That's so reassuring! I have been informed of the same thing on TikTok. I think it's a regional issue, because it's not common knowledge in my area from the folks I've talked to at the training center!
@@FayeHadley Information only, most dealerships with EVs will also give fire departments training for free. Usually they have a mechanic that specializes in EVs.
According to Tesls "When the vehicle has been in an accident and the First Responder Loop has been cut, always treat the pack and the high voltage components as if they are live, because the pack will still have stored energy within the cells and it is not known if other high voltage components have been damaged. Treat every orange cable and battery pack as if there is high voltage in it."
It most likely cuts power from the HV contactors and if they have been welded together for some reason it won't cut high voltage from the car. Or electronics are completely wonky they might be still energized and in that case high voltage stays on.
Mechanic here EV batteries are wired in series. Kind of like those old Christmas lights. If you take one cell out you break the circuit and there's no power. If you cut this line it breaks the circuit and there is no power. It won't total the car you just have to replace that wire.
Retired FireMedic here, and yes, we are actually trained on this. Since the first EV's came out, we have been taught about them. To my understanding it shuts down the relays that give power from the batteries to the rest of the vehicle. We still treat every wire as if it is hot and holds enough energy to give you a dirt nap. The worst is when these cars catch fire, they are darned near impossible to put out.
@@martintodd1971they can be put out. Key is heat removal, it has all the oxygen it needs, you need to remove heat. Also, if you splice this back together the car (assuming the entire HV system is intact and working) will restart and be fine. Commenter is correct, all this does is cut 12v feed to the contactors.
All it does is shut down all electrical power from the battery. In a automobile accident the fire department automatically cuts the battery cable to prevent fire. Old news. But i guess some people dont know.😅
Its the high voltage disconnect. It cuts the 12v power to the high voltage control units and shuts the HV canbus off. The CU's for High voltage are programmed to cut HV when there is a fault detected in the system but the hard wire is a fail safe to the CUs. Some vehicle use a disconnect switch so this wire doesn't have to be cut and they also have a hole in them for lock out tag out procedures.
You can detach some of them in teslas, it’s how you shut off the vehicle entirely. First detach the negative terminal from the 12v then you can unclip the first responder loop to safely turn power off
Yes, we do. As a member of a fire dept, we train extensively on topics like this. Vehicle extracation is one of the more dangerous jobs that we do. I am glad that you made a video of this. Because most Vehicle owners are unaware of this feature. Even after being told about it when they purchase the car. It is very important to know about this for everyone. Thanks again for this video.
So glad! Not all firemen do, at least not in my area, so hearing from so many of you that you have been through this training is veryyyyy reassuring!!!!🙏🏻
@captainsensible6939 Both, but EV is a bit more because of the wiring, and the high probability of the battery cooking off if it isn't already. One of the dangers when cutting a vehicle, are the gas cylinders for the airbags. Some vehicles can have up to 17 airbags in them.
Basically looks like a cut-able in-line fuse. So assuming it does get cut, I would think that unless it’s like Ethernet cable or something, it’s just a single heavy gauge copper wire that kills all juicetricity. So you could just wire it back together and be on the way again, just mend the connection. If lots of little tiny wires then it could take a bit to fix the “cut” but still possible. Need to peel the insulation back to get a peek inside.
It only destroys almost all the fuses. But it can be rewired and fuses replaced. Saw a youtube video on someone trying to figure out what the wire was cuz the tag fell off and when they found out tried it.
It shuts off the relays/contactors for the high voltage systems. It's just a loop of wire. It's easily replaced. Generally the batteries go to some sort of junction box that contains the contactors, there may also be some inside the battery pack depending on the design.
I did not know about the presence in automobiles. Pool heaters have a fireman's loop. It is often cut to hook the heater up to remote automation of some sort. If using a simple time clock, the fireman loop can be hooked up to a fireman switch that will turn off the heater before the time clock turns off the pump to allow for cool down.
I worked 2 Self-Driving car companies when they were releasing the Driverless cars to the public we had to make demonstrations media on how to do this to High Voltage for the computer. It’s a real and big thing.
they also usually have a main battery disconnect which is just a plug that can be removed and reinstalled. and it's not going to hurt the system to cut that disconnect wire in your video.
Some of our Kia's have that as a removable connector. Its called the interlock and removing it renders the HV battery "safe". In an emergency you can just cut the wire as the sticker indicates. For techs we just remove it as needed. Its kinda like a connector for a sensor but its just this loop.
