Why Do Electric Cars Sink Ships?
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- Опубликовано: 21 дек 2023
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✩ABOUT THIS VIDEO✩
In this video, we investigate the fire onboard the Hoegh Xiamen vehicle carrier. Although that fire was caused by internal combustion vehicles, it leads us on to discussing the dangers posed by lithium-ion batteries and we ask whether that has caused a recent increase in fires on these ships.
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I am a former maritime navigational officer and harbour pilot, with a passion for animation. My hobby is presenting educational stories and interesting nuggets from the maritime industry and sharing them on social media to keep them freely accessible to everyone.
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Развлечения
Some observations from myself as a Fire Engineer.
3:58 - this is called a backdraught - it is when a ventilation controlled fire (called a fire post flashover, where it have moved from fuel controlled to vent controlled) gains new air and causes a significant deflagration with associated temperature rise and pressure wave.
6:00 - most suppression foam actually doesn't remove heat or oxygen, what is does it is uses highly reactive substances (usually containing bromine or similar) to react with all the intermediate free-radical molecules in the combustion reaction. The oxygen stays, the heat stays, but the combustion reaction is halted through removal of the chain reaction caused by the free radicals. This is an explanation for why the "fire triangle" is too simplistic and many refer to a "fire pentagon".
Yo, you got anymore of them... fire facts?
As a chemical plant operator we have deluge systems, one option is to massively upgrade the fire suppression systems. Yep co2 will work for most ICE engines, but with the sheer amount of energy that gets released when lithium goes up - you're going to need a LOT of water.
Seems to be common practice when an EV goes pop is just cooling the area and let itself burn out.
No amount of water supplied from appliances is going to get a lithium fire under control quickly.
Yeah, I'm looking for more fire facts if you're selling.
What are the two additional sides to the fire pentagon?
@@stevena105 Well, there's the explosion pentagon that has confinement and mixture added to fuel, oxygen and heat, make sense for fuel-air explosions
I’m confused why it took them so long to activate a fitted system. Why risk people’s lives over the cost of a few tonnes of CO2. The knew the compartment was lost on the first attempt to breach the space but still waited? I’m missing something here
I work in aviation and there is a huge focus on lithium battery fires. An uncontained fire is just about every pilot's worst nightmare so lots of extra training for us, and you'll hear lots of announcements like "if you notice your batteries are damaged or getting hot please contact the crew immediately". These are from portable electronic devices though, not an entire car, or multiple cars...
Im surprised planes dont have a way to dispose of reasonably sized items onboard in an emergency.
Even if it were the case of having a window you could electrically roll down with a 2nd window behind it so the cabin is unaffected.
@@Garfie489 Many now carry a fire resistant pouch they can put a phone in, that will contain the fire until they can land.
@@MrBirdnose There's no pouch that can hold a car battery fire, those can last weeks
@@Garfie489 Aircraft cabins are pressurised so dumping overboard would be pretty complicated. I think Mr Birdnoses's comment about the fire pouch is probably more feasible than having a full airlock.
@@Garfie489Can you imagine burning Li-ion batteries falling from the sky?
I hadn't realised the Felicity Ace had gone down. I worked on that ship a few times when it came to the Port of Tyne a few years ago, loading Nissans and discharging various other vehicles.
It was quite the sight to behold!
It was full of VAG cars IIRC.
So VW, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, etc
@@IIGrayfoxII yes deary, VAG cars would be discharged on the north shore at the Port of Tyne, then it would come across to the south side and discharge any remaining vehicles then back loaded with Nissan Qashqais, Jukes, Leafs and other vehicles
I've help ship Tesla Megapacks for their recharge stations out to Hawaii before and basically the company told us that if one catches fire don't bother trying to put it out just abandon ship. Also as far as I'm aware no shipping company will take damaged Evs off the islands meaning that they're stuck there when they crash.
The batteries are dangerous after they’ve been completely discharged. Which would happen naturally in about a year.
Just remove the batteries?
@@EnjoyCocaColaLightpart of the reason Tesla can have the battery power advertised is because of how integral to the design the battery is. it's not a car with a battery, it's a battery with wheels and a passenger compartment. you'd have to take the vehicle almost entirely apart.
@@averagejoey2000 So the era of the "Battery swap station" is gone? They plugged that on the launch of the old model 3.
@@monkehbitch honestly tesla and spaceX have plugged so much nonsense over the years it's honestly absurd. The hyperloop, the dumbass tunnels they dug to then run a system less effective than a bus, the battery swap station, full self driving for their cars and the list goes on and on and on.
Do transport ships dream of electric cars?
no, but commercial salvage companies might lol
In nighmares yes😂
Maybe in their nightmares
@@yeetandskeet Why are there always unversed people like you?
@@RagHelenhe has a point! Where there's muck there's money!
The best explanation I’ve heard as to how and why electric vehicle fires are hard to stop.
The sad part is with a different kind of battery chemistry. This problem would be nearly completely avoided. Lithium iron phosphate batteries would still be very hard to extinguish in a fire on the road but using that fancy CO2 fire suppression system, I don't see how they would be super difficult because there's no metal oxide in those batteries. The reason that as far as i'm aware, no modern EV uses them is because they're not as energy dense, but given all of the benefits over lithium ion, I'm surprised that there isn't at least one company that makes LFP powered cars
@@the_undead Many Chinese make lfp cars, Tesla sells lfp in all markets, Ford is planning to make and use lfp
If you take time to actually watch the video I believe he covers the subject matter in question
@@MrPiragon that's what they're talking about. They are saying that this video has the best explanation on why lithium ion batteries are basically impossible to extinguish once they've caught fire
@@wrefk are you sure Tesla sells a vehicle with LFP cells? Because to the best of mine knowledge Elon Musk just said he has plans to do this not is doing this
The title of the video is misleading since the NTSB investigation concluded - "The NTSB determined the probable cause of the fire aboard the Höegh Xiamen was Grimaldi Deep Sea’s (who time chartered the vessel) and SSA Atlantic’s (Grimaldi’s contractor for stevedores) ineffective oversight of longshoremen, which did not identify that Grimaldi’s vehicle battery securement procedures were not being followed. This resulted in an electrical fault from an improperly disconnected battery in a used vehicle on cargo deck 8. Contributing to the delay in the detection of the fire was the crew not immediately reactivating the vessel’s fire detection system after the completion of loading. Contributing to the extent of the fire was the master’s decision to delay the release of the carbon dioxide fixed fire extinguishing system.'
In a recent incident in the UK, a fire at an airport multi-storey car park destroyed 1500 vehicles. The cause of the fire was determined to be a fault on a car with a diesel engine.
@@wadewilson6628
The EV did not contribute at all.
Hi Kym, seems we made almost the same video in quite different ways 🙂
Please allow some remarks:
Re Hoegh Xianmen: The fire dampers could not be operated automatically but had been converted to manual ones some time ago. The NTSB report assumed that the ventilation had not been properly closed, rendering the CO2 attack ineffective. Note: the recommended fire fighting system according to SOLAS is water mist, CO2 only being an alternative option.
The explosion in the vent house was a backdraft, meaning that overheated smoke ignited when the air came in. That caused the devastating effect. It should also be a reminder that we have to do coordinated attacks and only ventilate when we can actually put water on the fire.
Re Freemantle Hightway: the electric vehicles had not been involved in the fire. An interestin observation: when we look at the footage of the burning ship, it seems like the smoke is coming from the vent houses on deck, suggesting a problem with ventilation again. Will see when the report is out.
Thank you for the video and keep up the great work, always enjoy watching your vids ❤
Best, Marie
On the Northlink boats to Shetland we have had many discussions about what to do in the event an electric car catches fire. Since there is no standard way of dealing with it yet and no tools designed to help we made your own, which you can attach to a hose and slide it underneath the car to direct the water upwards towards the battery. Its just a few pipes with a few sprinkler heads attached securely to it directed upwards. Easy to use but never been tested and hopefully we never will need to.
Permanent floor sprinklers on EV decks!
Always thought something similar to other vehicles, disconnection of some sort, but people get lax with procedures.
Hope they are a high quality metal and not plastic 😅
Probably best to test it before it is required
@yootooooooob Do you guys have some sort of chain/cable system so you can pull the hose fore/aft without needing to get near the fire/smoke?
What came to my mind is military aircraft hangars that can be flooded with foam in case of fire. Could they use an FSS system that does something similar? It wouldn't stop the EV fires but it could isolate them. I guess the biggest obstacle would be the size and weight constraints of the system. Or even the weight of the foam if you pump in seawater to generate it.
