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(Daily Mail)   Is a Tesla really worth 6,000 gallons of precious California water?   (dailymail.co.uk) divider line
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3977 clicks; posted to Main » on 30 Jan 2023 at 3:05 AM (8 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



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covfefe [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 2:32:20 AM  
Yes, they should have let it burn fully, poisoning the air for the innocent people in the area it happened to ignite in.
 
Rattrap007
2023-01-30 3:10:55 AM  
Nothing wrong with it before other than it was a Tesla.
 
Stud Gerbil
2023-01-30 3:12:49 AM  
Chevy Volt and Bolt are worth buying.   Tesla, not so much.
 
kevinatilusa
2023-01-30 3:15:43 AM  
Obviously the next step after self-driving cars is self-combusting cars.
 
tembaarmswide
2023-01-30 3:24:13 AM  
i want electric vehicles but, I hate Elon Musk  (and thus Tesla) now.  Very torn.
 
Cythraul
2023-01-30 3:26:57 AM  
Well, you hear that, people?  We should stop making electric cars because it wastes water to put them out when they catch fire.

Don't bother trying to perfect the technology and make it safe and more efficient.   Nope.  Get rid of the idea all together.   Let's keep putting thousands of fossil burners on the road every day.
 
maxandgrinch [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 3:31:00 AM  
If Musk moved to his own Fark tab - wasn't the CEO, would Tesla sales go up or down?
 
tembaarmswide
2023-01-30 3:34:58 AM  

maxandgrinch: If Musk moved to his own Fark tab - wasn't the CEO, would Tesla sales go up or down?


imgs.xkcd.comView Full Size
 
KodosZardoz
2023-01-30 3:44:03 AM  
I'm curious to know if there is a chemical that would work better at extinguishing these types of battery fires more efficiently than spraying water. Anybody know?
 
Concrete Donkey
2023-01-30 3:46:44 AM  

covfefe: Yes, they should have let it burn fully, poisoning the air for the innocent people in the area it happened to ignite in.


It really wouldnt have been that bad for the air. Probably not even something that would register on meters considering how it would have dispersed rapidly
 
bughunter [BareFark]
2023-01-30 3:56:37 AM  

KodosZardoz: I'm curious to know if there is a chemical that would work better at extinguishing these types of battery fires more efficiently than spraying water. Anybody know?


Hm.  Excellent question.  It's not about extinguishing the fire so much as preventing the residual charge in the batteries from re-starting the fire.

There is a LOT of chemical energy stored in those cells, and if they short circuit (e.g, by being pierced or crushed), the chemical energy is rapidly converted to electrical energy, and that into heat energy.  Worse, the combustion is made even more dangerous because there are materials in the cells that serve as an oxidizer once heated up sufficiently, so just starving the fire of air isn't enough.

TFA talks about firefighters digging a pit, filling it with water, and pushing a burning Tesla into the pool, which seems to work.  The actual mechanism responsible is probably more about the heat-sinking capacity of the water than the oxygen-starving property of the water.  The immersed cells are still discharging, and still generating heat, but the water is carrying away the heat by conduction and convection fast enough to prevent combustion.

But while that's easy to do in a junkyard, as the TFA describes, you can't do that on a freeway.

The same goes for an alternate approach: high explosives.  Just blow the sucker to smithereens... that'll distribute the energy stored in those cells pretty rapidly and evenly.
 
tembaarmswide
2023-01-30 4:00:25 AM  
bughunter:The same goes for an alternate approach: high explosives.  Just blow the sucker to smithereens... that'll distribute the energy stored in those cells pretty rapidly and evenly.

a whale of an idea!
media.tenor.comView Full Size
 
Tom Marvolo Bombadil
2023-01-30 4:00:37 AM  

KodosZardoz: I'm curious to know if there is a chemical that would work better at extinguishing these types of battery fires more efficiently than spraying water. Anybody know?


Mercury
 
Eat The Placenta
2023-01-30 4:04:07 AM  

KodosZardoz: I'm curious to know if there is a chemical that would work better at extinguishing these types of battery fires more efficiently than spraying water. Anybody know?


