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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I mean a car has a big ass tank of exploding dinosaur juice… sooo yea. Evs are less likely to catch its just lithium fires are a bitch
As a firefighter I say: they are less dangerous and/or hazardous than a gasoline car.
While they can be difficult to impossible to extinguish, they start to burn rather slowly. At least that’s what we have been told. This gives you time for a rescue attempt. A gasoline explosion however is rather violent and can be deadly by itself. Also gasoline fires can spread really quick while battery fires are restricted to the actual battery (and whatever they ignite)
Yes and no.
Under normal use, they’re both perfectly safe (pollution & environmental effects aside).
Both can be very dangerous, but in distinctly different ways.
Gas engines – the biggest danger with gas engines is fire. Gasoline burns, and can explode if ignighted in a confined space. However there are secondary dangers as well. A gas engine can also break apart during operation if it has not been well maintained. This can send parts flying at projectile speeds. It can also sieze up if it hasn’t been well maintained, and that could cause you to lose control of the vehicle. This is because many vehicles use power from the engine to run the power steering system.
Lithium batteries – the biggest danger here is also fire or explosion, but for different reasons. These batteries contain extreemly volitile materials that can react violently with moisture in the air. In the event the casing is damaged, and the materials inside are exposed to the atmosphere, they can potentially explode or catch fire. There is also the potential for severe electric shock, but this can only happen if a person completes an electric circuit with the battery. Additionally, exposed or faulty wiring can cause sparks that could potentially start a fire. This is a danger with *any* automotive electrical system, but is more severe when dealing with a high current system like an EV.
One thing I have not seen mentioned is that some munis will send an eV owner a rather LARGE bill for having to attend an eV vehicle fire. One such here in Ontario resulted in a ~$7k bill for the owner. And good luck getting your insurance to cover it.
The EIL5 version.
Water + lithium = fire/explosion
Water + Gasoline = spreading of fire
Both kind of bad, but battery fire way worse for people in the area.
The issue that comes with batteries also is that if their cooling gets broken it can cause big issues.
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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.
Regarding “more dangerous”: Not every danger is catastrophic. Tooooooons of mechanics and DIYers are hurt fixing ICE vehicles because there’s toooons more on an ICE to fix.
This question requires a person to define dangerous, which implies risk (likelihood of an incident and hazard associated with the incident ). Hazardous to whom or what is an important consideration: drivers in an accident, fire fighters, the environment?
In a car wreck or fire situation the EV battery could be considered more dangerous to people nearby due to (1) the generation of heat from lithium batteries and potential for “thermal runaway” (Lithium, by it’s natural properties is highly flammable) and (2) people generally are less familiar with the fire hazards of batteries compared to the fire hazards of gasloine.
Lithium cells can ignite in many different ways, for example, damage to the cells from a car accident or even defects during manufacturing (e.g. small fragments of metal in the electrolyte).
When lithium cells heat up, that heat can transfer to surrounding cells which also heat up. What makes this situation dangerous (to e.g. fire fighters) is that you can cool down a cell so that it does not burst into flames, but that cell or surrounding cells can continue to generate heat (lithium is flammable) and fire can start again.
Overall I would say that given the question is broad and open to interpretation, and that vehicle safety standards and government regulation exist for both vehicle types, the dangers and hazards to general drivers going down the road are likely very similar.
I don’t know that it is fair to look at fire incident statistics in unless someone has accounted for additional biases in the data. For example, maybe people who drive newer, more expensive EV vehicles are less likely to get into a crash…that might cause a fire . They might be less likely to crash because (1) they’re cautious driving expensive vehicles (2) they have technology built in to reduce accidents (3) newer vehicles are less likely to have mechanical issues .
I just don’t like how Teslas have a button to open the door rather than a handle so it the battery sets on fire and there’s no power, you simply cannot leave the car. Nice design!
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