A terrifying incident occurred in Korea on August 1, 2024, as an electric vehicle exploded in an underground parking garage, injuring multiple people and damaging over 140 cars. Watch the security footage revealing how quickly the fire spread and learn about the critical safety measures that failed. Discover the truth about lithium-ion battery hazards and what can be done to prevent future tragedies.
Starting out this post is a long excerpt from ACE OF SPADES…. a site I recommend highly, BTW. In it we see how a country is realizing the risk of allowing Electric Vehicles (EVs) into parking structures. In this case, not because of the weight, but fire hazard:
While electric vehicle sales may not amount to more than a single-digit market share, the numbers on the road are now significant enough that there is a growing conversation over whether EVs should be allowed in parking structures. Part of that discussion is about how the owners of buildings that contain parking structures can protect and insure against an unknown number of potential bombs that may be parked there at any given time.
This awful story from South Korea is likely to be repeated with growing frequency, and it is fueling the discussions I just referenced.
“South Korea holds emergency meeting as EV fires stir consumer fear” [Reuters – 8/12/2024]
South Korean officials met on Monday to discuss electric vehicle safety and whether to require car firms to disclose battery brands amid growing consumer concern after an EV blaze in an underground garage extensively damaged an apartment block.
It doesn’t matter what brand of battery is in the EV, what matters is that it’s a lithium ion EV battery, which by nature is prone to runaway thermal fires.
The fire on Aug. 1, which appeared to start spontaneously in a Mercedes-Benz EV parked below a residential building, took eight hours to put out, destroying or damaging about 140 cars and forcing some residents to move to shelters.
I have previously joked about requiring a prominent warning label on the hood of EVs, cautioning about the fire hazard EVs pose to their drivers and to those nearby. Maybe it’s time to stop joking.
Images published in media of dozens of charred cars with only their metal frames remaining in the parking lot fire have fuelled consumer fears about EVs, likely exacerbated because so many people in South Korea live in apartments, often with parking lots below.
An Automotive News piece a few days ago titled “Lithium ion battery fire regulation could help heal industrywide black eye” acknowledges that consumers are becoming scared of lithium batteries, therefore help is needed from the federal bureaucracy to issue regulatory decrees that will somehow make lithium batteries safe. The piece also notes that in 2023, in New York City alone, there were 268 fires started by lithium ion batteries on various transportation devices, resulting in 18 deaths and 150 injuries. Of course, the federal government can no more mandate that lithium ion batteries stop combusting than it can mandate that straw be spun into gold.
Instead, I’d recommend that the government simply ban EVs from being allowed in any parking garages or covered structures. (And yes, that is somewhat counter to my anti-regulation ethos, but remember, Team EV tried to use the power of government to take away my gasoline-powered car, so I have every right to retaliate with the same powerful weapon.)
Here is a short video of the electric Mercedes exploding. Please note that it goes from barely smoking to a fiery explosion in just 21 seconds.
This Fortune piece dated 8/07/2024 reports that ”Several office buildings [in South Korea] have now banned EVs from entering and parking, according to notices on social media.” That’s wise.
Last month I inquired in one of my pieces about how insurance companies are dealing with the growing menace of EV fires, especially regarding all the collateral damage they can cause when they spontaneously combust. I received an email response from a gentleman named Bill Schneider who has a depth of experience at integrated facilities management, including the insurance aspect. I received this prophetic email from Mr. Schneider just four days before the Korean EV disaster.
Consider a potential BEV [“Battery Electric Vehicle”] fire in either scenario:
1. “3 plus 1” mixed-use building, where the parking deck is on the bottom floor, and that floor is below ground (so there is no way to easily remove BEVs from anything else combustible), and there are residential apartments and commercial shops/offices above the deck…or…
2. Multi-story parking deck at, say, a major airport (think one of the parking decks at DFW) where a cluster of BEVs are parked together and a fire breaks out.
Guess what? Parking deck suppression systems are nothing more than sprinklers with water in them – water that is hopelessly inefficient to quench a burning lithium battery.