Yes, it has existed for a long time now and most fire departments do know about it as well since it is mainly for their use after a car accident or during and automobile fire.
Careful with these as they aren't always going to do what they're designed to do. Paramedic here, we had to extricate an individual who rolled his EV. The main line has been "disconnected" in this fashion and we thought we were good to go. However, after we finished the extrication (which, BTW, was done with us standing in a pool of water) we learned that the main line was still charged. We were using shears and even a sawzall about 2-3 inches away from that line and it was charged even though it was supposedly disconnected. That would have been national news if half a dozen of us died because of that.
It also has a connector in there. It unplugs as well. Basically it just craps out the HV flow, konking out the drivetrain and AC compressor. That keeps the angry electrons stuck in the battery.
There is a lot of new things that fireman have to learn. I heard they actually have an app that they can lookup the car make and model and it will show them. They are having to design new fire extinguishers too, to deal with how hot the EV batteries burn.
When we first got hybrids at the dealership back in the day, we were all briefed on it. Same principal as pulling a main breaker on a house, just more permanent. Always remember, twelve volts hurts, but those orange cable cars can kill you.
My Dad was a fireman back in the day. One of the first things they’d do on a car fire was cut the battery cables. Of course, this was the early 70’s to late 80’s, when everyone knew where the batteries were on cars because they were all in the same place!
It opens a relay at the battery pack, cutting power to all components, but the battery pack will still contain stored energy. They can be fixed without totalling the vehicle.
A lot of the older Toyota prius's have a big ass fuse under the trunk lid by the spare that you can pull to kill all the high voltage stuff too. either for service or an emergencies because cutting the bottom of the door jam on the driver side will result in a dead short
So any time you have any hybrids, you have orange and red stickers on ALL THE CUT POINTS. they are not always "loops" they could be a wire in black conduit. But ALL will have a pic of scissors and a fire.
Break the circuit in the hybrid system. Also called a safety interlock. Kinda like taking of a negative terminal except it has 600-700kw of electricity lol
In a Tesla i am pretty sure it fires a small explosive that severs a pyrotechnic fuse that it likely an expensive pain to fix. The power is just as dangerous but only in the battery at that point.
When it’s cut or unplugged it will open the contacts for the HVB so no power is going through any of the orange wires. It Isolates all HV to just the HVB. I can’t speak for all every car company but it’s normal practice to unhook these while preforming service to any HV components on EVs.
There's also a cutoff switch located near the battery as well that you can manually trigger. If you ask, the dealership will show you where it is and how to trigger/reset it. It's NOT recommended to reset unless you are absolutely sure none of the HV circuitry is broken or shorted out.
Most likely it is a low voltage wire that when cut disables/disengages an energized coil that actuates high voltage contactor points, kinda like a relay.
In a lot of HV systems, cutting this wire will cause the high voltage battery pack to pop a bunch of fuses separating all of the series links. This doesn’t mean that the pack is safe, just that the voltage is now limited to that of a single module.
A lot of us that do extrication on the regular do know about this just because the EVs have brought new challenges on the way we perform extrications due to the high voltage wires running back and forth. But anyway From my understanding essentially what it does is kill power too and opens the relays that allow the batteries to supply the high voltage to the car. The battery is still very much alive but the high voltage lines 'should' be shut down. So essentially yes if you cut that you've killed your car And you're going to need a tow truck to the nearest dealer.
This wire shuts off the contactor in the battery there is also one for mechanics when you Service bev/phev/hev vehicle.. at least in germany. It also goes through all the connectors of any hv ecu in the car so if there is an not correctly connectors plug it also shuts down the whole car..
That wild Faye :) never heard my late dad talked about that he was Fire Department long times 1963 to 2006 years and even a cousin Lorne was in Fire Department till 2009 ! He never said anything to that too!
Disables the ev battery. Normal 12v battery operations should still work. On mercedes sprinter evs its located in fuse box on left seat box. If its cut the proper fix is to replace entire wiring harness. The service disconnect is under hood. Behind right side headlight.
It's also on regular vehicles too, not all but some over the last 15 years have been doing this with certain main wires. Definitely are a few of these throughout alot of ev/hybrid cars though. I'm assuming you just took ev/hv safety classes? I had to help teach our class I had to go to. I rebuild battery banks and do some programming so the teachers thought it was cool to have a student help show diag procedures and how the inside of battery banks look and function.
on teslas, this activates small explosive cutters within the inverter to permanently separate the motors from the power source. It is a one way street you may not want to cross.
