Problems with repairing EVs

[Lanark]

Fire risk - far more risk of setting a petrol car on fire

Hybrid cars seem to be the most likely to catch fire, with gasoline vehicles coming in second. Cars that run only on electricity are a distant third.
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driv ... -fires.htm

[bungeejumper]

Hybrid cars seem to be the most likely to catch fire, with gasoline vehicles coming in second. Cars that run only on electricity are a distant third.

So why would a hybrid car be more likely to catch fire than a traditional ICE? If the fire risk is mostly down to fuel and/or control electrics, surely they'd be the same?

This fire brigade source (https://www.bedsfire.gov.uk/Community-s ... icles.aspx) suggests that London car fires in early 2020 were running at about 50 times as many fires on ICE vehicles as for EVs. But that's absolute numbers (1,021 petrol and diesel fires against 27 electric vehicle fires.) Whereas the best estimate I can find (elsewhere) is that in 2020 there were fifty ICE cars in the UK for every fully EV car. Which would seem to suggest that the chances of an EV fire or an ICE fire were about even, would it not? Something doesn't seem to add up?

What is clear from the report is that EV fires can be very much nastier if the batteries are damaged by an impact. From the same report:

During an electric vehicle fire, over 100 organic chemicals are generated, including some incredibly toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide – both of which are fatal to humans.

According to George Maloney, sub-officer in the operational team at the London Fire Brigade, the fire services are prepared for dealing with these toxic gases: ‘When dealing with any sort of vehicle fire, the fire brigade will always wear full PPE with respiratory equipment.

And many fire brigades prefer to let them burn out rather than trying to distinguish them. Not least, because they are capable of re-igniting several times. which makes them unpopular with towaway specialists:

The obvious choice seems to be to extinguish the fire, however many EV manufacturers actually advise for a controlled burn. This is where the fire services allow the vehicle to burn out while they focus on protecting the surrounding area.

Once the fire has been successfully put out, the problem for the fire brigade is not over.

Electric vehicle fires are known to reignite hours, days or even weeks after the initial event, and they can do so many times. Not only does this pose a safety issue, but it also poses a legal issue: recovery firms are increasingly concerned about dealing with electric vehicles.

And that's just what the Bedfordshire fire brigade are saying. Hmmm...

BJ

[JohnB]

During an electric vehicle fire, over 100 organic chemicals are generated, including some incredibly toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide – both of which are fatal to humans.

Of course the incredibly toxic carbon monoxide occurs in IC car exhausts if the cat is not working fully.....

[Lanark]

suggests that London car fires in early 2020 were running at about 50 times as many fires on ICE vehicles

You can't just lump hybrids and EVs together.

Hybrids have all the fire risk of a ICE plus the risks of an EV (impossible to put fires out).

People buying hybrids thinking they have the same safety record as a true pure EV are being misled.

[bungeejumper]

Hybrids have all the fire risk of a ICE plus the risks of an EV (impossible to put fires out).

That's the bit that confuses me. The battery in a hybrid is good for, what, twenty miles? And is generally a traditional lead acid type, not dissimilar in fact from the one that starts the engine and runs everything else? No obvious additional hazard at all, in fact. (Apart from a motor catching fire, I suppose?)

People buying hybrids thinking they have the same safety record as a true pure EV are being misled.

Definitely agree on that point. There are plenty of reasons I would buy a hybrid, but additional fire safety wouldn't be on that list.

BJ

[AF62]

Hybrids have all the fire risk of a ICE plus the risks of an EV (impossible to put fires out).

That's the bit that confuses me. The battery in a hybrid is good for, what, twenty miles? And is generally a traditional lead acid type, not dissimilar in fact from the one that starts the engine and runs everything else?

Depends on the hybrid.

Only the ‘mild hybrids’ tend to use a beefed up lead acid battery and you aren’t going to drive anywhere with just battery power in those.

If you have a ‘proper’ HEV then it might have a Nickel-metal hydride or Lithium-ion battery, but if you have a PHEV then it will most likely have a Lithium-ion battery the same as a BEV, just smaller.

