I sent yesterday the facts on the New QQ (Hybrid / e-Power) to an Old friend who lives in Berlin and is a daily reader of Newspaper and information which he forwards me. Today I received this which appears to be Newspaper Reports which might be of interest - Dave
Ford and Jaguar going 100% electric ? Maybe not after reading this âŚ.
Anyone for a new VW Golf Electric or Hybrid?
VW Hybrid Car âExplodesâ, Bursts Into Flames â 22 Fire Fighters To Extinguish Hazardous Battery Fire
By P Gosselin on 16. February 2021
The burned out vehicle and unstable batteries had to be submerged in a container full of water for days to keep them from reigniting. The German online HNA daily here reports how a VW Golf 8 Hybrid vehicle suddenly âexplodedâ Saturday evening before bursting into flames seconds later. The blast could be heard kilometers away, and the street was so damaged that it had to be closed.
Hat-tip: Bernd Felsche
Last Saturday evening a couple was driving their new VW Golf 8 Hybrid vehicle, when suddenly it exploded and burst into flames. The driver and her 46-year-old partner said there was a sudden blue flash and a very powerful explosion that sent all the windows flying out of the vehicle,â The HNA reports.
âThe explosion bang was so loud that it was even heard several kilometers away.â
Though the driver and passenger suffered only minor injuries, they were just able to escape into the open air. The car burst into flames just seconds after the explosion.
Firefighters from Hilgershausen said the car was burning brightly in the middle of the road when they arrived.
Days needed to fully extinguish reigniting battery
Due to the materials used to manufacture the hybrid vehicle battery, extinguishing the fire was a real challenge and required monitoring by thermographic camera, special breathing apparatus and lots of water.
âBut the reactions in the burning batteries kept causing the flames to flare up,â reported the HNA. âTo make matters worse for the firefighters, temperatures of 16°C below freezing caused the extinguishing water on the road to freeze immediately.â
Also the extinguished battery kept rapidly reheating and each time had to be doused with water, which froze on the street and led to a centimeters thick ice sheet building up. Once the wreckage was finally hauled away, it had to be submerged in a container full of water to make sure the batteries did not reignite.
âThe vehicle then has to stand in here for several days until there is no longer any danger of it flaring up again due to the reactions of the cells in the batteries,â reported the HNA.
Damaged street had to be closed off.
Not only was the new car totaled, but also the asphalt road surface was severely damaged and the street had to be closed off.
âA total of 22 fire brigades from Hilgershausen and the city center were on the scene of the fire under the direction of the city fire chief Stefan Dippel,â reports the HNA.
Fire hazard: German town bans e-cars from parking garage
The fire risks posed by electric cars are well known, so much so that the Bavarian town of Kulmbach has just banned electric and hybrid vehicles from parking inside parking garages because their batteries are so difficult to extinguish when fire starts.
According to German online weekly FOCUS here, âThis was decided by the city in consultation with the fire brigade for the underground car park under Eku-Platz, as first reported by the portal InFranken.de.â
Battery fires âdramaticâ, too difficult to extinguish
In the event of an electric or hybrid vehicle battery fire, extinguishing it would take too long and the heat generated could lead to extensive structural damage to the parking garage.
FOCUS reports: âA steel floor can withstand heat for a certain time, but if too much heat is applied, the concrete will burst and the iron will melt. Then there would be a danger of collapse. At least that is the cityâs reasoning for this unusual step.â
Battery fires rare, but âdramaticâ
VW says that fires involving electric and hybrid vehicles are rare and that experts deem the new vehicles with lithium ion batteries to be generally safe. However, in the event a fire should erupt, it tends to be more dramatic.
âThe fire risks posed by electric cars are well known, so much so that the Bavarian town of Kulmbach has just banned electric and hybrid vehicles from parking inside parking garages because their batteries are so difficult to extinguish when fire starts.â
What are the implications for the UK of home charging overnight â particularly inside home garages?
Oh yes I nearly forgot - the UK has banned the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
âIt is often pointed out that electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines, and this is true; there is a factor of three involved. But the low energy density of batteries means that much of this advantage is lost in having to carry around a heavy battery. The power pack for a Tesla weighs half a tonne and occupies much of the floor pan of the car: for the same 600-km range in a petrol car, you would need 48 litres of petrol, weighing just 36 kg.
And the size of the battery means that they require huge quantities of materials in their manufacture. If we replace all of the UK vehicle fleet with EVs, and assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation batteries, we would need the following materials:
207,900 tonnes of cobalt â just under twice the annual global production;
264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate â three quarters of the worldâs production;
at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium ânearly the entire world production of neodymium;
2,362,500 tonnes of copper â more than half the worldâs production in 2018.
And this is just for the UK. It is estimated that the manufacÂturing capacity for EV batteries would have to increase more than 500-fold if we want the whole world to be transported by electric vehicles. The vast increases in the supply of the materiÂals described above would go far beyond known reserves.â From âElectrifying the UKâ by Prof. Michael Kelly
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads ... carb-1.pdf