So we are clear! 1. I can pull it and take the risk of my insurance saying I didn't need to pull it and I have to pay for those expensive damages since I did pull it. 2. I walk away and watch it go up like a Roman Candle and call the fire department and insurance company. So an easy decision always option 2
Well doesn’t matter if they’re already on fire anyways. It’s over by then and the wire doesn’t do anything at that point. Apparently there’s plans on creating a device to just allow that car to burn without damaging the surrounding area.
I've never met fire response. For residential commercial vehicle industrial, whatever the case may be, if they're responding to it, they're already trained in we're at a major shit is, and every car has a standard
It's the same thing as an emergency. Shutdown under corruptible power supplies for server groups and what it does is. I believe I'm that Toyota, so yeah, you've got switches that you can turn to battery and everything on and off when you're disconnecting it, but behind that there is Actual fuses and and then controllable breakers, which are also like 3 bags. So what happens when you cut that? Because all that does is loop back to that one relay, and when you cut it, it's the same thing as disconnecting the blow voltage computer wires. I'm calling it. Obviously, it's only a few for this, but what it ISIS basically, and I'm not going into. There's a few different waves for a few different cars, but there's a few wires in there that are normally closed circuit and a few that are normally open circuit, and that way if the car gets crushed. And a wire gets dead sorted. The normally open circuit that then becomes closed. Because that wire got pinched and therefore grounded, does the same thing is cutting. The normally closed circuit one basically It tells the main breaker circuit. I'm not forget that exact name forward. It is disconnect as if it had a trip.
They should have another within reach of the driver, several EV owners have experienced a "runaway" malfunction where they lose all control over acceleration and stopping. Some managed to get help by another vehicle in front slowing to a complete stop while a few crashed. Safety first, right?
Why wouldn’t they make it a fuesable link instead? By that I mean, why does it have to be physically cut, it should burn off. On old furnaces there is a fuseable link that is in the path of the burner if anything goes wrong with the heat exchanger, or gas pressure regulator, and it just burns through and disables all the electrical components. It seems extremely dangerous that it can only be accessed by opening the hood. If I’m not mistaken a significant amount of vehicle accidents involve front end collisions, which deform the hood, and make it much harder to open, wasting precious time, and in an emergency involving lithium ion batteries can mean the difference between safe scene, and a vehicle that has to be submerged in water for a week before it’s safe.
What it dose is it cuts ground in the batery system it's the same as losing your negative side of the batery you will need to replace the harness after
This is the most likely action. I would assume that this is likely a 12v signal wire that provides power to the high voltage contactors inside the battery pack.
My Volkswagen diesel has an intake flap, if the turbo seal goes out and the engine runs away, turning off the ignition shuts the intake flap taking away air and stopping the engine.
I can’t help thinking EV manufacturers are making stuff intentionally too complicated and surrounding it with drama. An EV isn’t that different to an electric fork lift truck. Here in Europe at least, these must have an emergency cut off switch, which will disconnect all battery power either directly or via a relay. This must be in easy reach of the operator. There will also be connector plug on the battery. Fairly simple setup, typically you can even hit the emergency stop and the truck will cope with the shutdown without popping fuses or damaging any of the electrical system.
It's probably just cutting connection to the lithium cells. I'd be very surprised if it damaged the vehicle any more than it already was to put you in this situation in the first place.
I'm not so sure the general public actually should be made aware of this. Presumably it's just one of the leads from the HV battery and that could kill you if you tried to cut it with the wrong tool.
My diesel truck has one of those stickers on it too for the fire department to cut. Not really sure what good it would do on a truck that only has 2 12 volt batteries.
I actually really hate that the fireman's loop is under the hood like that. In a severe front end collision this could easily be inaccessible. I wonder if it wouldn't be smarter to locate it in the charge port or a location less likely to be in a crush zone.
An electric fork lift truck has to have an emergency switch within easy reach of the operator, in Europe at least. So no, there’s no reason an EV can’t have this too.
No it's not going to kill it All it does is just sever the connection between the batteries and all the electronics. You can just patch it back together and it should be fine.
Most firefighters do know this, we have classes on EVs
That's so reassuring! I have been informed of the same thing on TikTok. I think it's a regional issue, because it's not common knowledge in my area from the folks I've talked to at the training center!