[bungeejumper]

Only the ‘mild hybrids’ tend to use a beefed up lead acid battery and you aren’t going to drive anywhere with just battery power in those.

If you have a ‘proper’ HEV then it might have a Nickel-metal hydride or Lithium-ion battery, but if you have a PHEV then it will most likely have a Lithium-ion battery the same as a BEV, just smaller.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

BJ

[Urbandreamer]

Only the ‘mild hybrids’ tend to use a beefed up lead acid battery and you aren’t going to drive anywhere with just battery power in those.

If you have a ‘proper’ HEV then it might have a Nickel-metal hydride or Lithium-ion battery, but if you have a PHEV then it will most likely have a Lithium-ion battery the same as a BEV, just smaller.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

BJ

It might be worth pointing out that lead is known to be dense or heavy. While lead acid is a good choice for starter batteries or batteries used in fork lifts (which need the weight), it would be a poor choice for traction batteries in cars.
Lead acid has been used in the past (ie 1973), but back then it was the best available choice. It isn't anymore.

https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/enfield ... t=cmp-true

However, the kerb weight for this tiddler was still the best part of a ton (965kg) thank to those batteries. The motor was rated at 10kW (DC), and transmission was a conventional four-speed plus reverse. Powering it were six lead acid batteries rated at 165Ah (three in the front and three in the back). That power pack came in at 308kg, the main reason for its less than sparkling performance – top speed was 40mph.

[88V8]

It might be worth pointing out that lead is known to be dense or heavy. While lead acid is a good choice for starter batteries or batteries used in fork lifts (which need the weight), it would be a poor choice for traction batteries in cars.
Lead acid has been used in the past (ie 1973), but back then it was the best available choice. It isn't anymore.

Back in the mid 70s, I went to look at a decommissioned bread van, powered by umpteenly near-knackered lead batteries. Was going to put a leather armchair in the back for OH and use it to commute into London.
Fortunately, a 20mph traffic jam was averted when the Premises Manager of the office where I worked was not happy for me to recharge it during the day.

V8

[9873210]

Thete will be an aftermarket for batteries as grid storage buffers, either at home or centrally. Battery recycling for the rare metals is ramping up, but many new battery designs dont use then.

A million mile battery might have 15 years in your car, and 10 more coddled in retirement. This means the scrap value of a EV after accident or uneconomic failure could be a lot more than the steel value of an IC

I have doubts about using the batteries developed for cars for the grid. I have serious doubts about reusing old car batteries for the grid. I really doubt that it will be of substantial economic value even if it is done.

For portable batteries kWhr/kg and kWhr/L are important. For stationary batteries these are far less important. A factor of 10 decrease in specific power density could be acceptable if it helps with other important factors like cost or (per this thread) not bursting into flames. We currently use lithium cells on the grid as a side effect of portable battery development, where lithium's low molecular weight is a big plus. Grid storage should be a large enough market to spur the development of things like iron-air cells or flow batteries.

Reusing end of life car batteries are always going to have unpleasant properties compared to designed-for-purpose batteries due to variable, and to an extent unknown, history. Dealing with that adds cost, worst case for extra fire brigades, best case a lot of monitoring.

The best way to recycle old batteries is probably to take them apart and extract the alloys or even elements. They are far richer sources of rare materials than native ores. It is cheaper to mine old circuit boards for gold than it is to mine gold ore. Even if new battery technologies don't require the same materials, the materials are likely to have many other uses so recycling should be useful.

You can see the same economics with things like computers and machine tools. Almost all the value is extracted in the first few years and by the end of a decade they sell for scrap value or worse. Sure, some of them hang around for decades and get used every week or so but they are don't really do much except take up space and consume excess energy.

[Urbandreamer]

Thete will be an aftermarket for batteries as grid storage buffers, either at home or centrally. Battery recycling for the rare metals is ramping up, but many new battery designs dont use then.

A million mile battery might have 15 years in your car, and 10 more coddled in retirement. This means the scrap value of a EV after accident or uneconomic failure could be a lot more than the steel value of an IC

I have doubts about using the batteries developed for cars for the grid. I have serious doubts about reusing old car batteries for the grid. I really doubt that it will be of substantial economic value even if it is done.

