A former LiON battery engineer here. Submerging the battery cells in water was the standard procedure for cells in thermal runaway. It dissipates any remaining energy into the water creating steam. That's most of the "smoke" you are seeing, although there are other chemical particles being emitted, mostly from the internal liners within the cell burning. They are most likely doing this preemptively to damaged EVs to basically short the battery out to zero energy in a safe manner. The car is not catching fire after weeks of sitting there, it is discharging the stored energy in the battery into the water bath.
more pointedly they're neutralizing the car by "burning" the energy in the cells intentionally in a more controlled manner, I doubt there are any EV on that ship that will have batteries safe for selling, air circulates and the temp of air necessary to harm the battery systems is lower than unsafe temps for gasoline storage sadly
"discharging the stored energy in the battery into the water bath" can cause the battery to go into thermal runaway and burn. Especially if the maker was cheap and didn't properly internally fuse or switch off the battery's outputs. This is why the BMS (Battery Management System) must be an integral part of the battery, and not in a separate box.
Considering the fire was limited to the upper half of the ship - by the looks of reports - any cars from the lower decks should be more or less intact (minus smoke and hear damage of course)
One “standard” way to load test electrical generators was to put the output electrodes from the generator into a tank of salt water and keep adding salt till the required load was achieved and let it run for the required test time, so to discharge a high voltage battery would follow the same principals and as stated cool the battery at the same time.
That Mercedes they put in the container was an EQE which is an 100% EV (same model as the row that was lined up when they lifted it from the ship, shows how strange this is one burnes and the others seem completely fine). On the other hand that small white BMW SUV that drove off the ramp after the wash was also an EV (iX1 recognisable its the EV version on the blue accents).
What a relief, thank you for identifying the vehicles, I will now make an observation. These batteries are expensive and safer than people think, the charred EV went into the pot because there was a chance it would combust, the intact EV was driven off under its own power and driven away, that is the difference. I was about to post, as a recycler of these batteries myself, that it was a shame to see it come off NOT burning and go into the pot TO BURN, were they doing this to un-charred EV's, but you just answered my question. The risk of sending it to a recycler to be dismantled is too high for this operation, but the other EVs being driven away means they're not throwing away perfectly good cars just to satisfy some money-grabbing insurers.
I beg to differ. My take is the manufacturers won’t rake any risk with these cars and have them all scrapped. Insurance of the transport co will have to cover.
The smoke/steam is more likely to be the battery "safely discharging". The only propper way to deal with a potentally damaged battery is to discharge it to 0V. Only way to discharge an EV battery, without risking someone's life to attach a huge heater or something to it, seems to be to dunk it in water, as it both short circuits it and keeps it somewhat cool.
You remind me of a burst water pipe incident onboard the Queen Mary about 40 years ago. A few weeks after, I walked down to the area they were cleaning up. I was wearing one of their full-face masks with an Organic Vapor cartridge and I tried taking it off. Immediately I couldn't breath (could just gag), the mold smell was so intense! I imagine the innards of that ship are just as smelly.
I wonder if "deodorizing" the Queen Mary is part of the recent work that's been done on her lately to fix her up. Millions $$$$ being spent by the city of Long Beach to restore her after way too many years of neglect by a succession of owners.
I’m a keen car enthusiast and car spotter, and the line of undamaged or lesser damaged vehicles on the wharf includes a number of Mercedes EQE fully electric cars that drove off under their own power. As others have said the submersion process for the badly damaged EVs is a standard procedure to both discharge the traction battery and remove any further potential for battery thermal runaway.
It was a very informative episode today. Thank you. Interesting to see people on railway taking pictures and being interested. Yes all of it was really interesting but the EV (you think) was the most interesting. I was in Raleigh NC and a firefighter was flying back to Dallas for some reason and I asked him about EV fires and what do reg fire departments do . He said they had a blanket they put on it and he said all the clothing they wear for protection is a problem after a reg fire . I read that larger fire depts are exchanging gear for cleaning after a fire instead of wearing the same gear over and over. Many subjects you cover are very informative. Thank you
Firefighters and other first responders are always getting contaminated. The PPE they wear needs to be hosed down at the scene and the washed according to the contaniments. In the years I was a firefighter most of my issues were from blood and body fluids. I had many short shifts since I had no turn-outs for the rest of the watch.
Gear washers are pretty much mandatory now. The department I was with got one for many reasons including reducing the spread of any hazardous contamination. The stuff buildings are are built with have gotten much much more toxic in the last few decades, hybrids and EV's are a hazmat party.
@@FragEightyfive I am old enough when the Fire Commissioner would hand out cigars after a fire during mop-up. That is if you didn't fall off the back bumper of the Pumper in route! The commissioner would always say.."Cigar smoke tastes better than carpet and linoleum smoke.
The burn marks on the ship really illustrate how you were talking about shipboard fires moving vertically from deck to deck, even downwards. Great video, enjoyed it much!
With the way liquid gasoline spills and spreads, I'm surprised the EV's on the lower decks did not catch on fire. I guess the fire above was so hot, the gasoline vaporized before it could seep down to the lower decks.
I find it extraordinary just what complexities the simple term 'marine salvage' now encompasses. No doubt things were a lot less difficult when all you had to worry about were disorientated rats, zombie pirates, and the occasional giant octopus.