Tax Payer funded classes.
@@WhowereEpsteinsclients yes
@@FayeHadley Information only, most dealerships with EVs will also give fire departments training for free. Usually they have a mechanic that specializes in EVs.
I remember in 2008 we were taught about the Toyota Prius and Honda Clarity.
According to Tesls "When the vehicle has been in an accident and the First Responder Loop has been cut, always treat the pack and the high voltage components as if they are live, because the pack will still have stored energy within the cells and it is not known if other high voltage components
have been damaged. Treat every orange cable and battery pack as if there is high voltage in it."
It most likely cuts power from the HV contactors and if they have been welded together for some reason it won't cut high voltage from the car. Or electronics are completely wonky they might be still energized and in that case high voltage stays on.
Mechanic here EV batteries are wired in series. Kind of like those old Christmas lights. If you take one cell out you break the circuit and there's no power. If you cut this line it breaks the circuit and there is no power. It won't total the car you just have to replace that wire.
Retired FireMedic here, and yes, we are actually trained on this. Since the first EV's came out, we have been taught about them. To my understanding it shuts down the relays that give power from the batteries to the rest of the vehicle. We still treat every wire as if it is hot and holds enough energy to give you a dirt nap. The worst is when these cars catch fire, they are darned near impossible to put out.
NOT almost impossible to put out. EVs can't be put out, you have to let them burn out by themselves, once they light off.
Can put out metal fires with gasoline I recently found out
Not sure about lithium ion but it works with magnesium
Gotta fight fire with fire lol
@@martintodd1971they can be put out. Key is heat removal, it has all the oxygen it needs, you need to remove heat.
Also, if you splice this back together the car (assuming the entire HV system is intact and working) will restart and be fine. Commenter is correct, all this does is cut 12v feed to the contactors.
Because they aren't on fire... they are releasing the huge amounts of energy in the battery, that just happens to cause a fire also.
That’s why we need millions of these safe ecological vehicles on the road.
All it does is shut down all electrical power from the battery. In a automobile accident the fire department automatically cuts the battery cable to prevent fire. Old news.
But i guess some people dont know.😅
I have a 1987 dodge, i dont have to worry about all this!!
Fascinating! Thanks for another educational video. Never heard of this before.
Good tip Faye! Thanks for posting.
Its the high voltage disconnect. It cuts the 12v power to the high voltage control units and shuts the HV canbus off. The CU's for High voltage are programmed to cut HV when there is a fault detected in the system but the hard wire is a fail safe to the CUs. Some vehicle use a disconnect switch so this wire doesn't have to be cut and they also have a hole in them for lock out tag out procedures.
You can detach some of them in teslas, it’s how you shut off the vehicle entirely. First detach the negative terminal from the 12v then you can unclip the first responder loop to safely turn power off
Yes, we do. As a member of a fire dept, we train extensively on topics like this. Vehicle extracation is one of the more dangerous jobs that we do. I am glad that you made a video of this. Because most Vehicle owners are unaware of this feature. Even after being told about it when they purchase the car. It is very important to know about this for everyone.
Thanks again for this video.
So glad! Not all firemen do, at least not in my area, so hearing from so many of you that you have been through this training is veryyyyy reassuring!!!!🙏🏻
@@FayeHadley We have to here. There are a lot of them around here.
Are you talking about EV vehicle extraction? Or general vehicle?
@captainsensible6939 Both, but EV is a bit more because of the wiring, and the high probability of the battery cooking off if it isn't already. One of the dangers when cutting a vehicle, are the gas cylinders for the airbags. Some vehicles can have up to 17 airbags in them.
As a Tesla technician, 99% of Tesla owners barely know where to fill their windshield washer fluid, let alone know about the fireman loop.
First of All Faye , Thank You Soo Much for All your information 👍🌹
I was a Volunteer firefighter for 8 years when the first electric hybrid we got training on it and we talked about it in firefighter 1 training.
Basically looks like a cut-able in-line fuse. So assuming it does get cut, I would think that unless it’s like Ethernet cable or something, it’s just a single heavy gauge copper wire that kills all juicetricity. So you could just wire it back together and be on the way again, just mend the connection. If lots of little tiny wires then it could take a bit to fix the “cut” but still possible. Need to peel the insulation back to get a peek inside.
