Lithium Ion Rears its ugly head in a Tesla S

[botsapper]

Model S Fire | Blog | Tesla Motors

[RedDevil]

That does it, now anyone knows that if there is ugly head rearing involved here, it is just Big Oil mouthing another piece of blabber.
They must get really afraid now for using these desperate tactics.

[ron22]

It will happen with other cars using battery packs in the future.
Fire crews will just need to be trained on how to deal with it.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by ConnClark

you can put a gasoline fire out quickly and easily.

Not true. I have seen several burnt out gas cars on the side of the road during the years of my commute. Most often, there is nothing left but the steel and the steel cords of the tires. Nothing.

[NeilBlanchard]

One gallon of gasoline has about the same energy content of 66 sticks of dynamite.

The battery in the 85kWh Model S pack is equivalent to about 2 1/2 gallons of gasoline.

I think the only think more explosive than gasoline - is hydrogen.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

The video shows pure lithium, that's not what is inside the battery.

While the batteries don't hold lithium in its atomic form, they are still a fire hazard to be reckoned with. Even when as small as a laptop battery.

[niky]

An F430 burned on the highway here two years ago. The owner, being an avid Ferrari enthusiast, had an extinguisher in the passenger seat.

His companions on the road convoy, also being avid supercar enthusiasts, also had extinguishers.

A few empty canisters later, and all that was left of the car was a smouldering pile of aluminum and steel. Once a gasoline fire gets going (and it's easy to start, simply through oil leaking onto hot manifolds), you will need industrial-grade fire extinguishing equipment to stop it.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by euromodder

While the batteries don't hold lithium in its atomic form, they are still a fire hazard to be reckoned with. Even when as small as a laptop battery.

True.

Originally Posted by me,same post

But Lithium Ion has weaknesses; it can overheat when overcharged or exposed to extreme heat or discharging, like what might happen if you cut open the battery pack and short some cells ...

Anyway, what to do with fire: http://www.wikihow.com/Extinguish-a-...Initial-Stages
From that:

Liquid/Oil fires

The first thing you must do to stop a liquid fire (e.g gasoline, petrol) is to:
1 Never throw water on a liquid fire. This is due to water and oils properties. If the water is thrown on the fire, the following will occur.


2 Water does not mix with the oil, and thus goes underneath it (oil and water don't mix; when they are together oil is on top water on bottom). It will then boil and become steam very quickly this quick boil is dangerous . Since the water is on the bottom of the oil, as it evaporates it sprays hot, burning oil in every direction. This then spreads the fire and usually leaves you unconscious. (meant in case of a house fire, but nonetheless)

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by niky

The owner, being an avid Ferrari enthusiast, had an extinguisher in the passenger seat.

A few empty canisters later, and all that was left of the car was a smouldering pile

Those 1kg fire extinguishers are pretty useless.
If they work at all in the hands of inexperienced accidental fire fighters.


But they weigh 1.5 kg with bottle and fitting.
Even in a small country like Belgium, we have 5.5 million passenger cars on the road.
All mandatorily equipped with a 1.5 kg fire extinguisher, makes for an extra 8250 (metric) tons being shuttled around.

Think about the ecomod that'd be to delete them all ...

[RedDevil]

I used to carry an old fire extinguisher around in the Honda Civic I bought from my parents.
It saw a few cars since until I started wondering if perhaps it would still function.
It had the year of manufacture still on it: 1968... Oh, and it carried just 500 grams net.

An easy pound and a half weight shed