EVs need to be parked on ejector racks at the sides of the ship. Once the fire starts eject it overboard
Carrying large Quantities of Foam Compound isn't an Issue; Oil Tankers do it since decades to "extinguish" Fires on the Cargo Deck. Gas Tankers do that with Powder, as Foam isn't gonna help much with Gas Fires, but storing Powder takes up even more Space. Either of them are more about slowing the Fire to allow abandonship or wait for help, there's pretty much nö Way to stop a Cargo Fire on any Tanker with on-board Means.
@@after_midnight9592 Any such ejector rack would be both expensive and heavy. And is likely to be damaged by the fire before use. It would also compromise the hull of the ship.
@@after_midnight9592 ev parking on open decks where they can be deluged in water from fire canons aboard the ship and by fire fighters on land and sea.
@@after_midnight9592maybe an easier solution would be to take the exploding cars and park them somewhere far away from the electric cars.
I think the only real solution would be much smaller compartments that can be flooded if necessary. And even then you might need to think about how to vent steam pressure and add new water
New water is super easy, because ocean.
Or, you know just introduce the same safety standards for cars as are normal anywhere else.
The problem is the burning paint, plastics and other crap within a car, batteries are a non issue. You could keep that in check with a garden hose.
these transport ships probably need some form of comprehensive thermal monitoring to catch any spike in temperature asap and with as much accuracy as possible, so they can isolate the specific heat source immediately.
the video also mentions that safety precautions were not followed meticulously enough, namely ensuring that all batteries are properly disconnected and insulated. but that is still a scaling issue since these ships are loading over 4,000 cars, it is very probable that a few of them sneak thru with unsecured batteries due to human error. so monitoring is still necessary.
In this case it sounds like the electric car on board did not start the fire, only contributed to it.@@alveolate
@@Ismalith Batteries are a huge issue. They produce their own oxygen, and burn insanely hot, exceeding steel melting point, and capable of VAPORIZING aluminum. They are internal, and there is no way to get at them directly to cool them down with water. And with all the metals in the battery, especially cobalt, they are extremely toxic, you do not want to inhale any smoke, or even get it on your skin. Dozens of firefighters have gotten cobalt poisoning from putting out EV fires, which results in a permanent disability.
The idea of having a fire alarm system that requires you to turn it off at a point in which your cargo is most likely to catch fire (Running cars) is such a fundamental flaw they should have never been allowed to operate with.
you grossly overestimate the abillity of ship owners to care about such things as they cost money.
@@SupremeRuleroftheWorld When the western world starts turning away ships with improper fire safety, they’ll start to care very quickly indeed. Unfortunately it’ll probably be cheaper to grease a few palms for a few years but…
Well everybody does the same at home in a different way.
Meaning you wont find firealarms in the kitchen since it would go off regularly.
It is a risk you take since you cannot operate a fire alarm in an environment that gets smoke under normal use.
There is a detail that needs to be noted, with any Alkali metal fire you should never use water as it can make the situation far worse, as these metals *love* to liberate hydrogen gas from water. This is why there are fire extinguishers made explicitly for metal fires.
water from the fire suppression system can stop the fire from spreading though
@@XavierAway In the sense of preventing other combustibles from catching on fire, yes. But if one has been going long enough that it's burned through the top of the car it might make it worse, especially since Lithium ion batteries are known for being prone to thermal run away, meaning if they get warm enough they can spontaneously combust. In my opinion however, the batteries should be getting removed and stored separately from the vehicles in a climate controlled storage. Prevent don't React.
@garysmith5025
First and foremost, there is no such thing as non-metallic lithium, lithium *is* a metal, being in an ion state or part of a compound doesn't change this fact and will not affect reactivity. Also, EV batteries CAN and WILL burn underwater as they are not dependent on atmospheric O2 which is actually pointed out in this video, and there is video evidence of this and in fact again drenching the battery will make it worse. Additionally, getting a lithium ion battery started burning is far easier than you think, puncture it and it's very likely it'll start burning, get it too hot and it could start going, hell charge it wrong and it might burn.
A mild caveat is if the battery is a lead acid, zebra (molten salt) type or nickel- metal hydride, those each have their own benefits, downsides and crippling weaknesses.
@@datengineer2174 Do you want think you’re putting metal on your food when you add salt? You’ve literally just used an antivaxxer argument.
@ABitWhippet Really I did?! I don't recall bringing up autism, down syndrome or any myriad of genetic issues or poisoning at all, let alone blame anything for it.
Moreover, the topic isn't food, its electronics, and as far as I know Graphite is the ONLY non-metal that can conduct electricity. So yes in this context there is no such thing as non-metallic lithium. I would appreciate staying on topic, thank you.
Maybe the solution isn’t with shipping companies but car manufacturers. Instead of putting the battery in at the factory and using boats, why not put the battery in where you are shipping it to. It’s not a perfect idea but it would work for some I think
Unfortunately these batteries are structural to many of these vehicles. Their ridiculous weight means manufacturers are using them as part of the body reinforcement.
Without it installed, the cars may not be able to move at all or the lashing used to keep them in place during travel could warp the subframes and total the vehicle before it was ever built. Unibody vehicles are unfortunately the only realistic way to have an EV and not have it weigh as much as a 3/4 ton truck.
The batteries are more or less built into the car's frame (if you raise you car on a pallet jack and look under pretty much the entire bottom fo the car would be housing the battery). It's either impossible to do or not worth building overseas and then shipping back here in the first place as it'd probably save more time and money to just build them here instead (better idea imo).
With that said the core issue presented still stands: the batteries, if ignited (whether by some fault with the battery, some outside source, or some idiot damaging the battery/neglecting safety protocols with them), will start fires that are 2 to 3x more difficult (takes 2 to 3 times the amount of water as mentioned in this video) to put out with water OR the only other (and more likely option to take) is to isolate the car and let it burn out on its own once it uses up all the fuels. On the street this is easy to do but for car manufacturers there will still be the issue of storing the cars (the video mainly talks about storing during transportation but if we move the entire transportation aspect the risks still stand with storing them in warehouses/car lots/parking lots/etc) as if one goes up it can easily cause a chain reaction with other EVs nearby...if one car in the middle of the warehouse catches fire that's probably all the cars AND the warehouse going up with it as the only other way to prevent fires in such a scenario would be to move the car (obviously not driving it but dragging it with another larger vehicle however in a warehouse/parking lot/similar locations besides a street/a personal garage this is much harder as other vehicles will be in the way (and even then it's not really safe to go anywhere near the fire as well due to how hot the flames can get with chemical fires AND of course the risks of smoke inhalation (which have even more chemicals in the smoke than regular fires/fossil fuel fires that may be even deadlier) so it's still better to let fire fighters do this part and who knows if they can arrive before the fire spreads...at best I guess getting into and removing cars far away from the fire to save as many as possible is an option (still a dangerous one giving the smoke fumes so probably not recommended without any gear to prevent smoke inhalation) but as for the car that ignited and probably the 2 to 5 surrounding rows of cars around its diameter they're likely lost...potentially the building too if its inside if the flames can reach flammable material on the roof/walls).
Hell I've been talking about them when they're in cars but even before being put into the car/embedded into the frame the batteries themselves will always be a huge fire risk if ignited car or no car. The biggest issue with the car batteries though over other Electric batteries (in say phones for example) is the sheer size of the battery means there is much more flammable material to burn before it goes out thus the fires last much longer...a small (I emphasize small by the way) house fire causes by an electronic battery in a phone may be something the average person with basic common sense fire safety knowledge due to how little material it has in comparison to a car but an EV fire will always need a firefighter to either put it out or prevent it from spreading out of control if they're forced to go with the 'let it burn itself out on its own' method.
@@ifrit1937 I know about all of this, but some companies like nio which have swappable batteries can do this no problem. Put a battery in at the factory take it out but keep a small one in for transport and put it back in when you get to port. Not too complicated if your car can already do it. I think only nio has a chance of doing it
@@ClebyHerris that still means you have to ship partially charged batteries over seas. You'd have to do twice as many trips with double the batteries. That's a ton of weight. Also the amount of time it would take to move and ship what is essentially a dead vehicle would take forever to load on RORO ships. They would have to restructure the entire process. This also wouldn't solve the issues of body flex without the substructure in the vehicle.
@@lolbuster01 as I said in my reply some companies don’t use structural batteries, such as nio and other Chinese brands. I know one company which will build the body slap a few in a crate and finish making them in California (Aptera) they make their bodies in carbon in Italy then ship everything to San Diego for final production(they use a structural battery aswell) It works you just have to make it work.
Obviously it’s not perfect but it’s a solution
Didn't the shipping company tell us that all the EVs.where untouch by the fire on the Fremantle ship. Was that not the case?
It was, but it's a clickbait view on the issue that will be popular with the large crowd of EV- and renewable energy skeptics. IMHO the core issue, that was completely ignored here, is the optimized-for-profit, highly insecure naval design of modern car carriers, which sacrificed longitudinal bulkheads for ineffective horizontal separation.