Thanks faye love the tips that you bring to us keep being awesome girl ❤❤❤
It only destroys almost all the fuses. But it can be rewired and fuses replaced. Saw a youtube video on someone trying to figure out what the wire was cuz the tag fell off and when they found out tried it.
I learned about these working in auto collision
It shuts off the relays/contactors for the high voltage systems. It's just a loop of wire. It's easily replaced. Generally the batteries go to some sort of junction box that contains the contactors, there may also be some inside the battery pack depending on the design.
I love Faye, thank you for your videos 🫶🏼😍🫶🏼
keep up the good work faye. keep looking cute and kicking ass girl. 💪💪💪💪💪💪
Almost all currently certed fire and rescue guys know this. It's...like this is part of the job.
I did not know about the presence in automobiles. Pool heaters have a fireman's loop. It is often cut to hook the heater up to remote automation of some sort. If using a simple time clock, the fireman loop can be hooked up to a fireman switch that will turn off the heater before the time clock turns off the pump to allow for cool down.
I just started watching the new season of mythbusters. I had no idea you were a mythbuster now but congrats!
I worked 2 Self-Driving car companies when they were releasing the Driverless cars to the public we had to make demonstrations media on how to do this to High Voltage for the computer. It’s a real and big thing.
I really like your look here
Thank you for the information.
they also usually have a main battery disconnect which is just a plug that can be removed and reinstalled. and it's not going to hurt the system to cut that disconnect wire in your video.
Great info girl!
Some of our Kia's have that as a removable connector. Its called the interlock and removing it renders the HV battery "safe". In an emergency you can just cut the wire as the sticker indicates. For techs we just remove it as needed. Its kinda like a connector for a sensor but its just this loop.
Different places in different cars. It's in the voot of VW's behind the trim on the charge plug side. Is a loop with a yellow tag.
Learn something new everyday don't we .......thx Faye Hadley
Thank you, Faye.
Yes, it has existed for a long time now and most fire departments do know about it as well since it is mainly for their use after a car accident or during and automobile fire.
Careful with these as they aren't always going to do what they're designed to do. Paramedic here, we had to extricate an individual who rolled his EV. The main line has been "disconnected" in this fashion and we thought we were good to go. However, after we finished the extrication (which, BTW, was done with us standing in a pool of water) we learned that the main line was still charged. We were using shears and even a sawzall about 2-3 inches away from that line and it was charged even though it was supposedly disconnected. That would have been national news if half a dozen of us died because of that.
It also has a connector in there. It unplugs as well. Basically it just craps out the HV flow, konking out the drivetrain and AC compressor. That keeps the angry electrons stuck in the battery.
There is a lot of new things that fireman have to learn. I heard they actually have an app that they can lookup the car make and model and it will show them. They are having to design new fire extinguishers too, to deal with how hot the EV batteries burn.
When we first got hybrids at the dealership back in the day, we were all briefed on it. Same principal as pulling a main breaker on a house, just more permanent. Always remember, twelve volts hurts, but those orange cable cars can kill you.
My Dad was a fireman back in the day. One of the first things they’d do on a car fire was cut the battery cables. Of course, this was the early 70’s to late 80’s, when everyone knew where the batteries were on cars because they were all in the same place!
Good location. Hoods on Vehicles in an accident are always easy to oped. Especially when arcing and sparking
It opens a relay at the battery pack, cutting power to all components, but the battery pack will still contain stored energy. They can be fixed without totalling the vehicle.
A lot of the older Toyota prius's have a big ass fuse under the trunk lid by the spare that you can pull to kill all the high voltage stuff too. either for service or an emergencies because cutting the bottom of the door jam on the driver side will result in a dead short
So any time you have any hybrids, you have orange and red stickers on ALL THE CUT POINTS. they are not always "loops" they could be a wire in black conduit. But ALL will have a pic of scissors and a fire.
Yes, I was in inspection at Toyota. And it was a defect if its missing on a car. As are all labels 😊
Break the circuit in the hybrid system. Also called a safety interlock. Kinda like taking of a negative terminal except it has 600-700kw of electricity lol
In a Tesla i am pretty sure it fires a small explosive that severs a pyrotechnic fuse that it likely an expensive pain to fix. The power is just as dangerous but only in the battery at that point.
When it’s cut or unplugged it will open the contacts for the HVB so no power is going through any of the orange wires. It Isolates all HV to just the HVB. I can’t speak for all every car company but it’s normal practice to unhook these while preforming service to any HV components on EVs.