I think there are some very important but generally missed points here: 1) The Merc EQE is heavily fire damaged. Clearly exposed to significant heat from above, the inteior has almost certainyl be burnt out, which as the wiring harness, both LV & HV runs through the interior means the car should be fully safed (by a full discharge) before being further handled. This is absolutely normal procedure for a EV. You won't often see this for a ICE or hybrid because a full interior fire most typically results in a full burn out for an ICE car with a flamable fuel. This is because the fuel system in a modern passenger car is rated for just 3 minutes of burn protection, ie the fuel tank, fuel lines, evapourative emissions canister, filler neck and filler pipework are all plastic are all fundamentally unprotected. What we see in a large fire like an interior fire (there is a huge amount of flamable plastic in a modern car interior, and burn test data shows at least 50% of the overal heat release in a full fire actually comes from this source) is that unless the fire is explicitly extinguished immediately it WILL spread to the fuel system, and lead to a total burn out. For an EV, the battery system is actually very well protected, because the battery is a seperate metalic structure (not plastic). here for an EV, a full interior fire generally doesn't lead to a subsiquent battery fire. We see that here, where the EQE is NOT alight, and has not fully burnt out, is removed from the vessel, and is then (correctly) dunked in a tank to safe it. Once in the water, then a small thermal event is expected as the battery energy shorts across the conductive fluid. In this case, with a heavily damaged wiring harness from the interior fire it's not un-expected that a small electrical fire develops. This is the whole point of the dunk tank, to allow the energy to disipate carefully and slowly without further risk of re-ignition. With a heavily damaged EV, there is a risk from both a thermal event and an electrocution event when the energy storage system cannot be absolutely verified and safed. However the very fact this car is still car shaped with 4 wheels and tyres on it is because it IS an EV and the initial fire did not lead to a full burn out!
I must honestly say I am impressed with your description, I am a product specialist at a large charger manufacturer, we continuously check the vehicle while we charge in various circumstances. I feel just as safe as with fuel cars. we have many safety features but there has never been any danger in all these years.
So you are saying it is better for the car to partially survive the fire only to present a safety issue to the salvage crew? Perhaps better to have all the 'fuel' burn up in the initial conflagration and have no extra risk to present to the salvagers?
Sabic have started supplying the automotive industry with EV battery container modules made from a fire retarding polypropylene blend that has a higher melting point than many aluminium alloys.
A car partially surviving the fire to present a safety issue to the salvage crew is good news. Bad news is when the fire totally consumes the car, the ship sinks, and there are no salvagers.@@mal6232
A short but very informative video, thanks Sal, and so many knowledgeable people commenting. This is a rarity on youTube these days, keep up the good work!
It occurs to me that if one wanted to undertake some real world research and product testing related vehicle fires, especially the newest EV tech, the is great opportunity to do so at scale and without a need to spend millions on buying the cars or waiting for some to have accidents. The fire blanket test, for example, would be a case in point.
That EQE very clearly did *not* have a battery fire or thermal runaway. It was burned by heat from above it. All of the body panels, including plastic ones and the fascia at and directly above the battery are entirely untouched and undamaged. Tires are all perfectly fine. That the battery maintained composure during such intense heat is, to quote Project Farm, "very impressive!"
Should look up the recent fire at Walibi Flevo found at places like Algemeen Dagblad (newspaper) titled "Auto aan oplader bij Walibi vat vlam: zes elektrische auto's afgebrand" . Moonlit charge point sparked a Tesla which (worst brand for safety) went up like a bonfire. Took an old Leaf with it and a few others. EVs were parked there bunched up where all the field chargers are. A Renault Zoe took major burn damage from both sides, battery remained intact. Second Zoe took major fire pressure to the front, refused to catch fire. Two BYD Atto3s took fire pressure, one a lot from both sides. Both BYDs refused to catch fire. Which makes me happy since I own one. It's good to know it'll refuse to brew up even if you'd be stuck inside next to a fire. Several guys I know have attended fatal ICE car fires, fatal as in 'they were still alive when it went up', it's trauma-inducing clearly. Also always starts from the front, often with rupturing fuel lines being the first to go, so if they're stuck and burn it's legs to head, slowest way to burn up. Interestingly, the Tesla was the only one at the scene whose structure collapsed. All cars had their rollcage and frame intact, only the Tesla had that structure mysteriously burn out. The metal that fell into the wreck was pretty thin too, as if the chassis itself was made from combustible materials. I've never seen any car have that happen, ever. The roof always stays on because the cage is reinforced steel. Fire'll weaken it, but never dissolve or collapse it.
@@nvelsen1975 Those cases are freakishly rare but yes fire do happen. Does not make them anywhere close to as probable as ICE cars. The entire Luton Airport Case is horrifying case once we figured out the facts starting with vehicle registration. Apparently the front left CATALYTIC CONVERTER on L494 Range Rover Diesel was the intense fire starting point. It was in Car Park Building 2 TWO, the EV charging stations are in Car Park Building 1 ONE. Yet all the propagandist instantly blamed BEVs for the Luton Fire. This is why propagandist like you keep slandering EVs for high fire probability. It's a narrative built on a pile of lies.
@@nvelsen1975 Tesla worst brand for safety? Are you joking? Take a look at EuroNCAP results and IIHS-HLDI crash test results. Tesla is at the very top. Not to mention that guy in California that tried to kill himself and his whole family by driving off a cliff in a Model Y. They all survived. It wouldn't surprise me if it was one of the Zoes that started the fire, Zoes burn left and right, but it's not the battery that catches fire, there's something wrong with how they built the front of the Zoe, they tend to ignite somewhere in the front area. The reason why the roof and frame of the Tesla collapses in case of a fire is that the frame is made from aluminum or an aluminum alloy (depending on which model it is) and the roof itself is made from either aluminum or glass, also depending on the model Tesla. Aluminum melts at 660 degrees Celsius, for steel it takes twice that temperature.
That car didn't look like it was burned from the battery before they dropped it in the water tank. Looks like they are dropping it in the water to deliberately short the battery and let all the energy in the battery pack expend itself.
Damaged yes, but the battery was not on fire. If it had been, it’s likely the whole car would have burned down (after all that’s what all the people that are scared of EV fires claim happens “all the time”). I’d venture to guess it had damage and this was done as a safety precaution prior further transportation. So I don’t think it’s been “on fire for a month”. More likely it was damaged in the fire, the batteries got damaged but did not ignite, and this “fire”/dunking was performed to safe the car befor further transport.
Likely because the car was already damaged beyond salvage but can't be just driven off to be crushed like a conventional ICE car with the Li ion battery pack still in it. There was no smoke or anything coming out the car when they were pulling it out of the ship. It started smoking only AFTER they put the car into the water container.
the water from decontamination will be loaded onto a ship and dumped in the ocean somewhere, probably around some African fishing grounds. Cost to treat that water too prohibitive and there are unknown materials in that water now.