Lithium reacts with water. It will accelerate the flames, which is why so much water was used. They should use a calcium carbonite filled fire extinguisher.
 
bughunter [BareFark]
2023-01-30 4:04:24 AM  

tembaarmswide: bughunter:The same goes for an alternate approach: high explosives.  Just blow the sucker to smithereens... that'll distribute the energy stored in those cells pretty rapidly and evenly.

a whale of an idea!
[media.tenor.com image 498x362] [View Full Size image _x_]


Now make it a whale made out of something with an energy density approximately that of gasoline... it's not gonna go quietly.
 
OgreMagi
2023-01-30 4:05:38 AM  
This sounds like a problem that needs to be worked out as soon as possible.  With more electric vehicles hiatting the streets each day, these types of fires are going to become much more common.  I'm not going to even try to figure it out. I'll leave this thing to the experts.

My background in high powered lasers is not useful since big batteries were not involved, plus I'm several decades out of touch with that industry.
 
OgreMagi
2023-01-30 4:07:37 AM  

Eat The Placenta: They should use a calcium carbonite filled fire extinguisher.


How much would be required.  Would a tanker truck filled with calcium carbonate need to become standard equipment at fire stations?
 
darkone
2023-01-30 4:10:28 AM  
No the Tesla ain't worth a squirt of piss, but the pavement it is burning on is certainly worth a lot of water.
 
tembaarmswide
2023-01-30 4:12:11 AM  

Eat The Placenta: KodosZardoz: I'm curious to know if there is a chemical that would work better at extinguishing these types of battery fires more efficiently than spraying water. Anybody know?

Lithium reacts with water. It will accelerate the flames, which is why so much water was used. They should use a calcium carbonite filled fire extinguisher.


a what?

1.bp.blogspot.comView Full Size
 
Eat The Placenta
2023-01-30 4:16:31 AM  

OgreMagi: Eat The Placenta: They should use a calcium carbonite filled fire extinguisher.

How much would be required.  Would a tanker truck filled with calcium carbonate need to become standard equipment at fire stations?


I don't know how much you need. I guess it would be how bad the flames are. The firefighters should have plenty of fire extinguishers. I'd keep a few on the fire truck.

On a side note, where did the firefighters hook up the hose?
 
leeksfromchichis [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 4:17:16 AM  

KodosZardoz: I'm curious to know if there is a chemical that would work better at extinguishing these types of battery fires more efficiently than spraying water. Anybody know?


Yes, almost certainly, which is why they have foams and stuff.

But it's a matter of price, effectiveness, side effects of the chemicals, etc. Spraying something that costs more than gold and poisons the area more than the fire itself probably isn't a good solution, for example.

I just assume firefighters look into this stuff a little more deeply than I do.
 
princhester
2023-01-30 4:35:04 AM  

OgreMagi: With more electric vehicles hiatting the streets each day, these types of fires are going to become much more common.


Clearly this is a race with a long way to run.  But at present ICE car fires occur at over 60x the rate of EV fires.

Maybe this will get worse as EV's age.  But also, EV technology is young and maybe car companies will get better at preventing them from catching fire.

But as matters stand, if the whole auto fleet was replaced with EV's tomorrow, firefighters would have 60x fewer vehicle fires to fight.  Which might balances off the difficulty of fighting the few EV fires that do occur.
 
drjekel_mrhyde
2023-01-30 4:37:57 AM  

Cythraul: Well, you hear that, people?  We should stop making electric cars because it wastes water to put them out when they catch fire.

Don't bother trying to perfect the technology and make it safe and more efficient.   Nope.  Get rid of the idea all together.   Let's keep putting thousands of fossil burners on the road every day.


No. If we're going full EV then somebody is going to have to pay to get these fire fighters training and equipment to be able to put these out in a fast pace.
/Put your money were you mouth is
 
Ganon D. Mire
2023-01-30 4:38:09 AM  
You don't fight a lithium fire with water,
just like you don't fight a grease fire with water...

Grease Fire with water
Youtube NgO_uZA5vXg


Firemen should be prepared to throw more than just water.
 
Koldbern
2023-01-30 4:39:20 AM  

Ganon D. Mire: You don't fight a lithium fire with water,
just like you don't fight a grease fire with water...

