Domenick
Well-Known Member
There's no doubt the odds of fire are increased with the severity of a crash, but there are lots of severe crashes with no fires in both kinds of vehicles. I seen tons of wrecked, terribly mangled Teslas with no fires.
Another Tesla Fatality with Fire
- Thread starter David Green
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Martin Williams
Active Member
Of course all types of car can crash and burn. My point is that (a) petrol cars do so rarely and (b) the likelihood of a fire is not strongly correlated with the severity of the crash. In cars where there is a large mass of highly inflammable battery material the probability of a battery fire MUST rise with the severity.
Moreover, a small fire due to an electrical short circuit which will eventually consume the car is likely to give the occupants time to get out - or be got out. I think from the way these crushed batteries burn the occupants of a Tesla would have to be pretty quick about getting out before being incinerated the really inflammable stuff being immediately below them. In a petrochemical fuelled car, the inflammable stuff is at the rear of the car usually.
Moreover, a small fire due to an electrical short circuit which will eventually consume the car is likely to give the occupants time to get out - or be got out. I think from the way these crushed batteries burn the occupants of a Tesla would have to be pretty quick about getting out before being incinerated the really inflammable stuff being immediately below them. In a petrochemical fuelled car, the inflammable stuff is at the rear of the car usually.
Domenick
Well-Known Member
O think if you are this concerned about it, then you should definitely not buy a Tesla.
Martin Williams
Active Member
Well, you can rest assured I will take your advice. I have compelling reasons other than safety to avoid them.
Pushmi-Pullyu
Well-Known Member
You "guess" that because gasmobile fires are so commonplace that the news media does not normally report them.
Contrariwise, every fire related to a plug-in EV gets reported as news.
It's like Americans' mostly unfounded fear of terrorist attacks. Fewer than 1 American civilian per year has been killed by a foreign-born terrorist since 2011, but you'd never guess from all the news media reports that your chances of being killed by lightning are orders of magnitude greater!
Not a lot of people worrying about lightning strikes, and not a lot of people worrying about the danger of being caught and killed in a fire in a gasmobile. People waste time worrying about the wrong things.
Humans are not very good at judging relative danger.
Despite the recent rash of fatal accidents involving Tesla cars, you're still far safer in a Tesla car than in most cars. And regarding fire hazard, you're better than twice as safe in a Tesla car than in a gasmobile.
/statistics
David Green
Well-Known Member
I did not claim the packs are "easily" ignited... I claimed the cell are hot... Do you have any data that shows otherwise?
David Green
Well-Known Member
Man Domenick you were digging deep for those stories, one involving a 1986 BMW (32 years old, not exactly modern), another story from 2004 (14 years ago), and 2 that got hit in the back by heavy trucks (semi's). And the Jag was an electrical fire... where the driver got out and walked away Hardly the one vehicle accidents that have been killing so people in Tesla's so far in 2018. 4 fatalities that I know of, and 3 by fire...
NeilBlanchard
Active Member
Really? That is totally unsurprising.
And meaningless to what happens in a crash.
If you really think that Tesla cars are more prone to burning than gasoline cars, then you are suffering from some special kind of willful ignorance ...
The annual average for 2003-2007 was 287,000 car fires PER YEAR.
https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Resea...ehicle-fires/Vehicle-fire-trends-and-patterns
And 480 people died, 1525 injuries and $1.3 Billion in direct property damage PER YEAR.
I am done with this thread.
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Domenick
Well-Known Member
I just did a simple search, without time parameters, so a couple were older. I kept the Jag one because it mentions the gas tank exploding.
The point of it was to show that ICE cars do burn during crashes in real life, not just the movies. Though, obviously, it happens practically every time in the movies (or TV, for that matter). I used luxury cars to demonstrate they aren't immune.
It's not a rare occurrence and I doubt Tesla has a higher number per traveled mile than others. When Fords and Chevys burn in accidents and the occupants die, we don't really hear about it. When it happens in a Tesla, it's headline news because people click like crazy on any Tesla headline.
David Green
Well-Known Member
I think you miss the point, this conversation is about Tesla fires and fatalities. Tesla people love extrapolation, 4 fatalities that we know of in the last 4 months, 3 of them in the USA, and there are 180K Teslas total sold in the USA in the last 7 years, so that means if we take the 5 fatalities (incl the stolen Tesla crash and Josh Brown) that we know of in the USA, divided into 180K it is 1 in 36K, and we all know there are others that I am not thinking of, or do not know about. Now lets look at the average large luxury car in the USA and compare for 2011 forward. I think 1 in 36K fatalities is not good... And I am positive the real number is far worse then that because I am not including all the Tesla fatalities in the USA, only the ones I know about.
