the breakthrough that makes EVs safer than ICE cars
Did Toyota write this? EVs already are much safer than ICEs, the headline reads like it’s trying to gaslight people into thinking otherwise.
Except ones with no handles. You’re supposed to burn alive in these.
Which has nothing to do with the drive train.
Except the fact that batteries burn extremely rapidly. In case of fire you have seconds to open the door and help the driver/passaners escape out of the vehicle
I’ve heard that gasoline also tends to burn rapidly. The Mythbusters usually had to add gas to make their explosions look cooler
Not as rapidly as lithium batteries. From firefighting perspective this is much uglier case. Bonus issue: unlike gasoline, you can’t extinguish it reliably - it has to burn out on its own
Battery fires can be extinguished.
The only way I know how to reliably extinguish a lithium car battery fire, is to throw the whole car into a water tank
So? Overall risk is still much lower.
Dude…gas cars blow up every day. It’s so common it’s not news.
Vehicle fires report | NFPA Research
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) https://www.nfpa.org/ › research › fire-statistical-reports Oct 31, 2024 — The 195,927 highway vehicle fires per year in 2018–2022 caused an average of 579 civilian deaths; 1,336 civilian injuries.
That’s a feature as far as I’m concerned
Except their weight which leads to insane amounts of energy transfer and also none of the intrastructure, like guardrails, is built to handle that much weight so low down.
The way to safer is to reduce the amount of cars.
The way to safer is to reduce the amount of cars.
Hersey! Blasphemy! Unamerican!
First time I ever heard about guardrails having issues with EVs. Do you have a source for that?
Also the comment was about the fire risk, which the article was about.
Yes, I do.
It affects more than the guardrail situation as well. Any collision with a car laden with extremely heavy batteries as low to the ground as possible has inertia and force that was not calculated into road safety systems originally.
This can be corrected, but the first step is recognizing and accounting for it. Which seems to upset people for reasons I cant comprehend.
But as the other guy said, the safest systems are the ones with the fewest cars on the road in general.
EVs weigh similar to similar ICE vehicles.
Yeah, no.
This is a golf compared to an id.3. Two very comparable vehicles. The id.3 weighs 41% more. Don’t get me wrong I’d love to be able to get an id.3 but all we get in the states are these horrible SUVs. That said EVs do still suffer a major weight penalty that comes with its own issues.
Not even a little bit, and I’d say “but good effort” but really no, not even that.
WTF Lemmy…EVs are massively heavy.
EVs already are much safer than ICEs
For the occupant or those who are involved in a collision with one?
EVs are heavy
They don’t catch fire that often though.
Which is what that headline is about.
Do ice car catch fire more often?
Yes.
deleted by creator
Came here to say exactly this.
But it was already said so…
EVs already are much safer than ICEs
You do realize that article neither negates or supports the above statement.
Safer cars get into less crashes. You seriously want to argue semantics?
There are electric cars that are not Teslas…
EVs already are much safer than ICEs
That’s new to me. Why exactly?
The article is about batteries that might catch fire less often.
ICEs catch fire much more often than EVs already. The comment was specifically about that.
Maybe a bit irrelevant but why is the article calling it “China’s battery“? I feel like if the researchers were from any other countries academy of science, say France, the title would have simply been something like “scientists discover new ways for fireproof battery”. Maybe it’d say French scientists or so, but not simply “France’s battery”?
Classic fluff piece to make China look more innovative than they actually are. I wouldn‘t be surprised if we never heard of this tech or if they recycle the same article next year. Tech ‚journalism‘ about China is a mine field of false claims and exaggerations.
Na+ batteries are really cool tech, and with a few more iterations of R&D they can potentially replace Li+ batteries, removing the need for rare earth elements that are toxic to people and the environment, dangerous to extract, and more often than not extracted by child slave labor (such as in Xinjiang and Congo).
It doesn’t matter how you feel about China, although framing Na+ as “China’s battery” is problematic for other reasons.
Well it stinks like Chinese propaganda. That much was blatantly obvious to me. It‘s just not always obvious what part they‘re lying about. So it was the part about it being Chinese in the first place. Not very creative I must say.
The particular innovation discussed in the article was developed by Chinese engineers. But that doesn’t make Na+ batteries “Chinese batteries.”
If all tech was owned by the country where it was developed, there would be a lot more “american this,” “american that.” Planes, computers, automobiles, nukes, etc.
Too much of it already is controlled by US patents, though. There needs to be more freedom to invent, develop, and iterate…
Sodium batteries won’t fix the mining issue for rare earths. Lithium is not rare.
My understanding is that the lithium itself isn’t the issue, it’s that lithium batteries require other rare earths like cobalt where as sodium itself is not only more common than lithium, but it uses more common material like iron or tin in its battery chemistry that are also less problematic.
Go read about rare earths and what they’re mostly used for, then come back when you’re ready to join the discussion
These batteries are already in production cars. Have been for a while. If you don’t have access to them it’s because of your regressive protectionist government.
