Electrical Car Sets Ship on Fire

[Nail In]

A sinking cargo ship carrying more than 3,700 cars is still burning at sea two days after a fire - which was allegedly caused by an electric car - broke out and killed one crew member.

Why would an electrical car burst into flames, there must of been a reason or someone messing about with the car

Sinking cargo ship carrying more than 3,700 cars is still burning

Salvage crews dealing with the ship off the Dutch coast have boarded the vessel for the first time as heat, flames and smoke eased. The coastguard said the fire 'is still raging but decreasing'.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[bernardgreen]

Why would an electrical car burst into flames,

""Each battery is a densely packed collection of hundreds, even thousands, of slightly mushy lithium-ion electrochemical cells, usually shaped like cylinders or pouches.""

Batteries catch fire when a manufacturing fault in one of the cells causes that cell to short out, This cell over heats and damages adjacent cells starting a chain reaction of exploding cells.

Water and CO2 are not very effective at stopping that chain reaction.

 

[DiyNutJob]

Water causes lithium to catch fire. As you know, there is plenty of water at sea.

 

[ericmark]

It has not yet been established that an electric car was the cause, reading the report it does seem likely, but are we know is there were EV's on board, 498 of the 3,783 vehicles being carried.

It has raised questions about the way we transport vehicles, and it may in the months to come cause changes into what is considered as an acceptable risk. It could impact on things like the channel tunnel where fire has always been a worry, not restricted to EV's, but Grenfell Tower fire is still not caused all cladding to have been removed from all effected properties, and it was not the first fire of its kind, so it will take some time before it is realised how dangerous the batteries are, I have two e-bikes with 12 Ah batteries, but these are small enough to carry out of the house on a shovel.

They are in what was designed as a garage, although now converted into a granny flat, but one would hope the fire would not spread fast. The Kings dock car park fire in Liverpool shows the problems when any cars are stored close together. I have not read the full report, but it seems plastic fuel tanks and plastic drains allowed burning fuel to run through the car park, in essence a design flaw.

It may be in the future cars will be carried in containers to stop spread of fire, or some other method used, including batteries being carried as deck cargo, so they can be jettisoned to save the ship.

I remember the problems with a caravan and the gas bottles, and at one point not allowed on ferries with gas bottles, or was it a limit on how many, it was a long time ago.

The problem is the speed at which governments want change, go in slowly and problems can be assessed and methods found to get around the problem, man has always made errors of judgement, not so much mistakes, but the need to modify ideas, it was not long ago the push was for diesel, now returned to petrol but in the mean time we have produced so many diesel cars, the same now with electric, the transition is too fast to work out the problems, we don't want another asbestos or thalidomide both were thought to be best thing since sliced bread when found.

Not against electric cars, but I am against the speed of change.