I've had a few RC plane batteries go on me, they go from fine to OMG!WTF! in about 5 seconds. And these are as big as a deck of cards. I accidentally punctured a tiny one the size of a thumbnail in my house, and I tossed it out the front door. It started hissing and smoking before popping into flames. And the smell, oh the smell...stuck around for days.
Lithium batteries are at their most dangerous when charging, or under extreme discharge. So having one charging in your attached garage could be catastrophic pretty quickly. I'd make sure I had a really good fire alarm system in place. A house fire with one of those fuelling it would be impossible to extinguish quickly.
While true, I think extinguishing a gas fire is a lot easier. Once a lithium battery goes, there isn't much that is going to stop it, short of rolling your car into the swimming pool or lake.
Regarding the risk of electrochemical failure, [this] report concludes that the propensity and severity of fires and explosions from the accidental ignition of flammable electrolytic solvents used in Li-ion battery systems are anticipated to be somewhat comparable to or perhaps slightly less than those for gasoline or diesel vehicular fuels. The overall consequences for Li-ion batteries are expected to be less because of the much smaller amounts of flammable solvent released and burning in a catastrophic failure situation.
This is from the Wikipedia entry, that I'm pretty sure should have a giant "citation needed" next to it...
Quote:
As of February 2014, four fires after an impact have been reported associated with the batteries of plug-in electric cars. The first crash related fire was reported in China in May 2012, after a high-speed car crashed into a BYD e6 taxi in Shenzhen.[2] Two incidents occurred with the Tesla Model S in October 2013, one when a Model S caught fire after the electric car hit metal debris on a highway in Kent, Washington,[3] and another involving a loss of control and collision with a tree in Merida, Mexico.[4] A Tesla Model S being driven on a highway near Murfreesboro, Tennessee caught fire in November 2013 after it struck a tow hitch on the roadway, causing damage beneath the vehicle.[5]These incidents occurred in situations which would cause fires in gasoline powered automobiles.
"Would cause" is a pretty strong statement. Sure, a trailer hitch on a highway or piece of metal COULD cause a fire in a gasoline vehicle, if it hit in the spot of the gas tank, and punctured it, and the leak was exposed to a spark. But I suspect electric vehicles are more likely to catch fire when exposed to a trauma of that sort, if only becuase most of them have the entire floor made of battery. Anyway, minor Wikipedia annoyance. It is interesting that NHSTA thinks the risks are similar.
This is from the Wikipedia entry, that I'm pretty sure should have a giant "citation needed" next to it...
"Would cause" is a pretty strong statement. Sure, a trailer hitch on a highway or piece of metal COULD cause a fire in a gasoline vehicle, if it hit in the spot of the gas tank, and punctured it, and the leak was exposed to a spark. But I suspect electric vehicles are more likely to catch fire when exposed to a trauma of that sort, if only becuase most of them have the entire floor made of battery. Anyway, minor Wikipedia annoyance. It is interesting that NHSTA thinks the risks are similar.
Not really. It's floor it's late up of thousands (or hundreds depending on which EV you're discussing) of individual batteries. It isn't one big pile of combustible material. The majority of a battery pack is metal housing. It's not likely to catch fire simply from exposure in a crash
My point was a gas tank has small area to impact, whereas the entire bottom of a Tesla is battery, so any strike could hit a battery cell. And I know they are made of individual cells, but puncturing a few of them can lead to thermal runaway.
It's more that it doesn't make sense. The truck bed is 15 feet long, and as high as the roof line of the truck it is carrying. How do you load that? Or park it, since it is wide enough to hold a truck. Nothing about that render computes.
It's more that it doesn't make sense. The truck bed is 15 feet long, and as high as the roof line of the truck it is carrying. How do you load that? Or park it, since it is wide enough to hold a truck. Nothing about that render computes.
I'm picturing it more being the size of an F-150. The render is showing it carrying a truck in a way to just sort of humiliate the other truck. Like the Tesla is the adult and the other truck is just a baby. IDK. I don't expect this thing to actually be the size of a brontosaurus.
So, the Full Self-Driving option is going up $1300 on July 1, and Tesla was offering end of quarter incentives of one-year free supercharging. This plus my susceptibility to impulse buying has made me a new ignorant Tesla owner.
I will need to run a charging cable about 15m/50ft across my back yard. I am thinking of just getting an outdoor NEMA 15-40 outlet installed instead of the tesla wall charger. Has anyone done the same? Or should I get the wall charger and some sort of extension cord for it that Tesla doesnt seem to sell?