Leaf S discontinued??

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EG is flammable but not volatile. It will burn but usually needs to evaporate the water out first. This is easy to do with the high heat an engine produces. So what happens is battery pack compromised, starts fire, evaporates water in EG which simply adds fuel to the fire.

Ignoring all that, we have several Tesla fires and yeah, most are due to extreme events and but next to nothing involving LEAFs including one car burnt to the ground in a wild fire with nothing but the battery compartment remaining and still intact.

So we can say "Hey, LEAFs have simply not had any extreme events" which some will believe or at least adopt. I choose not to.

So its either the batteries or the coolant or a combination of both. I also need to remind you that a handful of Tesla fires happened during events that were not all that extreme.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Risk is lower due to no liquid TMS but the question becomes is the additional level of safety worth it?

What?? The risk of fire is lower because of the chemistry used in the cells. The lack of battery cooling is pretty much unrelated to the risk of fire, but if there is a correlation, it would be "higher risk" of fire because the pack can get hotter in normal driving. Or are you suggesting that a "liquid TMS" would use a highly flammable liquid...?

Liquid TMS usually uses water + antifreeze. Water makes Li-ion batteries burn. Water doesn't need to be flammable to cause a fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNMfe20I_IE
 
I know that water makes lithium burn. Now, has anyone got any evidence of this ever happening with a factory-built EV? We have people spraying water over Leaf packs with a hose, packing ice above them, etc...
 
LeftieBiker said:
I know that water makes lithium burn. Now, has anyone got any evidence of this ever happening with a factory-built EV? We have people spraying water over Leaf packs with a hose, packing ice above them, etc...

First Volt crash test back in 2011 is a candidate. Car was crashed, put into a yard for three weeks, then it caught fire.

Several of the Tesla fires are candidates as well. Physical damage to the battery pack can directly cause a fire, and coolant leaking into the damaged cells can cause a fire. How can you tell the difference after the fire?

Zero motorcycles recall of all 2012 models was blamed on moisture leaking into battery cells.

https://www.rideapart.com/articles/244854/zero-motorcycles-issues-recall-on-2012-models/

The LEAF pack is sealed, so is unlikely to get water into the cells when people spray with a hose, put ice on top, etc. Still probably a Bad Idea.
 
The Zero pack isn't liquid cooled. (Zero waterproofing is indeed shitty, as I learned.) Given the time lag, the Volt likely got rain in the partially exposed pack. Maybe the Tesla fires had one among them from coolant, but the ones I saw had pierced cells and resultant thermal runaway.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Maybe the Tesla fires had one among them from coolant, but the ones I saw had pierced cells and resultant thermal runaway.

Water from the cooling system into a damaged cell makes the resultant thermal runaway far more likely.

Someplace I saw a video of someone shooting an arrow into a Tesla pack, and being surprised at no fire resulting from the metal arrowhead going through the pack. Should try it again, with the cooling lines full of water. Or just dump a little water on it after the physical damage.

It takes a lot of damage to the car to damage the battery pack, and then the resulting fire isn't as quick or violent as a gasoline fire. While cooling water increases the risk of fire, cooling is required for a high performance car.
 
WetEV said:
LeftieBiker said:
I know that water makes lithium burn. Now, has anyone got any evidence of this ever happening with a factory-built EV? We have people spraying water over Leaf packs with a hose, packing ice above them, etc...

First Volt crash test back in 2011 is a candidate. Car was crashed, put into a yard for three weeks, then it caught fire.

Several of the Tesla fires are candidates as well. Physical damage to the battery pack can directly cause a fire, and coolant leaking into the damaged cells can cause a fire. How can you tell the difference after the fire?
Numerous Teslas have had some major battery fires, usually due to a crash. Watch the video at https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-x-fire-california-video/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE_u731EmYA (first 44 seconds), for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd_e-CfofVY is the same incident.

Pierced: https://www.engadget.com/2013/10/04/tesla-model-s-battery-fire-musk-response/. It points to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0kjI08n4fg.

Another (non-crash): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/17/tesla-fire-video-mary-mccormack-california.

No crash on this one but it's unclear what caused the fire: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/12/18/officials-investigate-mysterious-tesla-fire-los-gatos/. https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-s-catches-fire-twice-after-flat-tire-report-2018-12 Driver had a flat tire, originally. I remember all the buzz around this one since this isn't that far from my work. Car was only 3 months old, so it definitely should've had the shielding underneath.
 
Well who knows what happened on the non crash incidents but its not a stretch to think the cooling system failed and leaked in a bad place. No matter how well engineered or QC'd a system is, that is always a possibility.
 
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