There's also a cutoff switch located near the battery as well that you can manually trigger. If you ask, the dealership will show you where it is and how to trigger/reset it. It's NOT recommended to reset unless you are absolutely sure none of the HV circuitry is broken or shorted out.
That's the service plug! Harder to get to in an emergency in many cases and only disconnects the HV battery
I work at VW Chattanooga. This loop is located behind the rear right tailight on the ID4 EV.
Most likely it is a low voltage wire that when cut disables/disengages an energized coil that actuates high voltage contactor points, kinda like a relay.
Basically, there may be more going on but yes, opens contactors.
Interesting, thank you.
Thanks for putting the info out there.
I may use this on someone else’s vehicle in an emergency.
In a lot of HV systems, cutting this wire will cause the high voltage battery pack to pop a bunch of fuses separating all of the series links. This doesn’t mean that the pack is safe, just that the voltage is now limited to that of a single module.
A lot of us that do extrication on the regular do know about this just because the EVs have brought new challenges on the way we perform extrications due to the high voltage wires running back and forth.
But anyway From my understanding essentially what it does is kill power too and opens the relays that allow the batteries to supply the high voltage to the car. The battery is still very much alive but the high voltage lines 'should' be shut down.
So essentially yes if you cut that you've killed your car And you're going to need a tow truck to the nearest dealer.
This wire shuts off the contactor in the battery there is also one for mechanics when you Service bev/phev/hev vehicle.. at least in germany.
It also goes through all the connectors of any hv ecu in the car so if there is an not correctly connectors plug it also shuts down the whole car..
Only disconnect these correctly or in an emergency. Disconnecting while powered usually damages the harness and loop.
Hyundais have those on the electric vehicles except they aren’t wired you cut they are connectors that you can plug back in ❤
It opens the circuit that energizes the contactor.
That wild Faye :) never heard my late dad talked about that he was Fire Department long times 1963 to 2006 years and even a cousin Lorne was in Fire Department till 2009 ! He never said anything to that too!
Im a volunteer firefighter. This is well know by firefighters because we were required to take a class.
This is why faye is the best.. I needed to know this kind of info just in case it ever happens to my car.
Disables the ev battery. Normal 12v battery operations should still work. On mercedes sprinter evs its located in fuse box on left seat box. If its cut the proper fix is to replace entire wiring harness. The service disconnect is under hood. Behind right side headlight.
It's also on regular vehicles too, not all but some over the last 15 years have been doing this with certain main wires.
Definitely are a few of these throughout alot of ev/hybrid cars though. I'm assuming you just took ev/hv safety classes? I had to help teach our class I had to go to. I rebuild battery banks and do some programming so the teachers thought it was cool to have a student help show diag procedures and how the inside of battery banks look and function.
on teslas, this activates small explosive cutters within the inverter to permanently separate the motors from the power source. It is a one way street you may not want to cross.
So we are clear!
1. I can pull it and take the risk of my insurance saying I didn't need to pull it and I have to pay for those expensive damages since I did pull it.
2. I walk away and watch it go up like a Roman Candle and call the fire department and insurance company. So an easy decision always option 2
It causes 0 damage to the vehicle.
Well doesn’t matter if they’re already on fire anyways. It’s over by then and the wire doesn’t do anything at that point. Apparently there’s plans on creating a device to just allow that car to burn without damaging the surrounding area.
Thank you!👍👏💪👊
Thank you Faye
I've never met fire response.
For residential commercial vehicle industrial, whatever the case may be, if they're responding to it, they're already trained in we're at a major shit is, and every car has a standard
It's the same thing as an emergency. Shutdown under corruptible power supplies for server groups and what it does is. I believe I'm that Toyota, so yeah, you've got switches that you can turn to battery and everything on and off when you're disconnecting it, but behind that there is Actual fuses and and then controllable breakers, which are also like 3 bags. So what happens when you cut that? Because all that does is loop back to that one relay, and when you cut it, it's the same thing as disconnecting the blow voltage computer wires. I'm calling it. Obviously, it's only a few for this, but what it ISIS basically, and I'm not going into. There's a few different waves for a few different cars, but there's a few wires in there that are normally closed circuit and a few that are normally open circuit, and that way if the car gets crushed. And a wire gets dead sorted. The normally open circuit that then becomes closed. Because that wire got pinched and therefore grounded, does the same thing is cutting. The normally closed circuit one basically
It tells the main breaker circuit. I'm not forget that exact name forward. It is disconnect as if it had a trip.