[YouTube video: Grease Fire with water]

Firemen should be prepared to throw more than just water.


Centro Zaragoza tests the Bridgehill Fire Blanket on an electric vehicle
Youtube yO8cVWOqZcg
 
Smurfnazi420
2023-01-30 4:40:41 AM  
Holy fark.
In america now they count the gallons of water used in a fire?
If my car/house/etc was on fire, I don't want someone counting water.
Are they going to start billing people?
America, WTF is wrong with you?
Seriously.
 
Concrete Donkey
2023-01-30 4:43:48 AM  

Smurfnazi420: Holy fark.
In america now they count the gallons of water used in a fire?
If my car/house/etc was on fire, I don't want someone counting water.
Are they going to start billing people?
America, WTF is wrong with you?
Seriously.


Or, you stupid fark, we do it to show how intense a battery fire is and how much more it takes to put out compared to a normal vehicle.


But figuring that out would require the critical thinking skills of a 5 year old
 
Tom Marvolo Bombadil
2023-01-30 4:50:18 AM  

Smurfnazi420: Holy fark.
In america now they count the gallons of water used in a fire?
If my car/house/etc was on fire, I don't want someone counting water.
Are they going to start billing people?
America, WTF is wrong with you?
Seriously.


Fark user imageView Full Size
 
princhester
2023-01-30 4:51:58 AM  

Concrete Donkey: Smurfnazi420: Holy fark.
In america now they count the gallons of water used in a fire?
If my car/house/etc was on fire, I don't want someone counting water.
Are they going to start billing people?
America, WTF is wrong with you?
Seriously.

...we do it to show how intense a battery fire is and how much more it takes to put out compared to a normal vehicle.


I understand what you are saying and overall you are of course correct, but Subby's tagline does give a certain impression
 
DON.MAC [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 4:53:42 AM  
Koldbern: [video]

Interesting... About $4,000 for the Bridgehill fire blanket that can be reused up to about 30 times.
 
DON.MAC [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 4:58:34 AM  

Smurfnazi420: Holy fark.
In america now they count the gallons of water used in a fire?
If my car/house/etc was on fire, I don't want someone counting water.
Are they going to start billing people?
America, WTF is wrong with you?
Seriously.


The fire trucks carry water so they know how much they used if they empty them.  The pumps have meters for flow and time for maintenance and those will get logged when they get back to the station.   For a house fire, they will directly connect to the hydrant in which case they won't know or they will hook a hose from the hydrant to the truck where they have better control incase a hose breaks and the truck can increase the pressure if needed.
 
princhester
2023-01-30 5:00:17 AM  

DON.MAC: Koldbern: [video]

Interesting... About $4,000 for the Bridgehill fire blanket that can be reused up to about 30 times.


It looks great but the only thing that makes me wonder is that this video is two years old.  It seems odd that if the blanket works so perfectly, why is "how do we put out EV fires" even a question at this point?

Is there are flaw in the blankets that this video doesn't mention, or is it just inertia?
 
halfjack
2023-01-30 5:10:16 AM  

princhester: DON.MAC: Koldbern: [video]

Interesting... About $4,000 for the Bridgehill fire blanket that can be reused up to about 30 times.

It looks great but the only thing that makes me wonder is that this video is two years old.  It seems odd that if the blanket works so perfectly, why is "how do we put out EV fires" even a question at this point?

Is there are flaw in the blankets that this video doesn't mention, or is it just inertia?


Cost, likely. Cost of the item and the cost of training the firefighters how to use them.
 
princhester
2023-01-30 5:18:23 AM  
You may well be right but it's a false economy if so.  At a cost of $130 per fire, it would save money quickly.  And looking at the video, the amount of training would seem minimal.  I still wonder if there isnt a catch.
 
sensitive yet dangerous
2023-01-30 5:20:12 AM  

princhester: OgreMagi: With more electric vehicles hiatting the streets each day, these types of fires are going to become much more common.

Clearly this is a race with a long way to run.  But at present ICE car fires occur at over 60x the rate of EV fires.

Maybe this will get worse as EV's age.  But also, EV technology is young and maybe car companies will get better at preventing them from catching fire.