No no no. China is Fake News. They don’t even make cars. If they made cars, I would have seen Chinese cars driving around in America.
Regressive protectionism isn’t exactly unique to the American auto industry but yea.
This is recycled I read about about this last year in the same kind of context on Reddit.
Separately though I have read there are hundreds of chemical combinations that produce electricity and only a handful have been researched for batteries.
Because it’s written as Chinese propaganda.
“China Battery!” typically trips everyone’s “Fake News! Evil Company! Communists Killed 100 Billion People!” alarm
More like “China lies” about everything.
That’s what my government tells me
Maybe you aren’t old enough to remember all the “scientific breakthroughs” that came out of China in the early 2000s that were later proven to be false, completely made up, all of which were published by institutions at least partially owned by ministers in China’s government.
You mean high speed rail and electric cars?
No.
because China doing anything is a geopolitical issue somehow. also, these things are effectively banned in the United States via tariffs
Because (most people believe) China controls its scientists with iron fist and they only research what the state wants them to research.
For me it’s because they have a tendency to… exaggerate, their research results.
Sodium batteries are real though. You can buy them today, their big promise was that they would be cheaper than lithium batteries because sodium is abundant and readily available whereas lithium is a rare mineral. Then lithium prices fell through the floor and the value proposition failed, at least for now. They’re also not as energy dense, which is probably what will hold then back from EV use for a while yet, but the claim around being safer holds up.
LOL. Americans don’t?
This from the people that gave us fireworks… traditions disappear so fast…
God forbid someone does a humor
Wut
the chinese invented gunpowder centuries ago
That’s wasn’t the confusing part
What was?
the same people that invented fireworks (thing that is set on fire and goes boom) now actively research/made the safe batteries (things that DON’T set on fire AND don’t go boom)
well best way to stop something from exploding is to invent/discover all the ways for it to explode. you become an expert at it and you know what not to do.
Gunpowder 2.1
The “they catch fire” argument is fucking bonkers anyway.
If there’s one thing petrol cars are famous for, it’s being filled with flammable liquids that can and do leak everywhere and combust upon collision.
You can ignore them. Same with all the disingenuous cunts who complain about wind turbines “spoiling the view” who ignore the coal and gas power stations that have littered the skyline for over a century.
Lithium fires are hard to contain unlike petrol fire:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/firefighters-forced-submerge-electric-car-082852772.html
So does an airplane crash would be more horrifying than a car crash, but that doesn’t change the fact that airplanes are safer.
Even so, any improvement is still good though
I never said they aren’t safer I only replied to the comment that petrol cars also burn, my point is that even though they are safer overall their fires are more dangerous.
You can put a petrol fire out in less than a few days though. Petrol doesn’t magically catch fire upon seeing oxygen either.
Ah, Lemmy. You never disappoint with sharing hilariously inaccurate information in comments!
ICE vehicles have far more fires. EVs are more intense, but significantly less frequent
Uhm, the statistics are flawed. Not the fire itself is the problem, but how many people are killed by it. If an ICE vehicle burns, you usually have enough time to get out. If an EV burns, good luck.
I thought I was careful not to claim any stats. The only thing we know is that EV fires are less frequent but more intense.
Probably not much data out there because it’s so infrequent. You are much more likely to die from collisions I imagine.
I think Teslas cast a dark halo in this area as well. Newer vehicles, but it wouldn’t surprise me of their drivers carelessness mirrored their largest shareholder.
Its worth knowing and researching to reduce fire incidence, but combustion engines have bigger problems.
Cool source. Ok, I’ll bite. The number of fire deaths in Teslas alone drawfs the number of fatalities in the infamous Pinto. The number is being tracked by volunteers because there’s no data from the NFPA or others that segments by EV vs ICE, but the number of highway vehicle fire deaths has been trending sharply upwards since 2016.
Am I the only one who has never heard the term “ICE” referring to Internal Combustion Engine vehicles? I hate how headlines deliberately make new acronyms or limit context to get people to click on the article.
I’ve heard of it before
I’ve heard it a few times before the whole ICE thing in the US. Especially on threads of electric car owners talking about combustion cars.
It’s very old… decades, and when talking about EVs and hybrids, an obviously quick way to reference conventional gas engine vehicles. The term is just unfortunately carrying some more recent baggage.
Oldest acronym I know, since physics class in grade five
Am I the only one who has never heard the term “ICE” referring to Internal Combustion Engine vehicles?
Probably not the only one. Maybe there are dozens of you
I blame the American education system. (Or lack there of)
I love the poor grammar while dunking on the US educational system.
Sodium is absolutely less of a fire risk which is good and is made of less rare earth minerals which is also a bonus.
The major downside is the energy density. If I am not mistaken it is about half of current litium ion batteries. Which would result in a halving of range for the same weight.
On top of that, if they ever get them into production, the solid state Lithium ion batteries are not only more energy dense than current batteries, they are also safer due to the lack of flammable liquid electrolites.
In conclusion with what I know, I doubt most cars will use sodium ion batteries. I would see them as great home batteries for solar installations. And maybe batteries for farm equipement or construction vehicles although the weight might become an issue.
