ELI5- Are lithium batteries in electric cars more dangerous or hazardous than a gasoline car? If so, why or why not?
In: 944
If a fire occurs, it’s probably way more dangerous. But a battery fire is much less likely to happen in an EV.
The real scary lithium batteries are LiPo, Lithium Polymer. Lithium Ion, the type you find in cars and everything, are a joke compared to these. One small battery will unleash an ungodly flamethrower if pierced, and they are very easy to pierce. I work with these on FPV Racing drones and I have blown up a couple from crashing or crashes cutting the balance leads then shorting out the battery before I could get to it. They are fucking horrifying if misused. I have a fireproof, carbon ventilated latched box for charging them with grommets providing an airtight seal for my cables to enter the box. Probably $800 invested in chargers and battery safety boxes, battery testing equipment etc for charging alone. If one of those spicy pillows blew up while charging outside of my charging setup, it would blow up all the other batteries and burn my place down easily, and most likely many other units in my apartment complex. Dont tell strata though 😉
Repairing these batteries is pretty nervewracking too, cutting through the battery leads and soldering new wires and connectors to them. But I know that as long as I dont touch any wires or jump them with my soldering iron or anything, I’m fine.
Latest Answers