For portable batteries kWhr/kg and kWhr/L are important. For stationary batteries these are far less important. A....

Reusing end of life car batteries are always going to have unpleasant properties compared to designed-for-purpose batteries due to variable, and to an extent unknown, history. Dealing with that adds cost, worst case for extra fire brigades, best case a lot of monitoring.

The best way to recycle old batteries is probably to take them apart and extract the alloys or even elements. They are far richer sources of rare materials than native ores. It is cheaper to mine old circuit boards for gold than it is to mine gold ore. Even if new battery technologies don't require the same materials, the materials are likely to have many other uses so recycling should be useful.

You can see the same economics with things like computers and machine tools. Almost all the value is extracted in the first few years and by the end of a decade they sell for scrap value or worse. Sure, some of them hang around for decades and get used every week or so but they are don't really do much except take up space and consume excess energy.

I think that I can address many of these issues. Designed for purpose batteries are obviously best. However this is ignoring costs. Reusing batteries that still have significant life, but cause range anxiety, works if the cost is right. It's a simple matter to track performance when the duty cycle can be known or controlled.

Recycling is not the simple process that many imagine. Glass production benefits from the introduction of existing glass, as can steel. In the case of lithium batteries there is actually research showing that batteries made with reclaimed materials perform better than those made from scratch. Work is ongoing to find out why.

I actually work for a machine tool builder, and you would be stunned at the age of machines refurbished. Or even why. Again it's money. In some cases it's tax upon new machines, others because the parts that are not worn support replacement parts that produce high quality production. In the past things were designed with knowledge of mechanical limitations. Today assumptions are too often made that software engineers like me can, in the words of Scotty, "change the laws of physics".

PS, the company that I work for is still using a machine refurbished 15 years ago, that was designed and built in the 60's. While we believe that the machines we build today (of a different design) are just as good, that's the point. They are "just as good" at what they do. Motors can be replaced with more efficient ones, and it can pay to do so, Machine tools are NOT cars. They are replaced because they lack accuracy, often by design or maintenance, because they lack through-put, or because the market for what they produce is failing or dead. Dare I suggest that machine tools for producing pistons for cars may have a limited, though generational, life?

[9873210]

It might be worth pointing out that lead is known to be dense or heavy. While lead acid is a good choice for ... fork lifts (which need the weight)

Not really true. Lift trucks use lead acid because of legacy and cost, cost and legacy. The battery mass is not good it's simply something we have to live with and design around. In any case the density of a lead acid battery is about 1/4 the density of lead, since by volume most of the battery is sulphuric acid. The awkward square box also forces quite a bit of empty space.

Good steel is less than 1/4 the cost of lead plate per kg, orders of magnitude less than batteries. Adding counterweights to compensate for a hypothetical zero mass battery is trivial. Cheap steel or even sand in a box works fine for a counterweight. A steel base plate a couple of cm thick or a cast rear fender gets the weight low and where you want it instead of a meter high and in the center of the vehicle. Welding or bolting the counterweight to the vehicle also avoids having a shifting weight. Unsecured batteries are a significant factor in lift truck accidents.

I've worked alternate energy storage for lift trucks. The first slide in the presentation for fuel-cells showed the decimeter thick stack of steel plates added to the fuel cell to approximate the mass of lead-acid. The second slide showed the next generation truck where the fuel cell was integrated into the vehicle rather than a drop-in replacement, a very different design and objectively much better if they could get the fuel cell cost out of the celestial realm.

The drop-in fuel cell also had a bunch of really weird stuff attached to approximate the properties of lead-acid batteries which had been worked around for years. My favorite Heath Robinson was that the voltage supplied by the fuel cell varied as the hydrogen tank emptied to allow a battery state of charge monitor to work unchanged. Makes you long for a digital fuel gauge and bang your head against a wall.

