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
There is no universal classification of “waterproof”. Systems are designed to be water resistant, **based on the target conditions**. So if an EV places a microcontroller responsible for regulating power inside a compartment, it only needs to be waterproof to the conditions that would be expected inside the compartment.
When you drive through a flood, you submerse components. Most things that are “waterproof” are really only resistant to splashes, or at most jets of water like a garden hose. Submersion is an entirely different level of protection, which is not common on passenger cars and light trucks.
Most vehicles have a rated “fording depth”, which tells you the maximum depth of the water you should drive through. Even for EVs, most achieve a high fording depth by moving components up high in the vehicle, so the only have to achieve high levels of water resistance in components that *must* be down low, like the driveline components.
The thing to remember is that while a simple low-voltage motor and battery can be placed under water and operate without a problem, EVs use complicated systems that require computers that absolutely will not function under water. Where these items are located will have significant impact on how well a vehicle operates in water.
If you ever find yourself in a live or die scenario where high water is involved, leave your vehicle and climb something tall. Do not drive through high water. You cannot tell if the road has washed out, so the water may be *much* deeper than anticipated. You do not know if the water has been electrified by downed power lines. If your EV has a high voltage system, it can electrify the water around you. Your EV is also very likely to float. If the water is flowing at all, you’ll be carried downstream, even well before the car floats, because every inch of rising water is trying to lift your car, reducing traction.
It is basically never a good idea to drive into deep water unless you are driving an amphibious assault vehicle, and those are hard to come by.
They could be designed such that they could drive underwater, but they aren’t. Waterproofing them that way would add a lot of expense and weight that is unnecessary if you aren’t designing a submarine.
It can be designed in such a way to be very resistant to water, mud, etc. but that is usually a significant investment that will not pay off in real life scenarios. Most combustion engines fail not due to being choked but due to water getting in places it’s not supposed to and the same applies for EVs.
EVs do not need to breathe air and it does make it seem like that matters a lot, but that is actually a minor nuisance that is easily solved by using a snorkel on off road vehicles.
Theoretically yes, with a bunch of qualifiers. If you’re curious there’s a video on YouTube of someone who drove his model 3 under water just to see if he could.
As long as the battery pack, drive computers and motor assembly are properly sealed, the car is going to drive under water, on normal ground or even up in space.
Having said that, it’s unlikely that all critical components are sealed properly and you’re just asking for a critical short that stalls your car under water.
Worse, other components like HVAC are sure to be flooded and destroyed as well as the interior is sure to fill with water.
The short answer is don’t attempt it. You’re sure to do damage and it might not even work.
No not really. It is the theoretically possible to make an EV that works under water and it would logistically be much easier than an ICE car since it requires no oxygen or exhaust system. However, there is no EV on the market that would be able to do this. The level of insulation and protection you would need over the batteries and all the electrical component would dramatically increase the price of the car.
It’s hypothetically possible to build an electric car that could drive underwater but consumer vehicles are in no way designed to be able to do it. Tesla cyber trucks have failed when driven through streams, which they are advertised as being able to do. Also when that lady drove her Tesla into a lake the doors couldn’t open because the electronics got wet and failed.
Tesla uses drive by wire technology, which is a fancy way of saying there is no mechanical connection between the steering wheel and pedals and the mechanisms they control. That means if any electronic components fail anywhere in the chain then you can’t control them at all. Basically Teslas, which are a huge fraction of EVs, are less safe to drive through water than a gas powered car would be
There are a lot of confidently incorrect people here.
An electric vehicle has not only driven through water, but driven completely submerged for 7km.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-30/nt-world-record-darwin-underwater-drive/102665924
Non-nuclear Submarines are all electric when submerged. I have driven my EUC through water above the pedals. Those things point towards YES. Additionally, most EVs are much heavier, so they will maintain traction in deeper water than a traditional car would.
Conceivably, yes, because an electric motor does not need air for combustion.
Realistically, no, because car designers don’t put any effort into making a car that can drive through more than a few inches of water because it’s not a common scenario.
In fact, the engine operating may not be your biggest problem, as it’s very likely that if the car is submerged, the passenger compartment would fill with water.
There may be minor exceptions for extreme off-road vehicles but I’m not aware of any fully electric versions of those.
If everything was waterproofed with the intention of submerging it under water (there will be some minor water intrusion protection from the factory, but nowhere near enough for prolonged submersion), then there’s no reason an electric vehicle couldn’t drive on a flooded street. Combustion vehicles need a supply of air to run so even with a lot of modification they could only be submerged as deep as their intake snorkel allows.
It would take some work, but I think it would be easier to make an electric vehicle fully functional at greater depths than an internal combustion car
Latest Answers