Typically a pickup truck will not light itself on fire in the garage while a family is asleep and then require five trucks worth of water to extinguish.
"Small" extinguishers put out gas and electrical fires all the time.
State Farm sues Tesla for fire damaged home
- Thread starter LDM
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"Small" extinguishers put out gas and electrical fires all the time.
Typical anything (including EV) will not light itself on fire either. Most house fires are from portable space heaters igniting something nearby.
Do you prefer banning portable space heater from the US or asking user to register them and pay for additional fire insurance?
Straw man. We're not talking about space heaters. We're talking about electric cars.
Electric cars have caught on fire while charging at home. Including the Tesla in the OP here. You know, what we're discussing. How about the Bolts that GM asked owners to park outside? How about the transport ship that was engulfed in a fire that couldn't be put out and then sank while trying to be recovered?
The risk is higher that an electric car will spontaneously combust just sitting there or while charging is higher than that of an ICE car. That's a fact. It's also a fact that a hand-carried fire extinguisher can extinguish your typical ICE fire before it starts burning uncontrollably. Once an EV is lit, you have one option - thousands of gallons of water.
Again, you are mixing up possibility and probability.
Everything in the house can caught fire and burn you to death. Bolt owners are asked to park outside until the recalls are done. You are cherry picking something that can happen instead of a fundamental science and engineering problem of "it will happen eventually".
As Wildfire Risk Increases, Home Insurance Is Harder to Find • Stateline
BOULDER, Colo. — A few months after Chris Cook and his family moved from California into a four-bedroom house nestled among ponderosa pines in the foothills here, they got a letter saying their home insurance policy had been canceled. The insurer, Allstate, had concluded — after an assessor...
www.pewtrusts.org
So, it turns out I was wrong and the biggest fire risk is wild fire zone. I think I remember both Critics and my home insurance at one point exit California because of that.
What are you going to do about it? Are you going to ban home build next to wilderness or are you going to not insure homes with EV? Are you going to ban powerline going over forest or are you going to ban people parking their EVs inside their houses?
Insurance companies are very good at predicting what is going to lose them money over a long period of time. Until I see them dropping coverage for EV parked inside a home garage I would think it is safer than living next to a forest on the west coast.
BTW, I have a few home insurance inspection, the inspector ask us to replace the fire extinguishers, trim back vegetation, clear out wood piles stored next to the building, check if the furnace, CO detectors, etc. They never ask us anything about EVs parking there.
You got that right, they dropped coverage because they think California wildfire risk is high, they never drop EV coverage because it causes house fires.
It would really help if the US K12 education system can teach people possibility vs probability instead of waiting till college level.
Space heaters are required to be made safely. A fire is almost 100% going to be from owner’s error. Buying a new ev and driving it home it becomes a ball of fire, or parking it in the garage and it catches on fire is not owner error. So when will EV batteries be required to pass safety testing? Or are they already?
I guess we should avoid telling others about learning in school?
I guess we should avoid telling others about learning in school?
Kind of interesting space heaters are brought up here. As you may or may not know, a typical space heater consumes 12 amps at 120V.
The Chevy Volt can charge at either an 8 amp or 12 amp setting from 120V.
The default is 8 amps. If you plug it in to charge at 120V, you have to set it to charge at 12 amps, every time (through the touch-screen menu).
This is apparently because GM doesn't want the liability from people charging their Volt at 12 amps from an inadequate (read: worn out) outlet and burning it up and potentially starting a fire. And so they make you select the 12 amp charge rate and if I remember right it even pops up a disclaimer.
But space heaters, which use just as much power? No problem. Pull 12 amps with those for hours on end. Hopefully, all those backstab connections and the worn-out receptacle won't overheat and burn.
Generally EV chargers supplied in countries outside of NA that can draw maximum allowable line current have a temp sensor embedded in the AC plug that can trip the unit. Mine is user settable to 6 or 8 amps only (no sensor fitted) while our circuit rating is 10 amps, all at 230 VAC. I can buy a 10 amp unit and that will have a sensor.
The EVSEs that GM has supplied with the Gen 2 Volt have a temp sensor in the plug.
I've found that these factory-installed, crimped plugs tend to run warmer than a field-installed plug with screw terminals.
I carried out some simple bench tests on several extension cord molded plugs and wall sockets with the AU/NZ plug type because I noticed one ran warmer than the others, despite that they all appeared identical.