But as matters stand, if the whole auto fleet was replaced with EV's tomorrow, firefighters would have 60x fewer vehicle fires to fight.  Which might balances off the difficulty of fighting the few EV fires that do occur.


It's not a question of prevalence of EV fires vs. ICE fires, it's a question of putting out an unquenchable lithium battery fire. An ICE vehicle may burn, but basically anything (water, CO2, various foams and powders, or even dirt) would put it out without too much effort. A lithium battery fire is a different story because they're self-sustaining.

I'd suggest highway departments have a rapid deployment of a big-ass truck full of sand and just bury the Tesla or whatever until it cools off enough to dispose of. Maybe put a plow on front of the sand truck to push the car off the road before burying it. I dunno. I don't get paid enough to figure this out. You'd think something like that would have been included in the whole NHTSA safety evaluation when they allowed these things on the road. Seems like a big oversight.
 
princhester
2023-01-30 5:21:59 AM  
It's almost like this is eac

sensitive yet dangerous: princhester: OgreMagi: With more electric vehicles hiatting the streets each day, these types of fires are going to become much more common.

Clearly this is a race with a long way to run.  But at present ICE car fires occur at over 60x the rate of EV fires.

Maybe this will get worse as EV's age.  But also, EV technology is young and maybe car companies will get better at preventing them from catching fire.

But as matters stand, if the whole auto fleet was replaced with EV's tomorrow, firefighters would have 60x fewer vehicle fires to fight.  Which might balances off the difficulty of fighting the few EV fires that do occur.

It's not a question of prevalence of EV fires vs. ICE fires, it's a question of putting out an unquenchable lithium battery fire. An ICE vehicle may burn, but basically anything (water, CO2, various foams and powders, or even dirt) would put it out without too much effort. A lithium battery fire is a different story because they're self-sustaining.

I'd suggest highway departments have a rapid deployment of a big-ass truck full of sand and just bury the Tesla or whatever until it cools off enough to dispose of. Maybe put a plow on front of the sand truck to push the car off the road before burying it. I dunno. I don't get paid enough to figure this out. You'd think something like that would have been included in the whole NHTSA safety evaluation when they allowed these things on the road. Seems like a big oversight.


Thanks, Captain Obvious.  Re-read my last sentence.
 
hlehmann
2023-01-30 5:36:25 AM  
This article seems to have a good bit of hyperbole and bovine excrement.
Yeah, yeah, it's the Daily Fail, so that should be expected.

Is 6000 gallons of water really a lot?  We're talking fire hoses here, they spit out a lot of water really fast.

The story seems to flip back and forth between two incidents, months apart, where the only thing in common was a burning Tesla.  They dug a pit to fill with water in which to submerge a burning car.  Firefighters happen to have access to a excavator, dig a hole, and push the car into it in less time than the fire would just burn itself out anyway?  Horse hockey.

/ Still will never buy a Tesla.
 
ilambiquated
2023-01-30 5:45:16 AM  
California's water problems are caused by bad land management. Wiping out the beavers was a terrible mistake. To this day, it is illegal to release beavers into the wild.

Also paving huge areas for parking it idiotic.

Another interesting fact: A century ago Southern California had one of the biggest lakes in the United states, Lake Tulare. This was drained. The area is now a desert.

Since European settlement began a few centuries ago, the continent has experienced a series of large scale ecological disasters, mostly thanks to mismanagement of land and short sighted farming practices. The desertification of the Southwest is one of them. Arizona was grabbed because it was ideal cattle country. Now its symbol is a cactus.
 
princhester
2023-01-30 5:47:27 AM  

hlehmann: They dug a pit to fill with water in which to submerge a burning car.  Firefighters happen to have access to a excavator, dig a hole, and push the car into it in less time than the fire would just burn itself out anyway?


Where I'm from wrecking yards often have large earthmoving equipment they use for moving cars around.  And wrecking yards usually have plenty of unpaved space.  The time taken to scrape a hole big enough to submerge a car up to the battery - which is under the floor pan - could be measured in minutes.  Filling it with water, with firehoses, would take only about as long.

Meanwhile, EV's have been known to burn for hours.
 