@@edc1569 I still think someone will eventually come up with an idea of hotswapping batteries at a "gas station". All batteries will be standardized in 100 amp suitcases that can be quickly bought and exchanged at a fueling station. It's a very similar idea to how you buy propane at Home Depot and Lowes. You buy a tank once, and then you have the pay to constantly swap the empty tank for a full one......as long as the tank is still in good condition. Fuel cells for EV's should be exactly the same way. And then they could ship the suitcase batteries separately, in a low charge state.
Sal, this was a very interesting video, and the comments it generated have also been very interesting! I'm very hopeful you will continue to regularly report on the Fremantle Highway in the future.
Sal, Thank you for another interesting video. I couldn’t tell if the white vapor coming off the dunked car was smoke or steam. I would guess that the ‘immerse in water’ strategy accomplishes 1. Discharge the battery bank completely as water is conductive, and 2. Provide a large heat sink to absorb the heat energy of the discharging batteries. An advantage of using water as a heat sink is the high thermal energy absorbed when it boils (~1000 BTUs per pound of water). Since any steam released would tend to also liberate residual noxious combustion products the personal were using SCBA bottled air. Remember how bad the smell is when your neighbor burns plastic in his trash ? That’s an indication of incomplete combustion. Plastics are composed of very large molecules as well as many additives. These are notoriously difficult to burn to completion, and goodness knows what is left over from an open fire.
From my understanding, the point of submerging the cars containing a battery cell is to finish discharging any remaining energy is a somewhat controlled manner. The idea being that while the car might not have a damaged cell coming off the transport, it doesn't mean another part of the car can't fail allowing a battery to discharge while it's being hauled to it's final destination (scrapper /factory /ect...). The tanks would be filled with salt water (fresh water works too, but not as well), and the water itself winds up shorting out the battery. The battery discharges quickly enough to vaporize the water creating steam, but when the steam is created it breaks / meters the connection between the battery poles allowing for a somewhat controlled discharge. What is more, the water acts as a heat sink to help prevent the batteries from heating up to the point of combustion as well as limiting the amount of hydrogen and oxygen by-products. Covering over the tank prevents the freshly boiled yet still contaminated steam from escaping, condensing and settling on other surfaces.
Having dealt with Lithium Ion batteries in radio-controlled modeling, submerging a lithium battery in salted water is how they are rendered inert. I suspect the smoke seen it from the reaction caused due to the batteries being partially charged. My understanding is that the salted water creates a resistive short circuit that both discharges the battery, which creates heat, and inerts the material the battery is made out of.
Sorry, but I don't think that's correct for all EVs, as seen in Florida and doesn't agree with the NHTSA report. See Scotty Kilmer's "New Study on Electric Car Deaths Shocks the Entire Car Industry". They could all be wrong, but I've not found evidence to the contrary...
Why is it the large number of Teslas that were flooded with salt water in Hurricane Ian have authorities saying that the saltwater corrodes the batteries, causing fires that often re-ignite themselves after being extinguished. Teslas flooded by Hurricane Ian have spontaneously ignited more than a week after the storm, according to Florida fire authorities! This is a well documented fact, so why would professionals purposefully dunk an EV into salt water that sets up this reigniting scenario that could cause a future fire. Also multiple Teslas have caught fire in the last day after being flooded by salt water from Hurricane Idalia! The reason that I am picking on Teslas is that they fill their battery packs with a foam that supposedly is used to keep water out and yet they catch fire if the car is flooded with water.
Yep, plus, as a consequence of adding water: if there are still open cells, for whatever reason, they will short completely and burn out. There shall be no possibility to reignite during transport to where ever the car will be disassembled.
The salt mostly just makes the water more conductive so the battery discharges more quickly. Any ions would do, but table salt is cheap and readily available. You wouldn't want to use distilled water because it is not nearly as conductive. It would still work, but it would take longer. More importantly, the water is also there to act as a heat sink and cool down any cells that are either already in thermal runaway, or damaged and heating up more than normal while they are being discharged. As long as you don't have a cell that is so hot it damages the container the water is in, this is a really simple and effective way to deal with Lithium Ion battery fires. I admit it is a little harder with a full-sized passenger car though!
I appreciate your unbiased look into presenting just facts. I wish our governments and mainstream media would just report facts and truth without spinning it so we can all form good and intelligent decisions about what is presented. Thx
I just want to say thank you to those who worked to prevent the worst scenario... I bet it wasn't easy. (from Germany) (of course terrible to hear the cars are still burning...)
He was wrong about that. They are not burning in the video. What he wants to think is smoke, is actually steam. Water becomes steam when it gets hot. It got hot because it leached the energy out of the battery rendering the battery completely harmless.
@@wbaumschlagerIf it's already written off better to "neutralize" it under controlled conditions than risk it spontaneously combusting later where the fire can spread or cause damage or injury. Supposedly Tesla uses a similar method when they have a damaged battery in their factories. They just pick up the whole car and lower it into a water container. Once all the reactivity in the batteries is gone there is no more danger.
@@Robert-cu9bm You are asking two questions. How many ICE vehicles spontaneously combust? Easy; more than EVs. How many are "impossible" to put out? Maybe more EVs are more difficult. However, how many ICE vehicles explode? More ICEs.
6:35 - No, we are not seeing one 'rekindle', we're seeing one that had some damage, placed in to an environment where that damage BEGAN a fire. It is not restarting the old fire, it is choosing to dispose of the car by destroying it completely.
That they managed to salvage the vessel without it sinking is itself a remarkable achievement. Seems that the industry is improving the engineering of these vessels. Now if they could only engineer EVs to be safer.
Its the expertise of the dutch ,they know how to work on water And vessels , the online luck that freemantle had that day is that it was on coast of the Netherlands
@@fugu4163they already have LFP batteries are far less prone to combustion and thermal runaway they also will outlast lithium-iron batteries up to 5 times longer , Tesla and Ford are switching to them as well as Rivian and vw .