Yup it disconnects the high voltage system on an EV or hybrid
It is a BATTERY DISCONNECT! 😁👍👍🇺🇸
They should have another within reach of the driver, several EV owners have experienced a "runaway" malfunction where they lose all control over acceleration and stopping. Some managed to get help by another vehicle in front slowing to a complete stop while a few crashed. Safety first, right?
Why wouldn’t they make it a fuesable link instead?
By that I mean, why does it have to be physically cut, it should burn off. On old furnaces there is a fuseable link that is in the path of the burner if anything goes wrong with the heat exchanger, or gas pressure regulator, and it just burns through and disables all the electrical components.
It seems extremely dangerous that it can only be accessed by opening the hood. If I’m not mistaken a significant amount of vehicle accidents involve front end collisions, which deform the hood, and make it much harder to open, wasting precious time, and in an emergency involving lithium ion batteries can mean the difference between safe scene, and a vehicle that has to be submerged in water for a week before it’s safe.
You’re fine. You can just solder it back together and put some heat shrink over it so that it doesn’t ground out.
It cuts the power circuit...and yes they know it exists, just like they know they can't use water on the hybrid fire...
What it dose is it cuts ground in the batery system it's the same as losing your negative side of the batery you will need to replace the harness after
Stone marten: Hmmm yummy white cable
Just a guess but
Its probably the control circuit for a contactor that connects/disconnects the batteries from the bus
This is the most likely action. I would assume that this is likely a 12v signal wire that provides power to the high voltage contactors inside the battery pack.
@@sivalley exactly, so risk of shock is probably nothing as the positive is likely the only cable in the cutting spot.
And now we know. Thanks 👍
My Volkswagen diesel has an intake flap, if the turbo seal goes out and the engine runs away, turning off the ignition shuts the intake flap taking away air and stopping the engine.
In high school my teacher made an electric car with a knife switch to kill the power... it welded itself shut during a malfunction.
A lifesaver possibly...
I can’t help thinking EV manufacturers are making stuff intentionally too complicated and surrounding it with drama. An EV isn’t that different to an electric fork lift truck. Here in Europe at least, these must have an emergency cut off switch, which will disconnect all battery power either directly or via a relay. This must be in easy reach of the operator. There will also be connector plug on the battery. Fairly simple setup, typically you can even hit the emergency stop and the truck will cope with the shutdown without popping fuses or damaging any of the electrical system.
It's probably just cutting connection to the lithium cells. I'd be very surprised if it damaged the vehicle any more than it already was to put you in this situation in the first place.
I knew there was a cartridge you can pull out that disconnects the batteries from each other, but not the fire loop.
Good to know.
Firefighters that didn't retire morw than 10 years ago definitely know this.
I'm not so sure the general public actually should be made aware of this. Presumably it's just one of the leads from the HV battery and that could kill you if you tried to cut it with the wrong tool.
Yeah it's the bright orange thing. Toyota have a bright orange cable to pull
My diesel truck has one of those stickers on it too for the fire department to cut. Not really sure what good it would do on a truck that only has 2 12 volt batteries.
Bought a hybrid car and got a pair of side cuts with it as an optional extra 😂
Thx
They have em" next to plugs on Hyundai models so if they need to be cut. Easy replacement.
I actually really hate that the fireman's loop is under the hood like that. In a severe front end collision this could easily be inaccessible. I wonder if it wouldn't be smarter to locate it in the charge port or a location less likely to be in a crush zone.
An electric fork lift truck has to have an emergency switch within easy reach of the operator, in Europe at least. So no, there’s no reason an EV can’t have this too.
This opens the HIGH Voltage interlock circuit. This kills the contractors in the battery pack
How do u use it if the vehicle won't stop???
Sounds like it need to be in the glove box or somewhere easy to get to??????
I wish ford had this. I’m gonna have to look it up when I get work this morning. But I don’t think they exist on our ev’s.
There's hybrid classes on this, it pretty much just shorts the battery so there's no current.
it opens the contactors
No it's not going to kill it All it does is just sever the connection between the batteries and all the electronics. You can just patch it back together and it should be fine.
I disconnect this whenever I’m working on my Tesla. On mine it’s a clip that can be removed and replaced.