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.
In: Technology
It’d have to be specifically designed to be submerged. If you’re talking about a typical EV then no. You could do that, but it’d require everything to be IP68 or higher, because most electronics cannot survive water. It is technologically possible to assemble such vehicle.
Theoretically, yes, if all the appropriate water seals and such were installed and maintained correctly (This is extremely unlikely) WW2 Submarines (and even most modern ones) are Deisel-Electric for this reason, electric power does not require oxygen and can function underwater. However, your tires would quickly loose nearly all friction with the road, and depending on the vehicle and water you may even float off the bottom.
TLDR theoretically possible, but not designed for, and the electronics would fail, but even if they didn’t you would still probably get stuck. Maybe a propeller on the back?
Yes and no. There’s no electric car on the market designed to operate underwater, though people have done it (there’s a series of videos on trying to drive submerged in a Tesla Model S: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npnwau-XZd0). Note that they had to add a lot of weight to the already heavy car to prevent it from floating.
However, cars are not the only EVs, and you could easily design submersible EVs. There already exist battery-powered submersibles and light-duty submarines.
Internal combustion engines can and are driven underwater. The important thing is that water does not get in where it’s not supposed to. An internal combustion engine can operate underwater as long as it’s airtight, so no water getting in from anywhere that it’s not supposed to, including sucking in water through the intake, which has some leeway meaning that up to a certain amount can be sucked in without stalling or breaking the engine, and as long as the engine can push out the exhaust with enough force that water doesn’t travel up the exhaust and into the engine. Many vehicles are able to be partially or fully submerged in water with nothing but a snorkel. There are also diesel submarines, which also use snorkels or other methods of supplying air to the engines when they’re submerged.
With electric motors, it’s much the same. As long as water doesn’t get in where it’s not supposed to be, they can work underwater. The problem is that it takes a lot less water to incapacitate an electric drivetrain. As long as every cable, every contactor, every component is sealed watertight, it can work.
So in theory, as long as water doesn’t get where it’s supposed to, both can work, and electric motors better so. But in practice water does get where it’s not supposed to. Proper sealing makes components more expensive, and no manufacturer will take up that cost for something that should not be happening in the first place.
Small research submarines use an electric drivetrain, so the answer is…if it is designed to run in water, then yes.
The average EV is only built to survive mild splashing when it rains.
The air intake for most gas powered engines is *above* the radiator. So you can get it in pretty deep without drowning the engine (“flooding” in gas engines refers to too much fuel getting into the cylinders, BTW). Some will have a snorkel.
Electric cars typically have the electrical components fully insulated, and so water coming in contact with the insulator isn’t going to have a significant effect. An electric motor only has two components, the rotor (which is the only moving part and has no electrical components, only permanent magnets), and the stator, which has the electrical windings, made of insulated copper wire. Water getting into that is not a significant factor, and the motor will still operate.
College answer: it depends. Depends on the vehicle, depends on the environment, depends on the driver.
The immediate concern in my mind is how waterproof the sensitive electrical components are, as well as the high-voltage systems. A short could be as minor as poor performance, component damage, or as high as a full-blown battery fire (which could supercede the threat of the water).
If the vehicle doesn’t short, then my next immediate concern is a floating vehicle. Once tires lose traction, you are probably at the whim of the water body. This is true for both ICE and EVs.
Both my vehicles are EVs. One hasn’t been exposed to significant water depth, but the other I did drive thru a water depth higher than the floorboard (Hyundai Ioniq 5). Using a slow speed, I traversed thru a flooded road section which took between 30-60sec. No issues, no damage, no worries. However, I’ve seen videos of other makes/models that experienced serious issues just going thru a small puddle or car wash.
The new electric G-Wagen not only fords water it has a higher max depth than the gas version. 33.5 inches of fording depth versus 27.6 inches for the ICE models.
And the Rivian R1T has a fording height of 43.1 inches
Anything not specifically designed to go in water will not be able to be used in water. Once? Sure, live or die it might get you through once, but after the water that got into it migrates into all the non waterproof electronics it will go to shit
You are more likely to have a floating problem. A properly sealed electric vehicle should work for some time in water, but as the passenger cabin and trunk are full of air the vehicle is initially going to be buoyant (it will float). In a situation where there is a current (River or sea) this means that the tires will no longer be in contact with the surface and your vehicle will float off in to the distance until the leaks allow the passenger compartment and trunk to slowly fill with water, at which point you sink. Unfortunately for you as the car sinks the pressure of water outside the door is higher than the pressure inside and you can not open the door, so you have to try to break a window to escape, otherwise you drown.
Note this happens with ICE vehicles as well but less so as they have a big heavy engine, transmission and tank of fuel that all add to the initial weight so they have to go deeper before they start to float.
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