They where not untouched but did not burn themselves, even though one hybrid actually started to burn a little after it was taken out of the ship, probably because of very bad handling though.
No, it wasn't. There is video footage of them submerging a still smoldering EV, and another picture that clearly shows a burnt out Taycan.
@@LordSandwichII
I never saw such footage, do you know where that was?
I used to service NORAD here in Rhode Island where all the Audi Volkswagen’s come off the boat from overseas. They have damaged vehicles all the time come off the boat. It’s fine when they are gas and they can put them back together. And the best part is there a mechanic shop is considered factory so you would never know if they had to put a whole new front end on it as they don’t report it.
Regardless the issue with electric vehicles is if they’re not secured properly, they risk lithium batteries being damaged and the whole boat is a loss if it has a fire. And in some cases they may just sink the boat as a total loss.
Hopefully the IMO have a good idea as to how to tackle this problem.
Could the crews of RORO ships be provided thermal cameras? That way they can go through the decks to see if vehicles are taking a bit too long to cool down from running temperature.
Doesn't prevent problem vehicles from being put onboard, but it might at least help with making a start on getting that 10,000 L of water on to the problem.
The fundamental problem with Roll-On Roll-Over cargo vessels is that just about _every_ maritime (and general) safety measure that can be thought of directly impinges upon the profitability of the vessel because the profitability hinges on them basically being floating parking garages that can be loaded and offloaded quickly, and often simultaneously.
That's why they're notoriously lacking for that otherwise absolutely crucial maritime safety measure: _watertight compartments._ Because putting whacking great watertight walls through the ship makes it harder to load and offload, and impossible to park any cars where there's bulkheads.
So, you know, that's another problem with attempting to douse a car-fire on a RORO; you're turning an entire deck or two decks into an unimpeded free-surface-effect ballast tank the length and breadth of the whole gorram ship, with the added benefit that the _flaming cargo_ is *buoyant* and will begin breaking free from its tie-downs and sloshing around the whole deck, *whilst burning.*
@@ShadowDragon8685 Roll-on Roll-over. Had not heard that one before but I have to admit that's an apt name :-)
Economics were considered in my suggestion. Initially I was considering to say "the stevedores need to provide and operate the thermal cameras," but thought better of it in case the ship is berthing somewhere like PNG, Myanmar, etc. where such equipment is liable to be pinched as soon as it's purchased or the stevedores might not be as technically astute as how I imagine mariners to be. Plus those cameras might come in handy while underway such
As for the water, if the offending vehicle has water sprayed on it early enough, wouldn't there be a better chance for the fire to be managed that the hatches on those decks could deal with the water?
@@ShadowDragon8685Filling an entire RoRo deck floor to ceiling with pumped in seawater could greatly reduce slushing . Another option is to open a loading port and wash the cars out to sea then pump away the residual water to stop the slushing . Make sure to build the deck and pumps to handle this procedure .
Thermal cameras need someone to watch them, you could have thermal monitoring, or even reactivating fire alarms when you leave the deck.
Rather than do it at the end.
What an amazing video -- keep up the great work!
Another great video. Also I got my Little Captain last month ❤!
I think large Lithium battery packs should have their own passive fire suppression systems. These don't necessarily need to stop a fire completely, but should at least slow down its spread considerably so current external fire suppression systems would be effective.
Even slowing a lithium-ion pack in thermal runaway is extremely hard, you need to basically find a way to extract the energy before the short can make more. Lots of water is one way. The chemistry lab solution would be basically bury in sand and let the sand turning to glass be the cooling while acting to make a containment shield.
With lithium ion batteries, this is basically impossible, especially on a transport ship where you can't have it plugged in 24/7. You also have to remember that these are passenger vehicles so you would have to dramatically reduce the space for humans or cargo in order to have a fire suppression system good enough to be worth having, because the moment you get a lithium ion battery hot enough that it will enter thermal run away there is basically no stopping it, unless you found some substance that could be kept a liquid at about -40 atmospheric pressure and then just submerged the battery in that.
Not just that, you could also include a fire suppression system like the ones used on some aircraft carriers, as seen here
ruclips.net/video/pH7wCIEPZlg/видео.html
These seem like the ideal solution for this problem. They can spray the car from below, which is exactly what you need in this kind of situation. Doesn't solve the quantity problem, but it does allow for the quick application of water right where it's needed.
That's already the case. Even the cheapest EV doesn't just go up. It takes 20+ minutes to get a decent fire going.
There are specialized alkali metal extinguishers... takes one medium canister to handle a small battery. And by small I mean 2 pounds, not 2000 pounds.
I guess there could be one such can + pipes directing the basalt foam or whatever this extinguishing agent is directly to the cell that overheated. Direct it with valves or whatever. With hopes that it kills the fire early.
The fire on Freemantle Highway could not have been caused by electric cars, as all have been removed from the ship, showing no or only minor damage. Initial reporting claimed that it was because of electric cars on board, but even the coast guard, at that time, stated that the source was no known. Turns out, they were not the cause.
This was proven by HOURS of Recovery and Cleanup footage which is publically available on RUclips. Mercedes EQ sedans mostly had intact battery packs, seems like 1/2 had burnt bodies mostly up top. But the Battery Pack was SAFE.
I’m an engineer working on safety in EV batteries. This was a really well researched video!
One note though is that the role of water in extinguishing a battery fire is to remove the heat because both fuel and oxygen are contained within the battery.
It will be crucial to rethink both the fire suppression and ventilation of ships in as we move to transporting more and more electric vehicles.
I remember hearing about the Felicity Ace when Lamborghini had to temporarily restart production for the Aventador Ultimae since they had cars on that ship.
I personally think each EV manufactured should have a internationally standard entry port that connects to a series of pipes that run directly to the vehicles battery. Ships are then going to have to install multiple hoses; all directly connected to each EV. If a fire was to break out, the fire suppressant can instantly be activated and suppress the fire of that EV. This connect point can also be used by firefights attending an EV fire as well as a safety feature installed at domestic properties.
:D
A very good video. The hazards of lithium battery fires have been known for a long time. People who mess with large lithium batteries in bikes, cars, computers, or wherever they may be found; need to understand the risks and take precautions. The computer industry (as far as I can recall) had the first of these fires. A quick scan with google reveals laptop fires on airplanes is still a thing. Even fires caused by power tool batteries is a thing (and how careful is a construction crew on a job site?).
Indeed, unfortunately lithium ion chemistry is such that the best one can do is cool and contain. And contain in something like an electric car is problematic, the standard solution is throw the cells into a metal bucket of sand and cover with more sand. Letting the fire create an isolation cocoon of glass around the burning cells, but cars are a bit big to do this. So the fire fighting has generally gone back to the old fall-back of water, and well, it needs vast quantities to do anything.
The annoying thing is, while there is a risk here, with good battery pack QC it is not actually any more risky.
@DontReadMyProfilePicture.57 look pal, we're no strangers to love here.
We both know the rules and so do they.
I'm thinking a full commitment's what should go on.
You won't get this from any other guy.
The hazards have been know but we've only been using them in large quantities for a couple of decades. Given the amount of batteries in circulation, even a small chance at failure becomes a certainty with enough time. EV's have made that number grow exponentially, as well as the size of a single battery pack. These accidents will become more and more common if no measures are taken. Especially with people poorly maintaining and charging batteries.
I saw a video of someone wrapping electrical wire around the terminals of a car battery and putting the plug into a 220V socket. In his house. He walked away, sat down to relax and the battery started billowing smoke. He tries to pull the plug but it catches fire. Probably burned his entire house down. People are this stupid. Technology has mainly outstripped people's understanding that technology, so they use it incorrectly.
@@EwanMarshall Some fire departments have special shipping containers in which they put crashed EV's in case they catch fire. If they do, the container is designed to let it burn in a controlled manner. That's the best they can do right now.
A townhouse in my city had an electric scooter catch on fire while it was charging in the garage. The fire spread to the adjacent townhome garages and burn out the neighbors' cars before they put it out. All that damage from just a scooter battery...
Sounds like to me electric cars need to be isolated from regular cars. As it seems in these cases it was regular cars that started the fires, but electric cars that then perpetuated them. So if the ships were sailing with the cars segregated by a fire-proof divide the electric cars wouldn't have caught fire and the ships may have been saved.
Or, the electric cars, combined with sea air and salt water, couldn't wait to get things started. EVs could be transported on moveable pallets on special decks. If a fire occurs, doors on the sides of the ship can be opened and the pallets, with cars, ejected quickly and efficiently.
@@willdsm08sounds like a solution to me. Aircraft carriers do that with damaged aircraft that are at risk of a fire... So in this case it's better to sacrifice part of the cargo than lose the whole ship.
Electric cars can (and do) catch fire all on their own.
