen, even though it already has!
As to solar array fires:
Walmart Sues Tesla Over Solar Panel Fires
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcaFGtaTaeE
Paul Plante says
For more Cape Charles Mirror coverage of lithium fires, see Op-Ed: Biden’s GREEN Body Count, January 29, 2023:
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/op-ed-bidens-green-body-count/#respond
Paul R. Plante says
I think Joe Biden and his administration are all insane and unable to think as they bull ahead towards Joe’s INSANE GREEN DREAM:
Fox News
“First responders sound alarm over EV batteries after electric F-150s burst into flames: ‘Totally different'”
Story by Taylor Penley
26 April 2023
A shocking video shows a row of electric F-150s bursting into flames after EV batteries overheated and caught on fire.
Those fighting the flames say they are currently unprepared to mitigate the looming crisis that could result from a growing number of EVs hitting the road in the near future.
David Dalrymple, a volunteer firefighter, and Michael O’Brian of the International Fire Chiefs Association say the long-burning blaze starts with the vehicles’ lithium batteries and a chemical reaction that fuels itself.
“It’s a totally different pathway than most firefighters have to deal with,” Dalrymple said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends First.”
He explained how the overheated batteries inside the vehicles generate a fire that can linger for hours and is next to impossible to extinguish.
“Basically, it’s a chemical reaction,” he explained.
“It’s not a normal fire where fire needs oxygen to burn.”
“This is a chemical reaction that makes its own oxygen.”
“It’s an exothermic reaction.”
O’Brian said he is concerned about first responders who currently lack training and resources to fight these long-burning fires and prevent loss of life when seconds count.
“We’re now dealing with two-plus-hour incidents, and we can’t actively extinguish this fire when the battery pack is involved, so fire crews are really forced with two major options – do we actively cool the battery pack, which is trying to stop that propagation within that battery pack, or do we just let it go?” he said.
EV battery fires also increase the need for upticks in fire hydrant installations, particularly in areas near freeways where they are less common, he added.
“There’s a lot of change that’s going to be happening, and it’s not just our electrified vehicles.”
“This discussion is happening in our buildings, it’s happening in the recycling market, and you’ll see, as we build more batteries, as we produce more EVs, that means more products are going to be on the road as we move to get these to assembly plants… and our fire crews are going to be continually challenged every day.”
Fears coincide with an EV push from the Biden administration, including President Biden, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and the Environmental Protection Agency, who recently proposed aggressive regulations cracking down on gas-powered car emissions, potentially impacting future car models for the years 2027 to 2032.