@@davefitzpatrick4841pretty remarkable that the little nazi EU burecreats have banned petrol car far in advance any safer solution for the bev batteries have been adopted
Dont tell the EV haters and the gasoline/diesel cultists this or they will have to find another reason or excuse to say that EV's will never gain traction. Its not lice ICE based vehicles don't have their loads of fire issues on a daily drive. Plenty of car fires over the years and nothing to do with EV's. What is true is how difficult that fire is to put out. At least for now. I wonder if these newer battery technologies help battle this problem.
Mercedes makes a very expensive fire, but obviously this one is not the cause of this one.😁 I wouldn't recommend this saltwater bath for putting out a battery fire, it is just used to short the battery out and make it inert, if the heat produced is not dissipated fast enough, you will have a problem. Battery packs would have to be tested to make sure. Nice to know that EV can survive a fire.
I’ve kept my current internal combustion vehicle for longer than I would normally waiting for EV’s to get better and cheaper and of course keeping an eye on EV development, but with what I’ve been reading and seeing recently it will be another internal combustion vehicle for me.
@@ratsac He may have misunderstood what was happening in regard to the Mercedes as it got submerged, but that does not negate his point. EV's in their current state pose tremendous risks; risks that are 100% unnecessary.
@@LV4EVR OP has been spreading FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt) about EVs ever since this ship caught on fire. At first he was saying the fire was caused by them, but it turns out it wasn’t, so now he’s turned to this. As the top comment (and many others) we are replying to proves - this is enough to change some peoples’ minds. They’re not anymore dangerous than a car full of petrol - the hazard just needs to be managed in a different way.
Not amazing at all. What's amazing is how many people manipulate ordinary events (a car burning in a high wind wildfire) to create confusion in gullible people.
These are from the decks below the fire, they are more smoke and heat damaged not fire. The smoke in the tank is from the batteries being stressed by being shorted out, most likely by a concentrated brine solution which is later diluted to slow the process after the initial rapid discharge has finished they will probably be left in the tank for a day (or week) to make sure they are completely dead before being shipped to the scrap yard where they can be safely shredded.
@@rbryanhull gullible... The governor of Maui changed the law in July to allow the redevelopment of historic areas. A further law was added to allow the easy eviction of residents. The main suspect is shoddy maintenance of the electrical supply owned by Hawaii Electric, that is owned predominantly by BlackRock, Vanguard and Statestreet the Unicorp that have shares in each other. Those corporations have previously been trying to buy large areas of land in Maui.The police blocked the roads to stop the escape route. The high tech fire alarms were not set at any time during the fire. The area has been sealed off from residents and press. A huge fence is being constructed around the fire area. Finally property agents have been working hard to buy the properties since the fire on behalf of individuals and corporations. If you want to believe what comes out of the BBC, SKY, ITV you are obviously free to do that. Stories like Ukraine is winning the war, temperatures in Sicily were 47C for weeks, the hottest month ever, and of course everyone's favourite:'safe and effective '.
@@alexh3974 Aluminium wheel rims melted, pretty odd. But there's one thing for sure, something is not right on Maui, and if those residents are ever allowed to move back into that prime real estate land, I will be amazed.
How long is it going to take, to remove the cars, one at a time and dunk them in a tank until they are safe? Maybe a year? Paying harbour dues all the while.
I live in New Zealand now for a couple years but great to see my fellow countrymen using bikes to get around. Gives it a nice Dutch vibe. Also Sal your prenounciation of Eemshaven is actually pretty good! The double EE sound is more to the likes of EA in cream, but otherwise wonderful!
That Mercedes EQE that was craned into the water container most likely didn't actually burn onboard the ship. If the battery of it catched fire, the vehicle would no longer look like car. Because like you said, if the battery catches fire, it is going to burn until it's completely done, and with that, the entire car and every material that does not withstand the high temperatures. As this particular car was apparently just covered in dust and soot, it probably did not burn at all.
Apply that same logic to all of the gasoline and diesel vehicle fires each year. From 1980 high of ~456,000 reported vehicle fires to ~174,000 by 2021. I think the point is to prevent both technologies from ramping up to consume the entire vehicle and collateral events.
I can see the insurance industry jumping at the chance to make more money. If you own an EV, your home owners insurance could go up, your car insurance could go up (Because the chance of fire is greater) and if you park in a parking garage, the chances are greater, and on and on. Watch...people will be sorry they bought an EV, and the EV industry will collapse, but by then it will be too late, gas cars will be outlawed....which means public transportation for everyone.
@@markfortin421 Chance of fire is smaller, and by a wide margin too, with an EV - not greater. Australian 'The Driven' had an article headlined "Petrol and diesel cars 20 times more likely to catch fire than EVs" May 16.th 2023. Easily googled.
@@wgowshipping - Newscasters often have terms and names spelled phonetically on the teleprompters they read from so they don't hesitate or muff as they burn through the copy on the air, so you're in good company with that time-tested technique.
is it possible that when dropped into the water tank it had some type of crippling effect on the battery that it caused it to smoke, rather than a burnoff? genuine question.
Standard practice for fire damaged EV’s where the wiring insulation is compromised by heat. The water bath discharges the battery. It’s the electrical equivalent of draining the fuel tank before scrapping the vehicle. It’s also now “standard of care” for severely crash damaged EV’s after the occupants are removed before transport. Writing off a vehicle takes less damage than people think…
@@wgowshipping You should listen to your audience that have more of a clue than you do apparently. It's physically compromised, they don't burn for weeks, they're re-igniting it in solution to short it out. Those who can't learn, teach apparently.
@@peter65zzfdfh Peter, I do listen and learn from my audience and students all the time. That is the mark of not just a good teacher but a smart human being. As I stated in the video, I am not an engineer but a former ship driver who is concerned about the transportation of vehicles on board ships. Not sure why you found it necessary to make your comment but you are entitled to criticize my work all you want.
The said vehicle appeared heat damaged but no fire damaged. The process of submerging the vehicle simply discharges any remaining battery energy and makes the vehicle safe to transport.
No, that car only partially burnt. The battery was still intact. Sticking it into a tank of water shorted the battery, causing it to heat up and go into thermal runaway.
It would not go into runaway. It may warm up a bit, but much of the steam / vapour in the video can come from the electrolysis of the solution the battery was immersed in. That's what happens when you make a lithium battery safe by immersion in a saline solution, especially a high voltage car battery.