@@SchemingGoldbergSo do ICE cars, more often than EVs
@@pine111 TBH the issue here is not to point the blame, but to bring new solution. The ev industry need to have standardized and "easy" way to store the battery pack. Easier then what it is now, which is currently really hard to remove by design. So you could remove the batteries for the time of the voyage and store them somewhere else on the boat.
1:54 I now understand that it's SOP for the fire alarm system to be disabled while vehicles are rolled on board. It makes sense to accommodate exhaust fumes from vehicles. Does the same SOP for loading of e-vehicles apply even though they won't have an exhaust?
3:09 I'm guessing the black smoke is from the tyres burning?
0:30 Isn't it pronounced Herg (i.e. the sound made by someone who has hit the whiskey too hard)?
Part of the problem here is mixed vehicle shipping - the new, well maintained EVs aren't the ignition source, the fires are being started by faults in ICE vehicles (either in procedure or maintenance) and then the EVs just serve as fuel. The problem is that same mixed shipping model means you still have combustion exhaust from loading the ICE vehicles even though you're also shipping EVs
Didn't electrics cars actually survived without burning on this ship which cought fire close to Netherlands?
Nope
@@LimitPro1 yup
An initial inspection of the freighter "Fremantle Highway" reveals undamaged electric vehicles!
About 2,700 of the roughly 3,800 cars on board have been destroyed, experts estimate, and probably cannot be salvaged. "Part of the decks is totally fused with the cars," Berdowski said
During the inspection, however, it became clear that the lower four of the twelve decks were largely undamaged, he said. About 1,000 cars, including 500 electric ones, were also said to be in good condition at first glance.
Experts from the car manufacturers, including Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes, are now investigating ways in which the vehicles can be transported.
I think the fire alarm on a ship designed to carry vehicles should have a better solution than just deactivating the entire system during loading. Make it go into a less sensitive mode or something.
There just isn't a good solution, when you start making sensors less sensitive, they tend to be unreliable. To the point that you might as well not have them turned on.
All of the fire alarm systems that I have to use have a self-activating timer.
@@CaptainBill22 I feel like if there's so much exhaust fumes as to make a fire alarm go off you need a better air system? That way you can also keep the fire alarms on.
@@123ricardo210 If you have an air system that can handle the exhaust so that you can keep the smoke detectors on, they won't go off if small uncontrolled fire starts.
@@CaptainBill22 You'd only have to run those on specific decks during boarding (so you could at least have a functioning alarm on other decks) and I'm sure there's other types of fire alarms that can be used in addition to a smoke detector (like heat sensors, heat cameras, oxygen meters, etc.)
I remember hearing in the news about Fremantle Highway burning for days. What a terrible situation to just sit and observe, since there is nothing one could do to stop it.
Apparently so much water was pumped on board the vessel was in serious danger of becoming unstable.
The Fremantle Highway fire wasn't started by EV cars, nor sustained by it. The fire started multiple decks higher, and nearly all EVs were recovered by the salvagers.
Even when the fire was put out, as a car was being removed, it reignited.
A burnt out car, just reigniting, heck they had a large container of water to drop cars into just in case one caught fire.
@@IIGrayfoxII
What's your source? Because the alt-right is running an anti-EV hoax.
They took an image of a car that took a bit of fire pressure, hoist it in the dunk tank, then deliberately short out the battery to discharge it, which creates steam.
Alt right liars claim that's fire. It's not.
The same thing happened to the aviation industry. Specifically, UPS 6, which sadly crashed in Dubai, killing it's crew after a heroic effort from the First Officer. Batteries caught fire, all methods of fire prevention were used, but it was too late. Rest In Peace.
Absolutely love your channel! So glad you are a human walking this earth!
@Casual Navigation I'd recommend you upload your videos in 4k even if they're rendered in 1080p because RUclips gives 4k videos a much higher bitrate which would really help during 7:09 where the particle effects caused the quality to tank because of the low 1080p bitrate. Upscale this video to 4k and upload it as a private video to see the difference. I really think it would help increase the video quality.
But it's a casual navigation in the name :D so better to keep it casual
?? @@EtaCarinaeSC
replying to bump this comment up
@@absolutemattlad2701 thx
just upload in lossless at 1080 yt will still compress it but it will be fine after the fact, then you dont have a schizophrenic video resolution that isnt real.
I work on ropax ferries and electric cars are always our biggest fear, we're not well equipped to fight them, weve only recently received electric car blankets and the "specialist training" that some of us are sent on is by no means an absolute science, we've pushed back against higher ups wanting to implement onboard vehicle charging because of this, as good as electric cars can be I think this aspect of them is largely forgotten, or rarely brought up
So long as it's not high-speed charging, there shouldn't be an additional fire risk; I don't imagine they'd really put in the infrastructure for high-speed DC. Level 2 charging doesn't typically run the risk of overloading batteries.
They definitely should update fire practices and equipment though, as the needs of EV/battery fires are different to ICE/fuel fires.
Electric cars aren't good. They require cobalt and lithium mining which is incredibly toxic to the environment. And most electricity is generated from burning coal, so that part isn't environmentally friendly either. Electric cars are built entirely upon lies.
Depending on how the ferry is built I think a better solution would be to have EVs near the edge and have them thrown into the water if they combust. Probably harder to implement (as you would need hydraulic pushers/pullers), but much safer than have the car burn on board.
@@LAndrewsChannel That's literally the dumbest idea I have herd, and it keeps getting perroted out here. The machinery to do that would take up too much cargo space. It would be better to just update fire suppression systems and practices. All that is needed are systems to spray water or foam up from under to quench a battery fire. Throwing cars into the ocean is stupid, especially since you'd be opening the car deck to flooding in rough seas.
@@kauskeI think it's because people are thinking about small craft that only have like 20 cars on the top deck, and not commercial ships with thousands of cars on multiple decks.
I seem to recall at least one of these accidents was attributed to the loaders driving the EV cars at speed over bumps and smashing the batteries against things on the deck. The loading crew were either paid per vehicle or penalised if they didn't load a certain number within a certain time.
That or the "not my car thought" kicked in
@@PBST_RAIDZ Good point. "Not my car, not my problem"
So these cars are incapable of driving over a speed bump? Pathetic.
Probably as capable as ICE car with hole in fuel tank.
@@lolbuster01 Like every car, if you abuse them and don't give a fig about avoiding obstacles, they will not behave well after.
No one said anything about driving over a speed bump. *Read* the comment and *understand* it.
Couldn't you just use a kind of deck flush system like what is installed in the decks of US aircraft carriers? Doesn't solve the issue of water quantity, but it would allow you to spray the burning batteries from below. Very useful to have when carrying around things like fighter jets full of fuel and loaded with ordnance. And surely, if the USN can build a system that can withstand the kind of forces experienced when fighter jets (and sometimes also much bigger craft) take off and land, a civilian vessel could be equipped with one that can withstand cars driving over it.
There is a car carrier that figured this out already, they use very cold brine flooding to cool down and discharge the battery pack on a vehicle that is just starting to have a battery run away.
This will give you a free surface effect on one, or even multiple closed car decks. IMHO what needs to happen is that car carriers need longitudinal bulkheads like every sane ship design. But I guess a few more will have to go down until the industry realizes they have been saving at the wrong end, by maximizing those large open decks for parking space.
@@steve1978gerThat or insurance companies stop insuring RORO ferries until they have adequate fire fighting equipment. EVs are not going away, so it better happen soon.
@@lbgstzockt8493 Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there's no firefighting equipment really adequate for EV fires in that sort of environment. They're hard enough to extinguish on an open road, let alone in confined but large space like that. Best strategy in my opinion would be to store all electric vehicles in spots where they could be instantly jettisoned in the event of a fire.
This is why new battery chemestries are so important right now and its generally disapointing that we haven't really had a new generation of batteries turn up since EVs became mass production. But to be fair a next-gen EV battery needs to be alot of things. Very energy dense, 12+yr life, Recyclable, No rare/toxic matirials, Crash Safe, Fire Safe, mass producable etc. EV fires make the news because its super hard to put out but also rare. EV-started fires are a fraction of ICE per 100k cars.
Stored energy is stored energy.
@@nobodynoone2500 the stored Energy in Gasoline is about 5x as much as in an EV battery for the same range...
@@nobodynoone2500 It's not about the amount of energy stored, it's an issue with self oxidation and runaway thermal. If we had battery chemistry with the same density as lithium, but that's not self oxidising, it would be a lto safer.
I think the soulution would be shipping the cars and their batteries seprarately.
You still have to ship the batteries, though. You won't have as much fuel from all the flammable things in the cars, but the ship itself is still flammable.
@@thomasdalton1508 Onshore battery production. We never should have offshored so much of our manufacturing base to start with.
@@MrBirdnose I don't know who "we" is, but batteries are never going to be exclusively manufactured where they are used. There are always going to need to be shipped. And used cars aren't always going to stay where they were originally manufactured.
