EV parking bans

Besides the Bolt parking ban insanity (e.g. https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/bolt-parking-only.40557/page-7#post-663639) that has been spreading around the country including to my work (maybe I will post more about that saga and some interesting twists in another thread/the Bolt thread), TIL of the garbage below.

Condo Association Bans Owners From Parking EVs In The Garage
https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/condo-association-bans-owners-from-parking-evs-in-the-garage.41679/
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/12/02/condo-association-bans-owners-from-parking-evs-in-the-garage/

Sigh...

The conversations I read on the news site and bolt site were interesting and entertaining to say the least. What I got from it was a HOA with an agenda and mis-representing what "experts" told them to further that agenda and getting caught by the local news stations. :lol:

knightmb said:

The conversations I read on the news site and bolt site were interesting and entertaining to say the least. What I got from it was a HOA with an agenda and mis-representing what "experts" told them to further that agenda and getting caught by the local news stations. :lol:

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Wait until they learn how flammable gasoline is. :lol:

If I recall the conversion factor used by EPA correctly, the energy stored in a 62 kWh Leaf battery is approximately the same as 2 gallons of gasoline. Therefore, there is a lot more fire fuel energy in every gasoline car parked in the garage.

GerryAZ said:

If I recall the conversion factor used by EPA correctly, the energy stored in a 62 kWh Leaf battery is approximately the same as 2 gallons of gasoline. Therefore, there is a lot more fire fuel energy in every gasoline car parked in the garage.

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Irrelevant. Once a garaged vehicle catches fire, there will usually be enough adjacent flammable material to sustain the fire.

How often do garaged ICE vehicles catch fire. Ever?

oxothuk said:

Ever?

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Sure. They get reported in the media when multiple cars are involved.

See
https://www.genre.com/knowledge/publications/pmint21-1-en.html#:~:text=Trends%20and%20statistics&text=Figures%20from%20the%20U.S.%20show,cost%20of%20USD%2022.8%20million.&text=In%202018%2C%20a%20total%20of,which%20occurred%20in%20parking%20areas.

Figures from the U.S. show an annual average of 1,858 fires in commercial parking garages between 2014 and 2018, with an average annual property damage cost of USD 22.8 million.7 In 2018, a total of 212,500 vehicle fires occurred, 16% of which occurred in parking areas.8

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oxothuk said:

GerryAZ said:

If I recall the conversion factor used by EPA correctly, the energy stored in a 62 kWh Leaf battery is approximately the same as 2 gallons of gasoline. Therefore, there is a lot more fire fuel energy in every gasoline car parked in the garage.

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Irrelevant. Once a garaged vehicle catches fire, there will usually be enough adjacent flammable material to sustain the fire.

How often do garaged ICE vehicles catch fire. Ever?

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According to this older document, a lot :shock:
https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v19i2.pdf

January 2018: After going in for routine maintenance a day earlier, a Lakeside, California, fire truck caught fire
while parked in a repair garage behind a fire station. Paramedics discovered smoke coming from the repair garage
and found the cab of the fire truck engulfed in flames. Firefighters were able to quickly extinguish the blaze and
kept it from spreading beyond the truck. Fire officials said that it appeared the fire was electrical in nature and
started underneath the cab area. While no injuries were reported, the truck, worth approximately $550,000, was
a total loss. In addition, damage to items inside the truck were estimated to be between $60,000 and $100,000.

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oxothuk said:

How often do garaged ICE vehicles catch fire. Ever?

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It happens. Search https://abcnews.go.com/US/mysterious-bmw-fires-continue-calls-investigation-grow/story?id=60843215 for garage.

The above story was from Feb 2019. It says:

The luxury automaker wasn't the only vehicle producer to take that step. Car manufacturers collectively have issued 62 parked-car-fire-related recalls since 2017. Just last month, for example, Hyundai and Kia recalled 168,000 vehicles for fire risk.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bmw-recalls-1-million-vehicles-over-fire-risk-recommends-parking-n817511 ("BMW Recalls 1 Million Vehicles Over Fire Risk, Recommends Parking Outside") were all on ICEVs.

https://www.autosafety.org/kia-and-hyundai-non-crash-fires/ points to https://www.autosafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2010-2021-Hyundai-Kia-Engine-and-Fire-Recalls-Web-092721.pdf with over 7 million HyunKias with fire and engine recalls from 2010 to 2021.

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/investigators/2020/03/02/if-you-own-one-of-these-cars-vans-or-suvs-dont-park-them-in-a-garage-automaker-says/ if you search for Heriberto mentions a fire inside his garage. It also says "Two weeks ago, Hyundai and Kia alerted the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about a rare but dangerous defect discovered in 10 Hyundai Elantras that caught fire while parked and off.".

https://www.autosafety.org/ford-cruise-control-deactivation-switch-recalls-and-history/ if you search for garage mentions a few. If you search it for fire, it seems to mention over 250 fires in total.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/gm-s-2-billion-chevy-bolt-fire-recall-casts-shadow-n1277460 says

Still, the coverage of EV fires may be overblown, said Sam Abuelsamid, lead auto analyst for Guidehouse Insights. Seven Chevy Bolts have caught fire, or about 0.006 percent of those on the road. By comparison, the National Fire Protection Association said 212,000 gas and diesel vehicles caught fire in 2018, or about 0.07 percent of those on U.S. roads.

“Yes, we’ve seen some battery fires, but the numbers are small, and they need to be put into perspective,” Abuelsamid said.

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It's actually about 20 Bolts (possibly a couple more) that have sustained battery fires. The other number probably comes from page 2 of https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osvehiclefires.pdf.

20 / 140,000 * 100 = 0.014% <-- % of Bolts worldwide that have had battery fire since Bolt was began shipping in Dec 2016.
212,500 / 290,000,000 * 100 = 0.07% <-- % of highway vehicles that catch fire in a single year in the US