I'd suggest that the vapor is not smoke but steam from the battery heat caused by the deliberate shorting of the battery to eliminate stored energy. Smoke from a battery fire would be black from all of its insulation and wiring.
Thank you for the updates and insights on this incident. The media only reported a couple of times and stopped. This is very interesting as the world shifts to EVs. The outcome of this will be beneficial in the future.
Don’t shift, EV is only as safe as it’s power source and LiPo batteries are not safe enough to be used in the general system. Hopefully just a stop gap as recent events have proven they are not stable enough.
Thanks for another great update interesting to see how quickly the Dutch have got into position to deal with the burnt out electric cars by dipping them into 1/2 ht units. I would suggest we stick to petrol & diesel powered cars, and cancel the whole EV program until they can prove their worth
At least until battery technology can give us parity with petrol, in regards to range as well as safety. Otherwise we are just making 3-ton paperweights that will fill a landfill when the batteries age-out in a few years
@@jamesphillips2285 stop being silly. You should know that range is not the only concern with BEVs. Unlike current-gen batteries, my petrol tank isn't permanently damaged by cold/heat, or refueling too fast How do your range/longevity calculations look after you consider that (dis)charging outside the recommended 80%-60% SOC will permanently damage your battery? Optimally, you're looking at 20% of stated capacity to insure battery health. Hell, worst case, If I drain my tank empty, I can walk to a gas station and fill a portable can. What can a BEV owner do in that case?
@@Metapharsical The fuel venting system can get damaged by over-filling. Running your fuel tank dry can damage your fuel pump: which is liquid cooled. A BEV owner can use L1 charging if stranded. A standard 120V 15A socket can supply 1440W (de-rated 20% for continuous draw). This will fully charge a 24kWh battery in less than a day.
I've used similar decontamination equipment in oil and gas. Dropping the car into a water bath to cool them is hazard elimination. They wouldn't want to load the vehicle onto a truck and send it for dismantling, only to reignite in the next facility, which could cause an even bigger disaster. Eliminating the initial hazards from the EV's on site is the new job that the salvage companies face. The wall of containers is simply to control information and speculation from the public who can see the operation from public property. We have done the same while drilling for or servicing oil and gas wells to prevent the public and environmentalists from filming operations which can and often do lead to negative press through out of context video. It also puts a lid on competitors who might spy on the operation and insurance who would be looking for every excuse to deny a claim.
Nothing is private anymore, a number of drones can overwhelm security, video to their heart's content and transmit in real time. Attempting to "jam" skillfully modified controls usually just results in collateral jamming of official networks. Ask the Ukrainians.
Probably worse as they are onboard with cars and trucks that are fully loaded and fueled. There was a fire on board a ferry not too long ago I did a video on. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Y8ewh8zdGkc.html
@@wgowshipping Thank you for the link. I live where there thousands of Teslas on the road (Reno, NV where there is a Tesla Gigafactory.) Many of their drivers are careless and the added weight of the battery makes them more dangerous in a collision; the fire hazard is only one of many added risks these vehicles pose.
I am a shipping guy ( retired ) car carriers have very large - image 2x semi trailer sized C02 cylinders - designed to flood the vehicle decks in case of fire - plus moveable vertical bulkheads to create both water tight sections but also approximately fire proof sections - unfortunately no putting on my volunteer fire fighter hat / helmet thats useless with ev’s emitting bulk Hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas ( plus the other relatively small amounts of nasties) Insurance premiums are going to kill ev’s
Lithium cells seem to be a problem in all kinds of places. Apart from these car carriers I've heard of EVs burning on the street, cellphones and vapes burning on aircraft, discarded vapes burning in rubbish trucks, and discarded cells of unknown origin burning at scrap metal yards. I guess this is early days yet, and we'll work out how to better manage them, or move to less dangerous technology. Interesting seeing the salvage process.
Fossil fuel seems to be a problem in all kinds of places. Many burning car carriers without any EVs on board. I heard of fossil cars burning on the streets by a factor of 50 more often compared to EVs. The factor is already normalized to same car sale numbers.
@@gerbre1You've got really good hearing, I guess. But EV waste is not manageable yet. I'm sure there are much more than 50x the number of IC cars on the roads than EVs, so I would expect more fires from them. There is a market for EVs, but they are subsidized heavily by taxpayers whose governments are giving extensive favors to them. Let the consumer decide and the infrastructure develop to match.
@@markcoveryourassets With the factor is normalized I mean the total number of sales doesn't matter. You can find an article published by autoinsuranceez with car fires for every 100.000 car sales.
It looks like that vehicle is an EQE electric sedan. When you first showed it, there was probably a dozen EQE's sitting on the ramp undamaged. It looks like the vehicle was damaged from the top down, itself did not catch on fire. That means it could just be dealing with a case where the car was just heat damaged. Also, a couple of those BMW's appeared to be PHEV's, basically hybrids. You can see the plug port on the side of that 3 series.
@@raygale4198in the past five years a couple 100k EV’s were put on the road in NL, and we salt the roads every winter. If there had been any sort of mass problem with that scenario it would have made the news. You can rest assured that they handle winter road salt just fine.
Undamaged EV power systems are designed to be relatively waterproof. The 12 volt control voltage is nor particularly susceptible to fresh water, much worse in salt water.
Is dumping an ev I water a quick way to force the battery to discharge? You wouldn't want to be handling evs with a charged or partially charged battery.
The fact that many home insurance companies are now stipulating EVs can NOT be charged or parked with 20 metres of your house says everything you need to know about the fire risk danger these vehicles pose .At the moment this is particularly relevant to higher risk homes but it's starting to spread to more standard homes and may well become the norm.
Can you name even three such companies outside the US? Just three to show you're not the umpteenth liar parroting Fox News (where that story was made up).
Can you please support your statement with sources. I have never heard or read of any insurance company making such a statement. And if there are such insurance companies in your country, then you should switch on your brain, cancel and avoid these insurance companies and tell them that they should find out more about the drastically reduced fire risk of EVs compared to normal vehicles. Rarely read such rubbish. Is this typical US nonsense?