Yes also remove everything that could burn on all cars, from gas and oil to all plastics.
I wonder if we will see sprinklers embedded in the deck for under vehicle and I have a feeling specialized decks but yeah, we outpaced safety again
Loce the details in the videos
Battery packs on cars should be made removable - obligatory.
Even if a car requires a unique type of battery and cannot be interchanged with a battery from another car, it too should be removable and transported in a specialized container, far from the actual cars.
In the event of a fire the batteries would be separate from cars and that would greatly increase safety and ease of putting out the flames.
Absolutely.
It is the manufacturers wanting a monopoly on replacement parts that make that infeasible.
Batteries should be removable and easily swappable as part of a quick charging system.
Apparently one of the Chinese manufactures is making their cars with quick swap batteries that can be replaced automatically. Tom Scott covered it a couple of weeks ago.
@@nonna_sof5889 Which just showcases there are no engineering hurdles for that.
It is purely manufacturers blocking exchangeable batteries.
@@christopherg2347 let's hope the EU forces manufacturers to use exchangeable battery packs because nothing like that would ever happen in the US.
The simple solution is too force all car manufacturers to use safe lithium batteries such as LiFePo4's. The range would be reduced, but not drastically.
Most cars fires, even in EVs, have nothing to do with the battery pack. The case in this video is a good illustration: often it’s fault in the 12V wiring. If the cars aren’t charging, which they obviously wouldn’t be on a ship, you’ve taken away most of the risk of a battery pack related fire.
LiFePo wouldn’t significantly change the risk. It would be an improvement yes, but probably not enough to justify a ban on Li-ion.
Like, ICE vehicles are FAR, FAR more dangerous than Li-ion so until we’ve banned ICE why ban Li-ion?
@@auspiciouslywild doesn’t matter how the fire started, lifepo4 basically doesn’t thermally runaway so won’t add to a fire. It needs an external heat source to burn, which is roughly the same temperature as for diesel.
LiFePo4s are less likely to catch fire than other lithium batteries but they're still nasty when they do go off - the problem is that lithium violently reacts with air when exposed to an ignition source, and with water on contact. We need a new battery chemistry entirely.
Sodium Ion's looking promising, though even it's not perfect as sodium shares many of the same chemical properties as lithium. It's just that sodium's a heavier element.
@@Richard-eh8ib
So do Lithium batteries in a car. Igniting an ev battery from the outside is a lot of work. They did it in a show to show how difficult it is to extinguish them.
They literally put a giant pan of burning gasoline under it and it still took over 15 minutes units the battery finally started to burn. The whole car was already ablaze for a long time until that.
maybe its a dumb question but why us fire and water quantity to put it down a problem for ships? can a ship pump seawater wherever it finds fire and drain it back somehow
Batts can ignite thru salt creating a conductive charge thru water. Problem will solve itself quickly thru insurance rate increases.
Some say the "pusher vehicles" that are used to assist loading of broken-down or very used vehicles, are often the cause of the initial fire. I wonder if that's the case?
There was a ship with many EVs on fire off the coast of the Netherlands. Big news on all channels and especially in the yellow press. When they found out that the fire broke out on a deck without any EVs around it disappeared from the news as if it never happened.
You can still find articles about it.
That's the Fremantle Highwaybriefly mentioned in this video. Weirdly this video also says that electric cars are suspected to have made the fire worse, but when the Fremantle Highway was opened, all the EVs were found intact on the lower decks, so they couldn't have started or even contributed to the fire.
The petrochemical industry is huge and a source of very consistent growth historically, which makes it golden for long term growth for shareholders.
Many media owners are wealthy enough that they need to diversify their wealth into other forms including being shareholders of industries that provide them with steady long term growth.
EVs directly threaten the wealth of media owners.
We had a huge parking garage fire in Norway at Sola Airport, EV haters was quick to put the blame on EV's and they said EV's made the firefighters job insanely difficult...
Then the news agencies interviewed the fire marshal in charge of the fire after it was put out, he said "The fire started in an old Opel with a diesel engine. We were lucky thst there was so many EV's in the parking garage, they made firewalls that slowed down the fire fuelled by the fossil fuel cars, in the EV's only the interior and rubber tires burned, but every fossil fuel car exploded into flames and the fuel spread the fire 4 - 6 cars down the line, the fuel made it into a furnace."
Then he went on to say that approximately 2 - 300 of the cars was EV's and not a single battery caught fire even tho it was hot enough to boil aluminium in the parking garage.
late july a ship faring (electric)cars caught fire near the Dutch coast. after the fire was under control the schip was towed to a port. the strange part here was that most electric cars showed far less damage than expected, with a lot of batterie packs stil intact.
That's the Fremantle Highway docked at Eemshaven. During the cleanup and recovery process turns out lots of the Mercedes EQ sedans had uncompromised batter packs. Seems like only 1/2 had burnt upper bodies but those battery pack down low were fine. They were still energized thus the burnt ones were dunked into water tanks to short them out and discharge the power cause a lot of steam. While the unburnt Merc EQ mostly drove off the ship on their own power. This is all documented on RUclips with hours of footage of teh recovery clean up process. Just like Luton Airport Car Park, propagandist jumped at the opportunity to Slander EVs. Then months later ignored when the fact were published i.e. HOURS of Footage.
This might look dumb and hilarious, but what if, the car carriers are designed with each zone being water tight compartments. with that, in an event of a fire, an entire zone could just be sealed and flooded and the ship's ballast can be adjusted to compensate for the change in the ship's weight distribution. This does mean that the ship would be more expensive to build and maintain but it would prevent a total lost of the ship in case of a fire.
Well most fires fall under fire triangle but metal and or chemical reaction fires usually fall under fire tetrahedron. Looks like there might need new regulations on transporting electric cars maybe transport them separately from their battery's and or dedicate an deck/level for only battries.
I'd like to point out that on the Fremantle Highway, all EVs where on the lowest decks and weren't damaged whatsoever.
I think this is important to point out as almost all media reports at the time pointed at EVs as the cause of the fire.
And every knuckle dragger repeats the mantra. SMH
You can’t blame electric cars for these sinkings if the crew didn’t even follow disconnecting procedures.
The battery disconnecting procedure is for ICE engines not so much electric cars
@@SuperShyGuyBros54321 yea i get that but this video talked about combined freight where ICE car batteries caused fires that caused electric cars to catch fire. This means its still the procedures not being followed causing these accidents. If i remember the video correctly
@@pieterpennings9371 The video is misleading - The EVs batteries never caught fire. For MV Fremantle Highway of ~3800 cars on the ship ~1000 were recovered in essentially good condition. Half of those were EVs. Every single EV was in essentially good condition. By titling it as being about EV fires it gets more clicks, that is all the connection to EVs this video actually has.
why they keep the main ramp completly open ? it was working like a fire box. on our cases we seal the ship specially fire dampers and ramps, only a small side door give access to squads, and incase we succesfully put out the fire we open rump after 3 days in order to give time to the garage to reduse tempetures and to reduse the risk of regnision
I'm from the area and work in the industry. I'll say it. The local ILA longshoremen who load cars are known for their "amazing" work and "attention to detail". This group which primarily loads cars plus drives vehicles at ports to load up drivers to take to other vehicles need to load can't even master parking out in front of their ILA hall
why not use thermal cameras instead of smoke detectors, if fire was noticed beforehand damage would have been minimal.
Or even better use the more modern smoke detectors which are not triggered by car exhaust and many other things. Because the only kind of fire that traditional smoke alarms detect faster is a clean burning one, which when you're talking about cars is practically impossible
That sounds a lot like conjecture.
Maritime firefighting equipment standards weren't designed to combat thermal runaway of lithium batteries, because they predate the largescale introduction of them via EVs.
This type of battery fire burns thousands of degrees hotter than a conventional vehicle fire, and (as indicated), provide their own oxygen as part o the chemical reaction.
Land-based fire departments with access to all of the latest equipment often struggle to extinguish a single EV fire.
One could search Google or RUclips using "Electric Truck Fire Westgate Bridge Melbourne" to see a modern fire department effectively determine that the best response was to shut down a bridge servicing over 200,000 vehicles per day for hours... waiting for the initial fire to burn out.
(Spontaneous reignition still remained a significant threat, as the the plumes of highly toxic gas).
Upgrading ships to better deal with this new phenomenon will be slow, and expensive.
I would imagine for the simple reason that such a system had not yet been installed.
You have to remember that most ships are years or even decades old. So even if the more modern technologies exist that would solve these problems, they likely haven't been fitted on many of the older ships.
Here's to hoping that situations like these catastrophes will prompt the shipping companies to update the safety systems with newer ones like thermal cameras and/or modern smoke detectors.
And the newer ships being built will have those features installed.