I found the pin and socket contact resistance on new parts to be inconsequential. However the half-baked crimp plus solder that all the plugs had seemed to be the source of significant heat on one example. The other source common to all three seemed to be due to the high thermal resistance to air of the copper wires where encased inside the molded plug body.
A screw terminal plug can not only have a better electrical connection to the plug pins but the wires are free in the air rather than encased in plastic. The natural convection created inside the plug body by warm wires could have a lower total thermal resistance to the outside than the solid plastic.
The crimp used on these cheap extension cords used a metal thickness too thin to provide what should be a very-effective connection. It seems to get around this the crimped wire is additionally soldered, making a hash of the whole thing.
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Space heater catches fires all the time, "required to be made safely" is nonsense because eventually you will see manufacturer defect, just like eventually you see EV battery defects.
I personally know someone with a space heater burnt down his house. I also know someone with a cat converter igniting leaves blown under his parked car and started a fire, totaling his car. I would not say a gas car is 100% not going to catch fire inside a garage either.
Oh one more risk for gas car inside a garage: CO poisoning if someone close the garage door and forgot the car was running. Yes that's stupid but people do stupid things all the time, and got themselves killed all the time.
My point is: EV battery fire is very rare, as of now insurance company think the possibility is there but probability is low.
Are EV batteries and their charging system "UL Approved" ... so to speak? Any device with a battery and a charging system like a cell phone are. Space heaters are suppose to be UL Approved, which means the design is certified to be safe if used properly per the manufacturer. Most space heater fires are from misuse - ie, put on a long inadequate extension cord, put on an over loaded worn outlet, put way too clise to combustible materials, etc.
As more and more EVs are bought, time will tell if they are more prone to start fires while parked and/or charging, and for what reasons. Say for instance, if someone jerry rigged their own 240v charging system, instead of having it done by a bonded pro electrician with permits and inspections, and it caused a fire the insurance company isn't going to cover it.
If EV fires are rare, and shown to be caused by a design and/or manudacturing defect, then the insurance companies will probably pay, but turn around and sue the manufacturer for damages.
Supposed to be, but a certain prominent online vendor sells all sorts of non-UL approved junk.
After all, a space heater (and a hair dryer) work just fine without a thermal overload switch.
I am not sure about the UL approved part just like many appliances (large). If they have to go UL approve it would likely be the charging cord alone, instead of the car.
Regarding to EV fires (battery to be specific), so far if you look at all the fires out there they are manufacturing defects, "UL Approve" won't save you from that. So far it also seems like manufacturers are actively going out there to replace batteries when defects are found (Samsung phone, Chevy Volt / Bolt, etc). I haven't seen Prius Prime burning houses down or other Li-Ion stuff around the house burning them down, but of course we are still early in the EV rollout so who knows what new safety improvement they will come up with in the future.
One thing I do know is we eventually will see fire proofing inside garage with sprinkler, with CO monitor, just like our kitchen today.
UL 2202 covers on-board chargers. So this should apply to the actual charger on the vehicle, not the EVSE, which is covered by another UL standard.
UL 2202: Standard Testing for On-Board Battery Chargers
Intertek offers comprehensive Testing and Certification services for Standard UL 2202 - Standard Testing for On-Board Battery Chargers for EV Charging System Equipment
www.intertek.com
UL 2202: Standard Testing for On-Board Battery Chargers
UL 2202 - Standard for Safety for Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging System Equipment, Second Edition
The UL 2202 Standard Covers On-Board Battery Chargers:- Supplied by Circuit of 600Volt or Less
- For Recharging Batteries in Over the Road EVs
- On-Board or Off-Board the Vehicle
- “LEVEL 3” Chargers fall under this standard
I'm sure any added risk will unfortunately just be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums.
It "depends". Often insurance companies mandate certain changes, or local building code is upgraded to reflect what is necessary to reduce or eliminate a risk, and in the long run these changes help save money.
Health insurance pool split between smoker and non smoker for different cost, and as a result the non smokers ended up saving money.
Back in the 60's (I think), it was insurance companies that lobbied for seat belt laws. Maybe it was the early 70's ?
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It was the 60’s but they tried to make them from hemp - and none was available until the 70’s
Required to be made safely is not nonsense. Lessens fire risks versus not required to be made safely.
“Space heater catches fires all the time” So one space heater is catching on fire multiple times? Or the heater is catching fires like in a baseball mitt? “EV battery fire is very rare, as of now insurance company think the. ” So there is one insurance company who is thinking? Since going to school was brought up before, American schools don’t teach that version of English.
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