@@acerreteq703It's in the UK and a fact ,you look it up if you are too lazy! EV's are impossible to extinguish when on fire ...See yesterday,EV fire at Sidney airport - it's happening everywhere and daily . Electric motors are great ,lithium batteries are for the stupid and uneducated.
As a longtime pleasure mariner i find your coverage immensely interesting. Thankyou for your attention to detail. I once considered your channel as competition for E Sysman however quickly took root in your content. It is very much decidedly diffferent. Thank you very much for your presentations. Cheers and of course subbed.
i woke up this morning wonder just that Sal, glad you make this content. what about propane type vehicles for dragging out disabled vehicles? don't they use propane on forklifts in warehouses.
The company I worked for in the 1980's had two forklifts, a propane one and an EV. As truck loaders, we would fight over the electric one! It was superior even though it only had lead acid batteries. That was my first taste of an EV, and I was hooked for life!
Putting it in the solution is what made it steam, it wasn't hot or burning before, it was deliberately submerged to burn it off so it would be 100% safe to recycle. It's the equivalent of mopping up gasoline after a spill, if how they decided to do that was set it on fire.
I agree that it seems more likely to be steam. If it wasn't hot before, the water getting into a cracked battery enclosure would start to discharge any cells once both their terminals were submerged, and that will start creating heat.
Beautiful moneymaker for the salvage company! Those tanks are much less expensive as open-tops but there's no reason they couldn't be capped with basically a flatrack with fireproof gaskets if they needed to be moved without spillage. The open-top boxes are common for road accident response though and may have been available from stock. Dragging those junkers through populated areas requires extra precautions in case of re-ignition so the tub containers are a good call. Modern recyclers can quickly disassemble those vehicles for scrap but there may be additional processes required for legal reasons.
Interesting to see smoke coming out of the container once the vehicle is placed in it. Also, it would be nice to hear the reality of the dangers of these EV's pose during transport. There seems to be a need to place the EV into a containment system during transport to limit a fire spreading to other vehicles. Maybe EV need to be placed in a fire suppression system container & shipped on a container ship.
I think what's really needed is a way that batteries may be completely discharged through a regulated sink line port that may be connected during transit, and ships can dump the charge back in: it's something that really needs better energy storage methods, but maybe we can make sodium-ion batteries that are inexpensive at ship-scale by the time regulations are being begged to be put into place, 3-5 years from now. I imagine we'll need a few more of these fires before people really start to take notice, then governments will start to move a year or two after that.
I'm not too surprised. It looks like the vehicle had extensive heat damage which probably resulted in battery pack sealing rendered void. So you know, if you dump a high voltage battery into water you're gonna create a short. That's a great way to start a thermal runaway event in a battery (which would then be subdued by the water in which the car is submerged). It's quite clear the battery on this car had not been burned. Until they dunked it in water. They basically choose to burn this battery up on their own terms instead of risking it igniting unexpectedly (for example, as a result of rain when this wreck would be parked). I guess it's a sensible choice when you suspect the integrity of the battery is breached in some way.
You make a very good point on EV shipping safety. Personally, I would prefer that the EVs were delivered to the dock totally discharged and loaded by a tow vehicle. If you want to make a gun safe, unload the gun.
@@markam306 The difference between fully discharged and charged to 10% is quite small. There's no need to go to 0%. Note that actually fully discharging the battery so it has no electrical charge anymore is equal to permanently destroying it.
It seems the real issue is what danger transport is to electric cars, not the other way around. EV rarely spontaneously catch fire without be damaged. Crews need to be careful loading them and admit when they damage them instead of pretending not to notice.
re: "It would seem safer moving the batteries separately in case of an accident?" well leaving them attached to the cars means each battery has it's OWN SET OF WHEELS for moving it around. the safety aspect for the pack during transport doesn't really change much by virtue of having it REMOVED it from the vehicle, in fact some could make the argument (like myself) that the danger perhaps INCREASES when transporting the pack removed from a vehicle. this can be seen in the crashes of SA Flight 295, UPS Flight 6, UPS Flight 1307, Asiana Flight 991, etc. technically 1307 landed safe here at PHL but ultimately it caught fire on the tarmac and the old DC-8 was ruled a total loss.
Sometimes, one way to tell the difference is if you stand to the side of a car and look down it, then if there are massive gaps in the panels then that's a Tesla.
Sadly, I'm willing to bet we already learned a lot of these lessons about electrical and battery fires in other contexts (Mining, submarines, building-scale backup power systems, etc.) I think what we are going to see now is the vehicle transportation world learning the same lessons that container shippers, and a number of other non-transport industries that deal with large battery banks have already learned. Traditional cargo shippers have been dealing with containers full of Lithium cells for at least a decade longer than vehicle shippers have. They have figured out fairly well what the hazards are when carrying large quantities of them in containers, and how to deal with them in various types of emergency. I would guess that what has been learned from container ships either wasn't applied to vehicle shipping, or wasn't as effective when applied to vehicle carriers. There are certainly some hard lessons being learned here, but I'm guessing that many of them had probably already been learned in other industries, and just never made it over to this particular part of the transportation world. It's unfortunately something that happens as new technologies proliferate. Safety bodies in one industry don't always pay attention to what is happening in other industries, and end up learning the same lessons over again on their own.
This worries me, I live in British Columbia, we have extensive ferry traffic to and from Vancouver Island, approx. 90 minute trips. Sooner or later, there's going to be an EV fire on a car deck spewing toxic smoke throughout the ship. That and it's going to create all kinds of problems getting the passengers off, and it's going to put a big hole in transportation to and from the Island. Russian Roulette with public safety.
How is that different to an existing ICE catching fire, which as the data clearly shows is about 20 times more likely that for an EV? So were you worried previously about an ICE catching fire on a ferry? Probably not simply because you are used to ICEs and already accept the significant risks involved with them......
@@maxtorque2277 ICEV fire the crew know how to manage, contain and extinguish in a reasonable amount of time. If you've ever seen an EV fire, you get an enormous thick cloud of very toxic smoke very fast, it takes 4 times longer to extinguish, and it can restart at any time up to a month after, the whole vehicle needs to be kept submerged. You get an outbreak when there's lots of passengers on the car deck, a lot of people won't make the exits fast enough. The crew won't be able to see anything the smoke is that thick. You'll see passengers and crew diving over the rails to get away from it.