Thermals are too expensive is my guess. Also this is a Chinese cargo ship. And electrical battery fires takes 10x the amount of water to put out, and burns 3x times as hot.
By the time you get a reading on a thermal camera on a car carrier, it is already too late.
The offending car is most likely burried in bumper to bumper, door to door parking of cars, so even moving it may not even be possible at that point.
I can see EV'S either being restricted to car carriers having a limit on the amount - hell, I'd say they should be put on the top deck ready to push into the sea if one went up. If firefighting fails with a large number of EV'S going up in smoke, then the best thing to do, is "remove the fuel".
Either that or they get container only service in a certain area of a vessel that can be isolated quickly if one goes up.
EVs are significantly less likely to catch fire in the first place. Why should restrictions apply?
@@Garfie489 Ask Sony about their combusting batteries. Why do you think lithium batteries are classed as hazardous goods in a different category to petrol cars? Why do you think lithium batteries are shipped in a semi charged state? So they don't give off that "Bang" when they go up. Believe me, I've chucked quite a few phone batteries and 18650's in various states of charge into fires. Fully charged units go with a hell of a pop. Discharged ones are like wet guffs.
Back to your question though, any damage to the undercarriage during loading can go unnoticed as it can take a little while for lithium batteries to begin their runaway... Where as if you get out of the car you just loaded and stepped into a pile of petrol or diesel, You'll look to see wtf is going on. Catch the undercarriage of an EV and that little bump is probably the start of a bad time.
Maritime logistics hasn't caught up with the EV issues yet. In my line of work we have what's called a JSA meeting - Basically a "What if this happens, and what if this happens, and this, and this, is that possible, What do we do to stop it" Its a complete waste of a week for an operator because it makes you think, but it's an eye opener to show you how a perfect storm can brew. EV's are more than likely "Perfect storms" that no current "Layers of protection" can cover. LOPA is another minefield we have to navigate around in industry.
@@monkehbitch Being semi-charged doesn't mate an L-ion less flammable. L-ions are shipped partially charged because being above 80% charge for long periods degrades their lifespan, and being under 40% charge similarly degrades the lifespan.
Should be common practice, transport electric cars with low battery level as it’s well known that the fire intensity is lower when the battery is depleted.
Something alternative should be find what not that (or not at all) fire hazardous like li-ion / li-polimer batteries. It will take some time while industry could react in large scale (if, there is an alternative, already?).
LiFe Batteries burn less, but also why would you?
Gas cars burned so much down and we did not gave a damn, why no getting all hysterical about evs that burn probably 100 times less?
Also the bigger problem are the plastics and materials that are used for the cars itself. They burn very easily and with a lot of very toxic and thick smoke, as well as with a lot of heat.
If the cars themselves would not burn like that a battery fire couldn't even spread in the first place. The batteries themselves are insanely hard to ignite. So the fire from one battery is not jumping to another if there is not other materials that can carry the fire to the battery.
It was known before this disaster that EVs catch fire on their “ own” . It was predictable!!!!
So do ICE vehicles, so do bales of hay ad piles of manure. The issue is bad safety practices, not the cargo. If they can't even manage a fire that's all ICE cars, the safety standards and fire suppression is the issue.
@@kauske Grosjean agrees
Tell me you didn't watch the video without telling me you didn't watch the video.
I and probably a lot of swedes would love to see a summary of the accident that happend to the ferry Marco Polo earlier this year in southern Sweden.
Hiya @CasualNavigation, I know this was a couple days ago, but this channel called Found and Explained used some clips of yours without crediting you in a video about stealth ships. Hope this finds you well
if you wanna void this or your battery getting damage don't fully charge your battery charge it maybe like 30 to a max of 85% to prevent it tho mainly this is for preserving battery life
Lithium battery fires are terrifying to me
Yes, hope you don’t have smartphones, computers, laptops, cordless drills or vacuum cleaner and so on. I mean, I appreciate that people start thinking about it while it was super neglected for so many years when it was in these “smaller” devices although not less harmful. Imagine a laptop battery starts a fire while in flight…
@@marcd6897
Or just laying around at your home while nobody is there to act accordingly.
Yes we where really careless with those batteries, sadly we still are, just on EVs there is a lot of propaganda to make a fuss about it.
Also it is really funny that people make this fuss about EVs but nobody talks about the real issue, that the materials the cars are made out of are insanely flammable.
Like non of those ship fires would have gone that wrong if cars would have the most basic fire safety requirements.
It must also be said that not all lithium batteries are the same.
There are some that burn well and some that burn badly.
And the direction is towards poor burning
Well, for the fremantle highway the shown information is in fact completely wrong. It was assumed from all the media that the electric cars onboard caused the fire or at least held the fire active so long.
In the investigation quite the opposite was the case. Most conventional cars were burned to the ground (upper decks) and only a hand ful of battery electric vehicles (mostly in the lower decks were there was no excessive fire) were even involved in the fire and the one Mercedes EQE/EQS shown (some smoke after it was dropped in a water container, likely the battery was not water tight anymore and the water shorted it in the container) was not burned down like it might be after a severe battery fire. So, the fremantle highway fire had nothing to do with the BEVs onboard!
STOP TELLING THESE LIES!
And similar could be for the Felicity Ace one year earlier. Back then I thought it might propably be a BEV fire, but after Fremantle Highway I think the propability of the BEVs would have had a significant role (either fire start or kept the fire burning longer/hotter then ICE cars would have) is rather small. Its 4.000 m under the sea, so we will likely not know ever, but as long as it is not proven, for me it was a "normal car transporter fire" and not a "BEV burned down a car carrier" since the media hysteria was the same in both cases...
weirdest part at least bout the fremantle highway is that media attention immediately died after the message came out that all 480 EV on board were recovered mostly intact (but not fit for sale anymore due to smoke damage)
@@unitrader403 That's correct. Beforehand there was so much media attention in europe that the fire could not be extinguished just because the EVs were burning hotter and longer (I don't know if that's even the case. They burn different, that's clear, but they do not contain more energy at least compared with a full fuel tank in an ICE-car). But afterwards for the not-EV-Haters (like me...) It was clear that the ships fire extinguishing system (and presumably many of these RoRi ships) was just inadequate for "any" large scale fire... Suddenly, there was a need for a new explanation without EVs involved and the media died in mere hours...But I hate that these lies (presumptions) still exist in the heads of so many people. But learning from Fremantle highway, I don't believe in an EV fire on Felicity ace until there is hard evidence for it...
Hey, Jacksonville! Duuuvvvaaalll!
those protocols of disconnecting the battery of and capping the anode with a plastic is only good if you pay the staff enough to care. I guess that's not the case with the shipping industry in china, so here we go.
Problem with EV fires is they just dont extinguish until the lithium is burnt out and adding water makes it worse. They've tired removing oxygen with a fire resistant cover but until the lithium is gone it would just continue to be on fire especially the moment air gets back in. Over the past 3 years EV fires are becoming more common, they really need to take a step back and work out why. When it comes to shipping I think it could be the sea air getting into the batteries, might need to put cars in boxes to prevent it.
It's critical to note that ICE fires are 10x more prevalent as well. Your recommendations do make sense though.
@club6525 could that be related to ICE engines being 10x more prevalent than EVs?
@@JollyJuiice The commenter notes that EV fires are becoming more common and proposes that it may be due to the sea air entering the batteries. The key cause of such fires are ICE vehicles though. The risk of EV fires is essentially 0. His recommendations make sense but fail to consider the nature of the issue. If we want to reduce the total vehicle fires, we should start with ICE cars.
@@JollyJuiice No. When counting vehicle fires per 100.000 cars ICE vehicles burn about 10 times as much as EVs.
@@JollyJuiice The figures I've heard are ICE 20x - 60x more likely to burn; these figures are corrected for the number of EVs vs the number of ICE cars.
Seems the most obvious reaction is to dump the burning cars overboard, perhaps with a machanism that pulls them out by the chains that secure them to the decks . This is much more economically viable for commercial shipment of cars as products or waste, as opposed to personal cars being transported on ferries or as belongings .
For prevention, I'd recommend discharging batteries as low as is safe (lower if batteries are to be scrapped upon arrival, batteries for use need to be kept at a certain minimum level to remain usable) . The energy stored in batteries is like stored fuel that can power a fire if something goes wrong . This is like emptying the fuel tanks on regular cars, but with very different tools and training.
So they're basically the rare but super dangerous class D fire? Its basically when something that shouldn't burn, like metal, is on fire. Ive heard of these from my father who was a sailor on aircraft carriers. An example is a fighter plane crashes and bursts into flames on the flight deck. But the way the navy deals with those fires is to push the aircraft overboard into the ocean. If the car carriers had some whay to do that then they be able to save the ships.