Plus, with [internal combustion vehicles] gasoline is at least dispersed when sprinklers are activated – but BEV batteries are buried deep inside the vehicle chassis, meaning that when sprinklers activate, they cannot get water to the source of the fire.
Imagine the inferno if a cluster of 30 BEVs were parked next to each other in the center of the Terminal A parking deck, on the fourth or fifth floor, right in the middle of the structure. Or on the bottom floor, near a wall.
I presented this scenario to the SME [Small/Medium Enterprise] – and the industry has NO. ANSWER. This isn’t the FLS [Fire/Life Safety] industry’s fault – rather, it’s based on the constraints of fighting BEV fires, where the battery burns far hotter, and all three elements of the Fire Triangle are present in the battery (and remain present, not being able to be dispersed), and the batteries are buried so deep inside the vehicle chassis that suppression liquids cannot reach the source of the fire.
Fire marshals who become aware of the risk? They simply forbid BEVs from being parked inside a structure. Because that’s all they can do.
Fire Marshalls are empowered to limit the number of people who may enter a building for fire safety reasons. They should also be able to limit the number of EVs that may park in a building’s garage. I’d recommend the maximum number of EVs allowed in a parking garage be limited to zero. ….
An EV phobia appears to be spreading across South Korea following a mysterious explosion of an electric car.
Sky News host James Morrow, Rita Panahi and Rowan Dean discuss residents in greater Seoul moving to ban electric vehicles from underground parking lots after a parked Mercedes-Benz sedan recently caught fire.
“This is actually a real nightmare situation. This is in the car park underneath an apartment block. These things are impossible to put out,” Mr Morrow said.
“This fire torched at least 40 other cars and damaged a whole bunch more, a bunch of people in the building were taken for smoke inhalation and other injuries. Thankfully, nobody was even worse injured with this.”
AN OLDER POST
EV Car FIRE HAZARDS
Electric vehicles are on the rise across the country, and while that’s a step forward for the environment, firefighters are raising safety concerns. They say electric vehicle fires pose a number of risks, not only to the community, but also to firefighters themselves.
The truth about EVs and fire risk in our cities | Auto Expert John Cadogan
SPONTANIOUS COMBUSTION!
Ford shut down production of the popular electric truck for five weeks following a fire in Dearborn in February. When the fire was out, all that was left was soot and damaged paint. Fire departments nationwide are in training as they learn how to put out fires for electric vehicles. But an EV fire is a dramatically different and far more dangerous problem for them.
ACE OF SPADES lights this topic up! I add media:
The 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQE 350+ Sedan was in the garage when it caught fire on July 19. According to Jennifer Ruotolo, the EV was a loaner from Mercedes-Benz while her own car was getting serviced. She told News4Jax that the luxury electric sedan wasn’t even charging when it burst into flames – she doesn’t own a home charging unit.
“It was parked in the garage, about 22 hours and then it caught fire. I was at work. About 8:30 and my husband heard a hiss and a pop, and he went into the garage full of smoke. It engulfed in flames and exploded,” the Nocatee, Florida resident said…..
[….]
Undamaged EVs are alread terrifying enough (there is no way would I ever allow one to be parked in my garage) but if an EV was in a wreck or otherwise damaged, where the heck do you store it knowing that it could erupt in flames at any time. If I were a wrecker driver I would not want to ever tow a damaged EV.
Back to Nikola, you may recall that I put it at the top of my “EV Manufacturer Dead Pool,” predicting it would be the next to go out of business, following Lordstown Motors’ bankruptcy.
Well, Nikola is getting closer. It just suspended all sales of battery powered trucks and recalled all those on the road.
“Nikola Recalls All Battery-Electric Trucks, Halts Sales After Fire Probe” [Reuters – 8/14/2023]
Nikola said on Friday it was recalling all the battery-powered electric trucks that it has delivered to date and is suspending sales after an investigation into recent fires found a coolant leak inside a battery pack as the cause.
[….]
I have an obligation to acknowledge when I get things wrong. As noted above, I predicted that Nikola would be the next EV manufacturer to go bankrupt. I got it wrong, it was actually a Biden-touted electric bus maker that was next in line.