Sexy Jesus
2023-01-30 5:48:49 AM  

KodosZardoz: I'm curious to know if there is a chemical that would work better at extinguishing these types of battery fires more efficiently than spraying water. Anybody know?


50,000 lbs of baking soda? A giant, wet dishcloth?
 
DON.MAC [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 5:50:13 AM  

hlehmann: The story seems to flip back and forth between two incidents, months apart, where the only thing in common was a burning Tesla.


Bingo.  The basis of the story is EVs are evil and wrong and demon fire magic and Teslas 666 times worse.

The problem with the "let it burn" is that it can destroy other stuff including the road.  A solar car in Australia that had a shoebox sized battery caught fire and the highway patrol officer didn't let the driver use the correct fire extinguisher but opted for the water based one.  Things were burning quite spectacularly until the magnesium motor wheel caught fire.  The glow of the fire could be seen about 100 miles away.  They had to fix the road and that is a road in the outback that gets very hot.

I expect the blanket issue is that while it may work for 30 fires, it might only work for one which starts to get expensive for some fire departments which already have a long list of stuff they need to spend money on.
 
winedrinkingman
2023-01-30 5:50:46 AM  
As electric cars become more common, it will probably be worth developing and having fire trucks that dump a mix of sand and clay onto the cars to smother the fire out.
 
princhester
2023-01-30 5:53:57 AM  

DON.MAC: Bingo.  The basis of the story is EVs are evil and wrong and demon fire magic and Teslas 666 times worse.


Just wait till the Daily Mail readers find out they have eeeevil Li-Ion batteries IN THEIR POCKETS!
 
tembaarmswide
2023-01-30 6:02:30 AM  
comicbookreligion.comView Full Size


60 times fewer fires is only fine if they are less than 60x harder each, to combat!
 
princhester
2023-01-30 6:06:59 AM  

tembaarmswide: [comicbookreligion.com image 424x362]

60 times fewer fires is only fine if they are less than 60x harder each, to combat!


You're a mathematical genius, no question.
 
Izunbacol [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 6:07:03 AM  

hlehmann: This article seems to have a good bit of hyperbole and bovine excrement.
Yeah, yeah, it's the Daily Fail, so that should be expected.

Is 6000 gallons of water really a lot?  We're talking fire hoses here, they spit out a lot of water really fast.

The story seems to flip back and forth between two incidents, months apart, where the only thing in common was a burning Tesla.  They dug a pit to fill with water in which to submerge a burning car.  Firefighters happen to have access to a excavator, dig a hole, and push the car into it in less time than the fire would just burn itself out anyway?  Horse hockey.

/ Still will never buy a Tesla.


I got curious about firehoses and hydrants.  I'm no firefighter, nor do I have any experience as one other than that one time fondue got out of control and I had to grab a fire extinguisher... but this site discusses flow rates on fire hoses between 500 and 1500 gallons per minute.  It seems this could easily be "4-12 minutes of blasting."
 
gilatrout [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 6:16:00 AM  
The problem with the blanket is when you remove it the fire will reignite until the battery is discharged. What it does is give fire fighters time to bring in tools and materials to better deal with the cremains
 
tembaarmswide
2023-01-30 6:22:32 AM  

princhester: tembaarmswide: [comicbookreligion.com image 424x362]

60 times fewer fires is only fine if they are less than 60x harder each, to combat!

You're a mathematical genius, no question.


Fark user imageView Full Size
 
princhester
2023-01-30 6:25:53 AM  

gilatrout: The problem with the blanket is when you remove it the fire will reignite until the battery is discharged. What it does is give fire fighters time to bring in tools and materials to better deal with the cremains


Not according this website:

"The idea is that the fire-retardant blanket robs the fire of oxygen, thus extinguishing it. And if you keep it on long enough, temperatures will stay down and it likely won't reignite."

If you get the temperature down enough, the thermal runaway will stop.  The only mechanism for re-ignition at that point would be heat from a short - but if the battery is shorting it will discharge itself over time.
 
SpectroBoy [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 6:39:34 AM  

tembaarmswide: i want electric vehicles but, I hate Elon Musk  (and thus Tesla) now.  Very torn.


Now you can get good EVs from real car companies.
 
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