[DrFfybes]

Back in the mid 70s, I went to look at a decommissioned bread van, powered by umpteenly near-knackered lead batteries. Was going to put a leather armchair in the back for OH and use it to commute into London.
Fortunately, a 20mph traffic jam was averted when the Premises Manager of the office where I worked was not happy for me to recharge it during the day.

V8

You should have gone for this...

https://www.brightwells.com/timed-sale/5369/lot/610860

Then a short trailer ride over to Welshpool and let Moggy fit some Tesla cast offs, and you have terror and hilarity in equal measures.

Paul

[9873210]

suggests that London car fires in early 2020 were running at about 50 times as many fires on ICE vehicles

You can't just lump hybrids and EVs together.

Hybrids have all the fire risk of a ICE plus the risks of an EV (impossible to put fires out).

People buying hybrids thinking they have the same safety record as a true pure EV are being misled.

Most of the fire risk is the nut behind the wheel. Same nut, same number of fires. Consequences may be different, but I expect that's mostly a matter of learning how to handle them.

[Urbandreamer]

It might be worth pointing out that lead is known to be dense or heavy. While lead acid is a good choice for ... fork lifts (which need the weight)

Not really true. Lift trucks use lead acid because of legacy and cost, cost and legacy. The battery mass is not good it's simply something we have to live with and design around. .

If you say so.....

Seriously, forget batteries for a minute, consider a fork, sticking out from "something", carrying a weight. Just where is the center of gravity? Behind the front wheels or in front? SERIOUSLY you need it behind the front wheels. That means you need a weight similar BEHIND the front wheels.

This has NOTHING to do with the motive force.

PS, at work we have a gas powered fork lift. Guess what, it's heavy and has ballast. So that it can lift heavy weights on the forks in front of the wheels. As Scotty said "I Cana argue with the laws physics Cap'n".

[88V8]

Back in the mid 70s, I went to look at a decommissioned bread van, powered by umpteenly near-knackered lead batteries.

You should have gone for this...Then a short trailer ride over to Welshpool and let Moggy fit some Tesla cast offs, and you have terror and hilarity in equal measures.

Talking of old timers, for those who fancy an EV that's not an ugly modern plastic blob full of electronic toys, try these.

V8

[9873210]

Not really true. Lift trucks use lead acid because of legacy and cost, cost and legacy. The battery mass is not good it's simply something we have to live with and design around. .

If you say so.....

Seriously, forget batteries for a minute, consider a fork, sticking out from "something", carrying a weight. Just where is the center of gravity? Behind the front wheels or in front? SERIOUSLY you need it behind the front wheels. That means you need a weight similar BEHIND the front wheels.

This has NOTHING to do with the motive force.

PS, at work we have a gas powered fork lift. Guess what, it's heavy and has ballast. So that it can lift heavy weights on the forks in front of the wheels. As Scotty said "I Cana argue with the laws physics Cap'n".

At work we had a tilt table. We put lift trucks on it, loosely chain them to a gantry and tilt them until they fell over.

You want the center of gravity as low as you can get it and as far back as you can get it without risking tipping over backwards when empty. The large, somewhat loosely held battery is not nearly as helpful as a tonne of steel 10 cm above the ground exactly where we want it. There's a reason parts of the lower chassis are built with 1 inch steel plate, and it's not so idiot operators* can play dogems and plow through racks. The rest of the truck is built as light as possible, but no lighter. The mast in particular is built of high strength steel to reduce mass at height.

* Apologies to any drivers, most aren't idiots, but I spent ten years reading incident reports and there were some doozies.

[9873210]

I have doubts about using the batteries developed for cars for the grid. I have serious doubts about reusing old car batteries for the grid. I really doubt that it will be of substantial economic value even if it is done.

For portable batteries kWhr/kg and kWhr/L are important. For stationary batteries these are far less important. A....

Reusing end of life car batteries are always going to have unpleasant properties compared to designed-for-purpose batteries due to variable, and to an extent unknown, history. Dealing with that adds cost, worst case for extra fire brigades, best case a lot of monitoring.