Is a chemical reaction that creates it's own oxygen and burns hot enough to melt steel a problem in a giant steel box whose primary fire suppression system is otherwise to shut off the ventilation? I wonder 🤔
thanks for the reflective and thoughtful presentation of that issue. I am glad that lithium ion batteries are only a gap technology until solid state batteries are feasable to use on vehicles.
@@wadewilson6628 You know that SSB are already used? I have one in my motorcycle and some of my friends store their solar energy in it. Some brands already sell e mopeds with SSB. I Don't understand your toxicity
@@Manfred_Messer Welcome to gas-holes. They feel their masculinity is threatened by EVs, so they act toxic.
Everybody knows that loose lips sink ships
It's Electric Car-Uboat hybrid Toyota has been pumping out isn't it.
Exceptional explanation, as always!
Look a the panel at 1:50 "DISABLE SYSTAM". No wonder the ship got in trouble when even the panels were of this quality.
😂😂 are u serious? Its just a animation dude
- LCO (LiCoOxide) batteries are NOT used in EVs. Those types of batteries are used for electronic devices like laptops, smartphones, tablets, watches and so on.
- Fires in EVs are 60 times LESS likely to occur compared to ICE cars. Most cases are due to rare manufacturing defect or after physical damage to the battery.
- EV battery packs have sophisticated fire retardant materials and system designed to stop and contain the spread of thermal runaway. Unless there is an external source of fire that keeps the temperatures high for long time, the chances of fire staring from EVs is extremely low.
- Hybrids on the other hand, do not have adequate protection and are usually quite poorly build, packed with wires and harnesses.
- In many EVs the battery pack is made out of LFP batteries which do NOT burn even when damaged or even punctured.
Not a single electric car on the Fremantle highway was damaged. So it is impossible, they made the fire worse, let alone started it.
That'll be why it didn't sink then. Did you actually watch the video? Let me remind you since you didn't bother... it's about what happens when electric cars *do* become involved in fires and how they make it harder to put out.
@@kirkhamandya fire without EVs already totaled the ship. EVs cant make it worse at that point
@@demondoggy1825 You crack on defending EVs against a video that never threatened them 😂
?
@@kirkhamandy Yes, I watshed the video and it says,: That it is suspected, that the EVs made the fire worse. But that's not true.
I expect to see batteries shipped separate to the cars to fix this. If batteries are even shipped in a separate compartment with IR monitoring, faults can be detected early and addressed before the fire starts.
Someone else here mentioned that apparently due to the weight of the batteries, they're usually part of the chassis itself rather than a separate part, for weight reduction. That would make this infeasible at best.
@@G-Cole-01 The battery is a structural part of the chassis but it is removable.
I laughed when I saw "eco drive" written in every car.
Yes especially that is usually printed on gas cars that have a slightly bigger starter motor for start stop.
But if kind of fits BMW with gas engines for some reason really love to burn.
If you think this is doing major pollution, you should see the process required to manufacture electric vehicles
EDIT: Also, water doesn’t “cool down” a fire, it smothers it because water is not flammable
Similar to the aviation industry's policies on lithium-ion batteries: on a plane, it's difficult to contain the fire until it burns out, which is the usual strategy for battery fires on land.
At the same time, you certainly couldn't tell people not to take them on planes at all; that technology is too important to just ban, as with EVs on ships.
Meaning, we need either new kind of batteries or new kind of extinguishing liquid
We need new batteries
Most likely….not a ver6 good conclusion
Regular cars have tanks of gasoline and all have tires that burn.
But must blame electric cars
It's not about IF they can burn, it's about how much harder they are to PUT OUT.
@@EuryBartleby the fire investigated in detail here didnt involve EVs, and yet still couldnt be put out
The EVs on the Freemantle Highway were on one of the few decks not reached by the fire. So not only did they not start the fire, they also did not make it worse. They weren't in on the fun at all. So even a load of ICE cars full of fuel and plastics are already impossible to extinguish.
Sure thing, that is exactly what happened.
@@BatCaveOzReminds me of the Luton Airport story, where the news said that a "diesel car" burned down the multistorey car park.
But footage of fire made it obvious that it was a "diesel hybrid" and the battery pack was on thermal runaway.
You are totally wrong.
There are pictures of fully burnt EV'S after the event.
Proof you ask.
Auto expert.
@@0Aus I don't think I'm willing to accept a guy on RUclips on a quest against German manufactureres and EV in general as reputable source. The picture does look like it's Porsches, but it could be any Porsche of the last 20 years or so, not just the Taycan. But I'm still willing to concede that maybe a couple of EVs were part of the fire. But that still means that the bulk of the flammable material was provided by apparently totally fireproof ICE cars. Because fuel and plastics don't burn, obviously.
@@holgerpieta7367 😄Arrr you got called out and proven wrong!
Yet is that your retort?
You would have earned more respect if you accepted it like an adult.
😅👌
I wonder if you could limit having electric cars to the lowest decks and have the option of doing a controlled flooding of the decks to put the fire out. Normal vehicles can go on the upper levels as they would be easier to put out.
every example in this video showed cases where ICE fires couldnt be put out.
@@Garfie489 And EV's are even worse. So your point is what? In any case the firefighting capacity of a Ro-Ro needs to increased just to deal with ICE vehicles now let alone when we see even more EV's being shipped.
@@Hybris51129 Well the point is, surely you want the thing most likely to catch fire in the area you can flood if theres a fire?
EVs are 60x less likely to catch fire by the best data we have. Never mind that they are currently sold much less.
Thus it makes logical sense to put EVs on the top decks, away from the cars more likely to catch fire.
@@Garfie489 Ah ok now I understand where you are coming from: You are an EV apologist for which EV's can do no evil.
Now that we have established that lets start poking holes.
Your first point raises that EV's are less likely to catch fire . However by your own next statement brings up the reason why the number show so few fires attributed to EV's: lack of sold cars. It's very easy to ship a 1000 EV's for 100,000+ ICE cars and say they are far less likely to catch fire.
The problem with this is that especially if the mandates for banning ICE cars hold pretty soon that 100,000+ number is going to be replaced with more EV's and thus eventually you will have to deal with that kind of fire.
Given as seen in the video we have issues with putting out current ICE vehicles let alone the challenges of putting out EV's that even land based fire departments are still grappling with it can be safely said that a increase in fire fighting capacity is needed.
As shown in the video putting out an EV fire requires much more water thus in a 'flood the hold' setup they would have to be placed down low in the ship to do so without causing a immediate capsize risk.
This is at best a interim solution as once the numbers of EV's hauled is to the point where they replace ICE vehicles a better whole ship solution will need to be developed for the rest of hold spaces.
@@Hybris51129 multiple swings and misses there. You've poked no holes xD
EV fires are 25 per 100k sold - ICE is 1,530 per 100k sold. So yes, even if EVs were sold at an equal rate to ICE cars, they are 60x less likely to catch fire.
Yes an EV fire requires more water - it requires you to deal with it a lot less though. It more than balances out.
Im not an EV apologist, i am a realist. Yeh, EVs are an issue if they catch fire - but as this video shows, so are ICE vehicles
I think it's fair to assume, that there's a good chance of a used vehicle having an aftermarket product. Often wired by the owner, often wired incorrectly or poorly.
Wait until there is a lithium fire on a ferry or in a tunnel.
It's going to happen.
Wait.. and then what? We have a tunnel nearby with a too steep incline and there are trucks catching fire there every year because they overheat.
That wouldn’t be a problem with electric cars or trucks.
They catch fire FAR less often, so even if it’s more challenging to deal with the fire it isn’t such a big problem.
Yes really wait until that finally happens the gas boys are waiting so hard for it for years now.
Even the 3 ferrys that burned, the parking house and the tunnels all just turned out to be boring gas car fires even though we where so hyped for an ev fire. Why are no evs burning in there?
They should ad all toxic gases from these fires to sum up the pollution from these "clean" cars. If you do not calculate all environmental costs* for a EV-car you are cheating. Battery production (mining etc) and fires burning for days ...
They should also add up the costs when ICE vehicles are built. Steel, aluminum, plastic, lubricants, wiring, computers, rubber, etc. Oh yeah- and the entire semi trailer tanker full of fuel that the average ICE vehicle consumes in its lifetime. That's without it catching fire.
They do, the problem is that once you add up all the pollution from manufacturing it still only comes out to two years of gasoline consumption. Your average ICE vehicle creates twice it’s weight in C02 every single year it’s driven, that’s very hard to top. Even if you assume that all EVs are powers by coal the emissions are still lower than in an ICE.
The basic problem is that small heat engines are a very inefficient source of power. Gasoline is dense, but even in the most efficient modern ICEs about sixty percent of that energy is wasted as heat, and that goes to seventy if we include using the brakes.
