Can an electric vehicle drive underwater?

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A gas powered engine, obviously floods when drove in a flooded street or water. But is an electric car or even a bike be able to safely drive without malfunctioning or breaking down?
I can’t find any posts related to this, mainly I know that it is unsafe and mostly stupid to drive any thing in a flooded street as you can’t judge what’s in there. “The danger is not your car stopping, its what the water is hiding.” But hypothetically speaking, if it was a live or die situation, can you drive an ev with water high up the car.
I assume so but I might be wrong as I feel there is nothing which can break, and all the wires and connections must be waterproof.

edit: got it, thanks everyone for the replies.

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31 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

>and all the wires and connections must be waterproof

Not all “waterproof” things are created equal, though, and companies generally don’t pursue water intrusion ratings that their products will never be subjected to, because that costs money.

Vehicles are generally waterproofed against incidental, occasional contact with wet environments – rain, standing water on roads to a relatively shallow depth, spray from roads and car washes, that kind of thing. It would probably hold through a relatively deep puddle, even one deep enough to “drown” an ICE car, but likely not for an indefinite amount of time.

Going through a flooded street or fording a river might be fine, assuming you hit shallow water/high ground again at some point relatively quickly. I wouldn’t go driving a BEV around in a river and expect it to be totally fine forever.

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