David Green
Well-Known Member
That is old data and not specific enough to draw conclusion like you are. To compare Tesla to the national average is not an apples / apples comparison, You are comparing a New luxury EV to a fleet that has everything form 100 year old model A's to Pinto's, to 70's Chevy pickups do you see the problem with this comparison? We need new data on new luxury cars to compare with Tesla, and Modern BEV's from other makers to compare the fire risk.
David Green
Well-Known Member
I think most EV's have not had a problem with fires out in the real world... Tesla's have definitely had the most fires reported, but there are not any good statistics to draw any real conclusions as the sample size is very small.
Martin Williams
Active Member
Well, if these people - http://www.supercapacitormaterials.com/ - can do what they promise, we may well have a better solution.
However, it may well be that supercapacitors prove to be even more hazardous. Batteries rely on chemical changes which are a lot slower than electrical discharges. If you have a capacitor containing - say - 4kWh in an object the size of a can of beans which is capable of discharging at thousands of amps I imagine the effects of a sudden internal short circuit would be a bit like a bomb going off.
I really hope I'm wrong about this. Capacitors are far better than batteries in other many respects.
I suspect hydrogen will win on safety, but even that remains to be seen. Its convenience will probably mean it wins out even if it's less safe though.
Pushmi-Pullyu
Well-Known Member
I didn't have to "dig deep" at all; I just Googled <car fire fatalities> and the statistics came right up.
According to the NFPA (National Fire Prevention Association), for what they list as "highway vehicle fires", there are between 300 and 500 civilian deaths per year. I suppose that is U.S. statistics only.
If gasmobile car fire fatalities were reported as news, we'd see about one or two such stories every day. Again, we don't see such stories because they're so rare, but because they are so common.
Contrariwise, EV car fire fatalities are almost nonexistent. Yet those are the ones which are getting discussed here!
Pushmi-Pullyu
Well-Known Member
The EV industry has done something about battery safety. Plug-in EVs are far safer than gasmobiles when it comes to fires. You're letting your fears override logic and facts.
What we are seeing right here in this very thread is precisely why fake news is so prevalent on social media. Fear and anger is what motivates people to pay attention to fake news stories, and to share them.
Sadly, the FUDsters have learned how to use propaganda techniques quite effectively.
If you ignore the FUD, the conclusion that any rational person should have, after reading this thread, is that if you're worried about fire safety, then you should definitely buy a plug-in EV rather than a gasmobile.
Pushmi-Pullyu
Well-Known Member
You are using a very small (statistically irrelevant) sample size and you are insinuating that there are unreported deaths, despite the huge amount of media attention for the numerically quite few fatalities in Tesla traffic accidents.
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Pushmi-Pullyu
Well-Known Member
Hydrogen? Gosh yes, let's start using large amounts of the gas which caused the Hindenburg and the space shuttle Challenger to become two of history's most famous disasters. What could possibly go wrong?
But in the real world, I'm quite hopeful about the tech shown in Ionic Materials' "plastic battery", which not only isn't a fire hazard, it's actually fire retardant! Of course, we can't be sure that Ionic Materials' tech will wind up being the standard for future BEVs, but if Ionic Materials can make a fire-resistant li-ion battery, then hopefully other battery makers can too.
Martin Williams
Active Member
There are about 250 million ICE vehicles running about in the USA. There are about a thousandth of this number of battery cars.
So we should be seeing about a thousand ICE deaths due to fires after crashes for every single battery fire by deaths (Assuming ICEs are as dangerous as battery cars)
In fact, there are far, far fewer than that.
Ergo, ICE vehicles are far less likely to go on fire than battery cars.
Q.E.D.
So we should be seeing about a thousand ICE deaths due to fires after crashes for every single battery fire by deaths (Assuming ICEs are as dangerous as battery cars)
In fact, there are far, far fewer than that.
Ergo, ICE vehicles are far less likely to go on fire than battery cars.
Q.E.D.
David Green
Well-Known Member
You might be right on this guesstimate, but this is an EV forum, so support here for that guesstimate, is not going to be strong.