@@maxtorque2277 The Data id flawed, commissioned by EV manufactures was it ? it will have consisted of counting how many car fires there were and how many were ICE. How many petrol tanks just burst into flames while parked? how long does it take to put out a ICE car fire, compared to putting out an EV ? you are really in denial if you can not accept that an EV fire is far more dangerous than an ICE car fire . Some one torched a neighbours car we all got dressed and moved our cars before the fire brigade arrived, you couldn't see the car for the flames , all the tyres exploded and it took 4 minutes to put out and the petrol tank was still intact. Chinese EV`s are taking over the world , try looking up Chinese's EV fires and try looking up how toxic the fumes are compared to ICE . Don't bother replying as you are obviously brain washed .
Next time you are on the ferry look for signs of a continuous drenching system. Under active cooling peak heat release of an EV fire is LOWER than you would have with an ICE fire. The tricky part is that if the worst happens: you need to keep the water running for an extended period of time.
@@chrishoff402 I've seen several EV fires. Extinguished them too. Didn't see the mythological giant deathclouds you claim existed. We actually went in with light gear. It's not like with LPG where there's an explosion hazard, and no fire's keeping up with that hose. Simple offensive extinguishing. Hook it. Lift. Dunk it. Solved. The station also failed to explode into a giant crater when water entered the battery. Max dunk tank time is a week, because the whole talk of "it combusts after months!!" is just Tucker Carlson levels of lying and deceit. Why lie? Lying is a sin.
The latest video shows more EVs being placed in half high containers. Based on many of the comments, this is probably being done for those cars that have suffered damage to their batteries or show substantial damage and it will deplete the stored power in the batteries. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PAIboaKJgrM.htmlsi=No8eKJ8u1xvqRiHm If you want to go back and check out my earlier videos on Fremantle Highway and car carrier fires: Fremantle Highway 🔥 Fire | EVs or Not EVs, That is the Question? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gSX2Saa7oS0.html Fremantle Highway Decks Collapse | WGOW Shipping on FreightWavesTV | Why So Many Fires? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kqvm2HEp4Uk.html
As per @peterallen4605 - the vapor from the car-bath is *steam* from the vehicle battery system in moderate thermal runaway heating the water. The salvagers would know this car was a problem from thermal signatures before they even got to it. Any *smoke* (combustion effluent) from the car would've shown up right as it got dumped in the tank and then stopped as it was flooded. It can sometimes be difficult for us to distinguish white smoke from steam without being able to see the source, but knowing that the car was dumped into a water bath and that the steam took a while to appear, it's pretty clear that's what we're seeing there.
What is the difference between EV on board of a ship versus on a parkdeck or on the road ? Out car insurrances and reinsurances prefer EV, offer lower rates due to far lower likelihood that they burn in flames.
When one works on electronics you first neutralize the potential of the capacitors. Doing the same thing with the potential of car batteries. Nothing to see here folks.
That's terrifying!!!! then again I can still remember the first time a Tesla got into an accident so bad that the battery caught fire on the freeway and it was the first time any Fire department in the San Francisco Bay Area had to deal with putting out ....4 TIMES OVER 6 HOURS, it shut down half the freeway. It was crazy, everytime they thought it was out it would restart after 5 minute, super intense, instantly! it was like WOW!!! Tesla never said anything about that!!!! to anyone...
I'm calling BS on your claim. As of June 2021, there have been approximately 50 reported incidents of Tesla car fires globally since 2013. Statistically, fires have occurred in 0.01% of Tesla cars on the road, far fewer than for the ICE car industry as a whole. In 2021, the NHSTA, the federal government’s top auto-safety regulator has declined to open a formal investigation into the fire risk in Tesla vehicles with fully charged batteries after finding no relevant incidents in the United States in the last two years, stating the available data indicate that noncrash battery fires in Tesla vehicles are rare events. And Tesla has had to provide details about battery fires as a part of certification processes to sell their vehicles. In addition, you can go to their website and read about the detailed information they provide to first responders. Excerpt: First Responders Information Tesla is committed to helping fire departments and first responders safely handle emergency situations involving all Tesla products. Emergency disconnects are available to safely de-energize the vehicle when extraction is necessary to rescue passengers.
I hear that ev sales have been levelling off or dropping lately. The powers are spinning it that early adopters have peaked implying that a bigger push is needed for the general public. It’s more likely the real truth is that the public has come to the realization that these things are not fully worked out and don’t want any part of them.
EV sales are growing like crazy. Tesla sells 80% of the EV's in N. America. All other manufactures combined are only 20%. In 2021 Tesla sold 936K EV's, in 2022 it was 1.3 million and this year they are tracking to sell 1.8 million EV's. Sales are growing gangbusters, but the other manufacturers are having trouble competing with Tesla (and BYD) because they are not efficient at manufacturing. Tesla competes favorably with legacy gas cars. Next year they are projected to sell around 2.5 million EVs.
@@wgowshippingI appreciate you commenting that you don't know anything about cars, because it's a little too obvious that you haven't looked in to the statistics of car fires. EV fires get over hyped in all mainstream media, they're rare enough to be newsworthy, compared to the numbers of ICE cars that burn to the ground after otherwise minor collisions that have ruptured fuel tanks and set the fuels ablaze.
In many countries including mine, there's a great push for EVs. For me, I'd only buy an EV only AFTER I've bought a big landed property. I'd park it at the corner of the property as far away as possible from the house. If it burns, I'm not gonna even lift a finger to try to save it. I'm just gonna let it burn and then later claim insurance, if they pay at all.
and yet i bet you have a mobile phone either in your pocket, or on the table in front of you, and a laptop and god knows how many other devices with a lithium ion battery in them. Yet desite a passenger car EV battery being one of the most proven and highly safety engineered systems in the world (and have an incredibly low real world fire risk, many times lower than the equivalent ICE model) you for some reason have an opinion the "EVs are bad"....