The best way to recycle old batteries is probably to take them apart and extract the alloys or even elements. They are far richer sources of rare materials than native ores. It is cheaper to mine old circuit boards for gold than it is to mine gold ore. Even if new battery technologies don't require the same materials, the materials are likely to have many other uses so recycling should be useful.

You can see the same economics with things like computers and machine tools. Almost all the value is extracted in the first few years and by the end of a decade they sell for scrap value or worse. Sure, some of them hang around for decades and get used every week or so but they are don't really do much except take up space and consume excess energy.

I think that I can address many of these issues. Designed for purpose batteries are obviously best. However this is ignoring costs. Reusing batteries that still have significant life, but cause range anxiety, works if the cost is right. It's a simple matter to track performance when the duty cycle can be known or controlled.

Recycling is not the simple process that many imagine. Glass production benefits from the introduction of existing glass, as can steel. In the case of lithium batteries there is actually research showing that batteries made with reclaimed materials perform better than those made from scratch. Work is ongoing to find out why.

I actually work for a machine tool builder, and you would be stunned at the age of machines refurbished. Or even why. Again it's money. In some cases it's tax upon new machines, others because the parts that are not worn support replacement parts that produce high quality production. In the past things were designed with knowledge of mechanical limitations. Today assumptions are too often made that software engineers like me can, in the words of Scotty, "change the laws of physics".

PS, the company that I work for is still using a machine refurbished 15 years ago, that was designed and built in the 60's. While we believe that the machines we build today (of a different design) are just as good, that's the point. They are "just as good" at what they do. Motors can be replaced with more efficient ones, and it can pay to do so, Machine tools are NOT cars. They are replaced because they lack accuracy, often by design or maintenance, because they lack through-put, or because the market for what they produce is failing or dead. Dare I suggest that machine tools for producing pistons for cars may have a limited, though generational, life?

I've been involved in putting close to £100,000 of electronics onto a few £1,000 of old castings. Customer claims he's still using grandpa's mill. I have my doubts.

IMHO the biggest difference between production equipment and consumer equipment is quantity. Where there's only a handful of instances in the world the equipment is essentially hand built. You don't get an advantage from serial production in a factory and extensive on-site rebuilds can be cost effective. The bog-standard CNC machines get replaced when they wear out, it's the custom stuff gets repaired and rebuilt.

Grid scale batteries based on car sized batteries will require 100,000s of units. IMHO this is in mass production territory with big gains from not having to fettle lots of slightly different secondhand units not designed for the job. I'd expect any old electric car battery in good enough shape to be competitive to be in good enough shape to be more valuable in a car. There will always be a market for old cars that are "good enough".

[MonsterMork]

.

Another EV problem in terms of normal use is that few garages are able to service or repair the propulsion trains and battery packs of EVs. It requires an investment in special equipment and training that is not economic for small garages.
A neighbour with a little Peugeot had to have the car trailered 70 miles to a workshop when the local main dealer could not help.


V8

Price of training is horrendous expensive. To do all four EV courses currently run by one trade body would lay me/my gaffer out to the tune of £2160 plus the vat (so that's a gallon of unleaded short 2600 quid). And in total that is 8 days away from the garage, plus at least 3 e-learning sessions to complete before one course (there is another day at least), plus a requirement for submitting a knowledge essay (ie: near as makes no odds a slimmed down thesis if you like) and it being accepted before the course is passed successfully. If you work on losing, say, a grand a day of lost earnings for the spanner slinger, plus overnight and travel costs for attending the courses, you are easily at 11 grand, if not a heck of a lot more. And this is all per person, so it is double if you want to send two mechanics.

Now add in the cost of new specialised tools and equipment being at least three grand per person. And another grand for an EV safety kit (anti-static matts, barriers, rescue poles, special gloves etc.).

It ain't hard to end up spending 15 grand per mechanic for all this. There are very, very few garages out there with that kind of funding available.

MM

[9873210]

It ain't hard to end up spending 15 grand per mechanic for all this. There are very, very few garages out there with that kind of funding available.

MM

How much have you (or they) spent training and equipping your ICE mechanics? It's in the same ball park. New entrants need to train one way or the other and shortages for specialized skills will affect their choices.