By contrast even the losses from the electric motor, charging the battery, and transmission losses from getting the power to your garage in the first place only loose about fifteen percent of the original energy. Since fossil energy gets far more efficient at scale, even useing fossil fuel to power electric cars reduces overall emissions compared to everyone having a small inefficient engine.
Also, needless to say that the modern grid is not just coal plants, and that percentage is shrinking quickly.
@@jamesengland7461 Only a single tanker trailer? Boy, people be driving hummers around, some of them probably burn that in a year, maybe less if they drive lots.
Wouldn't it make far more sense to disconnect the positive lead from batteries instead of the negative lead? Wouldn't it also make far more sense to disconnect both leads?
Irrelevant to this video but I’d love to see you do one on the MV Rocknes
Perhaps there should be a jettison button that can release EVs into the ocean. It's pollution. But the lesser of two evils: a section of cars Vs entire ship of cars
I dont see how that would work. These are massive ships, and cars may not be conveniently placed to do that. And if we limit EV loading to places where that is possible, then in the next few years, there will be more EVs than can realistically be shipped under such a proposal. And that's ignoring the problem of how you can create a mechanism that would reliably eject a car that is not just on a ship on the high seas, possibly in a hurricane, but also dealing with the extreme heat and chemical reaction of a lithium fire.
Do that for all cars, all the last ships have been burned by fossil cars.
With all due respect, this video is highly misleading.
The example you lead with is a ship that sunk as a result of internal combustion cars, not electric cars.
And then only afterwards do you offer examples of ships that sunk where it's simply suspected that electric cars were at fault, not proven.
What's _really_ sinking ships is the industry failing to properly invest in appropriate firefighting technologies to combat lithium-ion fires.
How is it misleading if you have a brain and watch and listens to the video. Or is this a case of where people cant read a graph so it looks misleading simply because of that
Well it's not clear what started the fire, but it is already proven that it was no electric car. Because after inspection they found out, that there was no fire at the decks where the electric cars were stored and not a single electric car was damaged.
@@reahs4815Title of the video : Why Do *Electric Cars* Sink Ships
The example he used? It was not an electric car that sunk a ship.
If you're too stupid to see why that is misleading, then you are beyond help.
The bigger issue is general.safety practices by used car carriers over EVs...
The scariest thing is that they KEEP BURNING under water! Even after considering the astronomic carbon footprint of transporting these "green" vehicles , how much damage was done below the ocean's surface?????
I work in a car dealership and if a ev goes up we have a heavy fire blanket we are supposed to pull over the car,but no one seems keen to want to go near a burning car.
Luckily its not happened yet....
Tf a blanket gonna do put it to sleep hahahaha don't do that run
The 500 ev cars on the Fremantle highway where basically untouched by the fire. Poor research in this video unfortunately.
Rubbish. There are photos of burnt EV'S ON THE vessel.
Auto expert
The solution for EVs is simple.
a) charge the battery to max 30%. This ensures they can't thermally run away.
b) disconnect the main battery during transit.
c) Transport German EVs, like mercedes, separately due to their old battery tech, making them prone for catching fire spontaneously at high states of charge.
Not gonna happen on a used car carrier.
They're supposed to only have a squirt of fuel for ICE, but used cars often go on with half a tank or more.
Battery is supposed to be disconnected on ICE. Doesn't happen.
What do you think the odds are then of them taking the time to dump charge on an EV, which would take longer than both ICE safety processes combined?
@@joshuacheung6518 for used cars its out of control, clearly. For new cars it should be managable. I am curious how the new Chinese car super carriers are built.
4:00 Sounds like a classic back draft.
My neighbour Wang Tang Peen is a China engineer. He says the shipping company cuts costs on safety and sends goons to kick people in the groin if they dare speak out.
Honestly sounds about right. Safety is expensive, and insurance pays for the losses incurred by bad safety. They just scapegoat it onto EVs to protect their bottom line.
@@kauske Yes this is true Mr Peen is a whistle blower and has the groin injury to prove it. Big Chinese factories pay gangs to intimidate people that speak out.
Do not restrict the finger pointing to EV batteries.
The biggest problem is plastic.
The excessive use of plastics, everywhere, in motor vehicles is the most common cause of fires in motor vehicles. The noxious gasses produced by the burning plastics aggravate illness and cause more deaths due to smoke inhalation. Hot melting plastics cause much more serious burn injuries. Thick, noxious smoke makes fire fighting more difficult, more dangerous and less effective.
Even after fires are extinguished, hot plastics give off gasses which can combust spontaneously, reviving the fire.
Use of plastics in vehicles should be restricted to insulation, components which need to be insulated and some tubing for fluid systems. Even these should not be made of plastic where safer materials are available.
The only way this wish is happening is if plastic as a material is banned globally. And even that is highly unlikely because there are certain applications where plastic is the only material that can possibly work. So you would have to make specific exceptions for those scenarios which would make the banning of plastic basically impossible
@@the_undead Outright banning is not necessary or desirable, I left wiggle room in my comment, for those unavoidable exceptions.
My family make a lot of money out of various injection moulded plastic components for automotive companies. My father loves making replica components out of various metal alloys and other materials which are less hazardous and testing them against the plastic parts.
73% of the products made do not require plastics. Of those, 14% do perform better with a portion of the component consisting of plastics, (usually nylon), but can do without. 81 % perform better and outlast the plastic components. The rest show no difference in performance but do outlast plastics.
Lithium cobalt batteries not only have the energy, but also the oxygen for combustion.
Lithium iron batteries do not supply oxygen.
You can drill through a lithium iron battery and only get toxic gases.
If you drill a lithium cobalt battery it will burst into violent flames.
But lithium iron has a lower energy density than lithium cobalt and are heavier.
That's why lithium iron is often used for stationary applications.
Lithium cobalt is used for mobile applications.
Your mobile phone has a lithium cobalt battery.
In this video you reveal that after investigation they found that the fire was most likely started by someone not following a safety procedure. They were supposed disconnect the negative from the battery, and put caps on, but they had not done it for whatever reason on this vessel. I would imagine something like that is the most likely cause for most of these situations. People out there thinkin about how bathtubs are reverse boats instead of the job at hand while the CEO billionaires are trying to hire less people so they can save $5. The world is fun! Doomed, but fun!
Just another reason, why electric cars based on lithium batteries, aren't good replacement for conventional cars
What reason is that exactly?
@@Garfie489thermal runaway
@@0Aus all cars catch fire.
Lithium based cars catch fire 60x less often than ICE equivalents.
So... how is it a good reason for them not to be a replacement? - the first example in the video shows even ICE car fires cant be put out in certain circumstances
@@Garfie489 you might want to do some research.
The fact you are ignorant enough to try comparing a normal vehicle fire with thermal runaway is proof you have no clue.
@@0Aus i actually undertook a PhD on fires involving robots - maybe you want to do that level of research and come back?
Here's the thing.... conventional vehicles also have batteries. Difference is, those batteries are placed near a large collection of combustible fuels - which is why the fire is important, as fire is the big thing we are worried about with regards to dealing with damage to surrounding infrastructure.
Thus having vehicles which set themselves on fire 60x less - EVs - is preferable to those which go up in flames every time a bit of excess heat is generated.
Given this is actual research, i assume youd prefer it in crayon so you can understand it - given it is actually you who has no clue.
EV batteries are dangerous, who would have thought
Except the fires started with normal cars
@@roadrunner6224 with the way modern EVs are set up the fire very well could have started on those other two ships that were mentioned in this video on an EV. And at least on the two that sunk whether or not it started on an EV is irrelevant because EVs are what caused them to sink. Modern EVs have a lead acid battery just like any other car because for stuff like the headlights, infotainment system etc. You might as well use a 12 volt battery and lead acid batteries. Are the easiest batteries to implement into a system like this. That also lets you disconnect the main battery pack unless the car is actively driving
Well, as you saw in the video, batteries in petrol/diesel cars are dangerous as well
@@portalwalker_ I never said they weren't, It's just when you have potentially over a thousand pounds of lithium mixed with a suitable oxidizer that tends to create problems. If lithium iron phosphate batteries were used instead of lithium ion, a lot of these problems wouldn't be anywhere near as bad. Also the way that all of these fires are suspected to have been started, can still happen with EVs because they have lead acid batteries to run the infotainment system lights and to connect the main battery to the drive motors.
@@portalwalker_ Indeed, anything with a concentrated energy system (gas tank, battery, etc) is a hazard. The problem with EV cars is they bring along their own oxygen supply, which means the CO2 systems on the ships are ineffective should an EV catch fire, as the CO2 systems were designed for gas/petrol-powered cars. That's what this video is actually all about... the regulations ships are built to have yet to catch up with the need to extinguish fires involving EV batteries. It's not trying to say no to EV. It's trying to say shipping regulations need to catch up. But I'm not surprised by the number of muppets jumping up trying to defend EVs from a non-event, incapable of actually understanding what the video was actually discussing.