This highlights that electric vehicles are not necessarily better for the environment! Probably better than some but not what is claimed. They are all dirty if we are honest!
@@villebooks ROFLMMFAO...stored? they aren't stored kid, they're recycled.../facepalm. how to tell everyone you know nothing without expressly stating so, you've succeeded.
@@villebooks BEV battery recyclers make $1000s from each battery they recycle. Currently 99% of all auto lead acid batteries are recycled. The industry is practically closed loop. The only make a few dollars on each recycled ICE battery. No way are they going to leave $1000s of dollars in a dump. We just need more BEVs to wear out.
@danharold3087, maybe China should start recycling their EV and ebike batteries. Look at all the new and used EV and ebike graveyards in China. I'd rather replace a battery in an ICE vehicle then an EV especially after the warranty expires.
I'm going to just make a guess. Any vehicles that could be driven off under their own power and suffered no damage and only required cleaning, will be deemed sellable. But will be sold at a discount.
Those things (EVs/hybrids) are incredibly dangerous where ever they are. I'm reading more than a few stories where these things have burned homes down when they caught fire in the driveway or garage.
When stating this, please quote the statisics for EV's, and then the same statistics for ICE. You're going to be shocked at how the media has been ignoring the ICE based fires as 'too common to report'.
"Where ever you are" You are listening to hype. It goes something like this. More then 10 ICE burn for every BEV and more than 10 hybrids burn for every ICE. The trouble is that we don't have a way to handle BEV fires on board a ship. There were 209 ship fires reported during 2022, the highest number in a decade and 17% more than in 2021, according to a report from insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) (ALVG.DE). Of that total, 13 occurred on car carriers, but how many involved EVs was not available. Fire extinguishing systems on the massive ships that haul cars weren't designed for those hotter fires, and shipping companies and regulators are scrambling to catch up, said Douglas Dillon, executive director of the Tri-state Maritime Safety Association that covers Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. (Reuters) EVs are going to replace ICE cars. This is but one growing pain.
Oh you'll love my EV and solar power backup system then, I've got 1/6th of a Range Rover Evoque sat in my living room, powering my EV, my fridge, this computer, the lights, my cooker, you name it. I'm sure it's really dangerous, that's why there's millions of them exploding right now... oh wait... Your fear makes me laugh. One tiny problem set off that ship fire, and yes, if there is a fire then these EV's burn worse than other cars, but fires are preventable. Don't whine to me about accidents beyond my control and this and that, if you live like that close down all wood workshops, all car makers, bicycle shop and makers, blacksmiths, whatever. My electrics are safe and monitored constantly by redundant systems, if you start a fire in the ashtray and then kick it towards the batteries don't blame me if they "runaway". I have some Nissan Leaf batteries unwired and unmanaged in my trailer (you know, those really dangerous pouch cells, with no case!!!), manually charged to 3.7v (storage voltage) more than a year ago and left it. Since then, there's been storms, snow, ice, a whole British winter. I measured them just now, just for you. They're all at 3.69v. This means their internal resistance is so low, they would act like nukes in a short circuit. But they didn't, did they? They sat nicely, in my icy trailer, with stalagtites and stalagmites and all of that, perfectly happy, all winter. Get off my lawn, don't tread on me. This is a "right to own snakes" issue for me, the snakes are fine so long as IDIOTS aren't bothering them (or stuffing too many into a ship, in this case!)
The vehicle they submerged is a Mercedes EQE EV. They are submerging vehicles to discharge a damaged battery pack. The "smoke" you see is steam and fumes, not because the car is still burning.
thanks for this upload. Despite the EV and the fire I still see a good future for personal transport, when there is a man visible doing his job on his bicycle.
Hi Sir i have just subscribed to your channel that was a very interesting video . I have always said EV is not the future but governments around the world think they know better but this video is a clear example that it’s not the future. Watching from the U.K.
I'd have expected to see much more burn damage on the paint on the lower half of this car if the battery had experienced thermal runaway. Yet it looked like the damage was contained to the top half of the vehicle, as you might expect if the car was on the lower deck with the fire raging on the deck above it. There was no signs of smoke/steam/fumes as it was being craned into the bath. So I'm assuming it was the liquid in the bath shorting out the battery which was clearly still holding a charge. The fact there was still charge in the battery also implies that the cells hadn't experienced thermal runaway. It's just a shame there's so many people with anti-EV agendas keen to spread FUD based on hearsay. Where's the reporting from the company doing this recovery work to explain the processes they're following and why?
Couple of things about the "danger" of the Li-Ion batteries in EVs. 1. The stored energy in a battery is far less than in a tank of gasoline/diesel. The largest full battery pack in an EV has the same energy as 3 gallons of gasoline. 2. EVs are shipped with less than 50% charge, so that is less than 2 gallons gas equivalent. Most EVs have half that due to smaller batteries. 3. The car being dunked had not caught fire, they were preemptively discharging it. We'll have to wait until they find the source of this fire, but the extensive damage looks like fuel since battery fires stay contained to the car. Fuel based car fires are far more dangerous due to the fact that fuel flows and fumes explode. Batteries just smolder and burn.
Its clear the car's battery, and any other part of this car, was not on fire. It seems that some people are trying to find any excuse possible to claim EVs were somehow responsible for this fire.
One aspect of this disaster which has not been covered by anyone to my knowledge, particularly ignored by the MSM, is the issue of who owns this all now. I would have thought that due to the fact that the crew abandoned the vessel, it comes under the laws of salvage, in this case by Smit-Boskalis, & possibly the Dutch coastguard. The lawyers are going to have a field day. So Smit-Boskalis have a huge interest in maximising the financial value of the ship & cargo, the bigger it is, the more for them, when they get their share. Beware optimistic news about the cars, in particular, they'll want to sell them for full value.
Thanks. Highlights the need to work out safe ways to ship these vehicles around the place. Interestingly these problems seem to mostly affect ships carrying vehicles from Europe. Looks like they have a bit still to learn in how to ship them safely
The burned car that was dumped into the water tank appears to have intact tires; no fire damage can be seen on the tires. That indicates that the car was not near the intense heat that other vehicles experienced.