Sodium batteries are only 30% less energy dense, but cost half as much as lithium and work better in lower temperatures. Most cars will use sodium chemistry and the shift is already taking place.
See the “working better in lower temperatures” is what im interested in. I would love an EV if we had the infrastructure to support it, but as they are right now there is little incentive to build the infrastructure because it’s often too cold where I live and everything is so far apart.
Your government needs to just build whole country nuclear and stop its other spending, once you’ve got cheap abundant energy then its inevitable.
Than my information was out of date because the in formation I had sodium was around 140w an lithium around 250w so not half but a large gap. But with the range anxiety most people already have I wonder if 30% less available power will be acceptable for them. And as I said before solid state Lithium should be a massive change and allow electric cars to rival diesel for range.
Aren’t EVs already safer than gas cars?
I think the point is (I haven’t read the article) that once an EV is caught on fire, it’s extremely hard to extinguish it, because the battery tends to re-ignite afterwards.
I heard from a firefighter in my hometown (haven’t verified if true or not), the only way to extinguish it was to immerge the car.
But you are right, EVs are less likely to start burning in the first place compared to ICE cars.
Even immersing the car doesn’t really stop it, it kind of just pauses the fire. When it’s surfaced again and starts to dry it tends to self ignite again for a very long time. EV fires are extremely difficult to stop right now and the procedure usually boils down to “Let it burn itself out and keep everything around it from catching too.”
Cover it in lead?
They could probably use sand
They put a blanket over burning car, and any occupants trapped inside because of doors that wouldn’t unlock and laminated side glass, to keep it from igniting things around it. They’ll also pull the burning car onto a flatbed truck to get it off the road, and take it to somewhere safer.
This is opposed to just dousing a gas car with water till it stops burning.
It’s a bit of an outdated way now. The newer way is to inject coolant directly into the batteries.
Something we’ll never see in the US because the US hates real competition.
Don’t worry, you can see Teslas catching fire.
Two cyber trucks yesterday.
do you know what else Cybertrucks have in common with dumpsters (besides the obvious visual similarities and raccoon problems)? they both have spontaneous combustion issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery
Sodium-ion battery development took place in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, by the 1990s, lithium-ion batteries had demonstrated more commercial promise, causing interest in sodium-ion batteries to decline.[16][17] In the early 2010s, sodium-ion batteries experienced a resurgence, driven largely by the increasing cost of lithium-ion battery raw materials.[16] Also, the number of patent families reached the number of non-patent publication after ca. 2020, which usually signify the fact that the technology reached the commercialization stage.
Do we have cars made of ice?! Cool
We almost had ships made of mostly ice a while ago, but it never took off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk
Technically correct.
Sodium blows up when exposed to water.
So does lithium. Not relevant for battery tech, tho
Very relevant for firefighters who have to deal with lithium and sodium fires.
BTW: Explosion in case of lithium is indirect since you need a hydrogen buildup first. In case of sodium plus water it goes boom almost instantly
they’re not using raw sodium but obviously mixing it with other chemicals. so it’s not relevant.
No, by design, you have as close as possible to raw metal on one of the electrodes when battery is fully charged. That’s the chemistry behind it - its moving metal between oxidation states. When it burns down, it also moves to higher oxidation states. Volatility is baked in. Usually you have lithium in carbon matrix that acts as physical sponge. But that’s just raw lithium in a sponge. It will still burn like hell.
For the occupants, any pedestrian hit by an EV will generally be in worse condition than if they were hit by an ICE vehicle.While this is ultimately good, the benefit can’t be applied so broadly as “the breakthrough that makes EVs safer than ICE cars”.Edit: /u/inclementimmigrant had it right, not me
The solution as always is to reduce car dependence.
wouldn’t the increased weight due the battery be partially compensated by a more lightweight engine? electric motors are significantly simpler and less heavy than ICE motors.
There’s a horde of petrolheads trying to make problems out of nothing. Don’t waste your time.
I think they may be a fuckcars person. They car be unreasonable also.
No, combustion engines don’t weigh much nowadays. 100-300 KG is common. Battery pack alone for a Model S is 544 KG, motor+inverter+transmission is another 140ish. For an RWD car, AWD of course adds another one of these (it also adds drivetrain complexity in an ICE vehicle, but not as much additional weight as in an EV).
VW ID.3 is apparently 41% heavier than a similar sized Golf.
Provide proof there bucko.
If I had to guess, I would point to 2 reasons:
-
better frontal collision dynamics due to not having an engine up front
-
generally lower front ends since aerodynamics is more important to EVs
-
Looks like I spoke too soon, my bad.
I must have gotten studies that looked at height confused with weight.
Sodium explodes on contact with water, having a barrier or two is great, if you use them in cars it’s going to get punctured at times, what with tons of vehicle crashing into things at high speeds and all.
Sodium ion batteries don’t use sodium metal. They use sodium oxides as the cathode.
shhhh…no chemistry allowed
