ELI5- Are lithium batteries in electric cars more dangerous or hazardous than a gasoline car? If so, why or why not?
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You can’t really compare hazards like that.
Gasoline is much more dangerous during normal operation, because gasoline normally ends up burnt, spewed into the air, and replaced. Gasoline combustion products are major pollutants. They cause respiratory disease near the car, and they warm the entire planet.
Meanwhile, the lithium in a lithium battery doesn’t actually go anywhere. The energy comes from electricity, which can be generated far away from anyone who has to breathe the fumes from the power plant. And, power plants (if they burn stuff at all) are often more efficient than car engines, which means less warming of the planet.
But, lithium batteries are more dangerous in a crash. The energy in a lithium battery is enough to utterly destroy the battery if it should find a short-circuit, such as one created very easily in a crash. Once the battery is shorted, all it takes is one hole to let air in, and it’s on fire. And once lit, lithium is near-impossible to put out, because it’ll burn in anything – air, nitrogen, water, whatever.
Gasoline tanks have no such natural fire-starter. Gasoline only gets hot when it’s on fire, which only happens when it’s mixed with air. There isn’t usually enough air in the gas tank to be dangerous. And it’s really hard for a crash to mix the gas tank with air AND heat part of it to ignition at the same time. And, gasoline is much easier to put out, since just throwing water at it will eventually work just fine.
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