Proterra, Electric-Bus Maker Touted by President Biden, Goes Bankrupt [WSJ – 8/08/2023]
Proterra, an electric bus maker that has been lauded by President Biden for its U.S. manufacturing operations, has become at least the third electric-vehicle business to file for bankruptcy in roughly the past year.
[h/t to Mr. CBD for bringing this one to my attention. I think Proterra was his entry in my EV Dead Pool.]
[….]
GM has been plagued by exploding EVs, so they are now trying to figure out why.
I know! I know! [Buck waves hand furiously in the air.] I know the answer to this one!!
It’s when lithium-ion batteries are used as a power source for a vehicle rather than using a gasoline powered engine.
You’re welcome, GM.
[….]
I believe that others on the blog have already covered this next story, and I am not going to joke about it, because this awful EV conflagration took a man’s life.
“Burning Car Carrier Towed to Temporary Location off Dutch Coast” [Reuters – 7/31/2023]
A burning car carrier off the Dutch coast has been towed to a new location away from shipping lanes as part of an operation to salvage the ship, the Dutch public works and water management ministry and local media said on Monday.The freighter, which was travelling from Germany to Egypt when the blaze broke out on July 26…
Ship charter company “K” Line said on Friday there were 3,783 vehicles on board the ship – including 498 battery electric vehicles, significantly more than the 25 initially reported.
EV lithium-ion batteries burn with twice the energy of a normal fire, and maritime officials and insurers say the industry has not kept up with the risks.
Shipping companies and insurance companies have a day of reckoning coming regarding EVs. They are under pressure from the eco-left to embrace electric vehicles, but EVs are explosively dangerous, they are almost impossible to extinguish when they catch fire, and they are so fragile that the slightest damage to an EV will require it to be totaled.
- WFAA reports that in the early hours of Friday morning in Plano, Texas, a Tesla vehicle unexpectedly caught fire, raising fresh concerns about the safety of electric vehicle batteries. According to the car’s owner, the incident occurred shortly after midnight in the residential area of the 2700 block of Sacred Path Road. The owner reported hearing a hissing noise from the vehicle’s battery, which had been installed just the day before. Upon checking the car, they discovered flames shooting out from the battery. (BREITBART)
TOXIC FIRES
A car catches fire every two minutes in the United States, and firefighters are well-versed in how to respond. But they face new hazards and challenges when that fire is in an electric vehicle or EV. Nearly 2 million EVs are already on the road and many believe they’re the future of driving. Though EV fires aren’t necessarily more common than standard car fires, they require a different approach from first responders (more from LOCAL 12)
Here an EV bus takes minute to fully engulf, luckily it was next to a steel and glass building and not a wood structure.
Can you imagine these fires with the amount of battery cells long-hauler trucks have?
ANOTHER PAST POST
Battery Storage Fire Flares Up For Sixth Day
From the time of the above interview, firefighters are planning on camping out there for a month!
This from HOT AIR:
… As of this past Tuesday, CalFire was still pouring water on and into the building while coming to the realization that “water” around lithium-ion batteries was a double-edged sword. Like Ramius tells Ryan in Red October, “Most things in here don’t react too well to bullets.” In the batteries’ case, they don’t react well to water.
…Pascua said things began to reignite Friday night.
“You have to put water on it to keep the fire confined, but that water damages the batteries also allowing them to arc starting another fire. We’re just trying to keep the public safe and keep the fire contained to the building,” he said.
The chain reaction can happen when a lithium-ion battery creates heat faster than it can dissipate. That rapid increase of temperature can then turn to fire.
But water’s all they’ve got, and, as of yesterday, they were well into multiple millions of gallons flowing without having put the fire to bed.
San Diego Firefighters have flown in experts to the Otay Mesa Battery Storage site to study the fire because they don’t know how to extinguish it. The 🔥 has already consumed 5 million gallons of water, and firefighters estimate it will take an additional 7-10 days to control,… pic.twitter.com/sVi71XW1Vy
— Amy Reichert (@amyforsandiego) May 23, 2024
One fire. In a perpetual drought state.
…The fire has already consumed 5 million gallons of water, and firefighters estimate it will take an additional 7-10 days to control, using a total of 15-20 million gallons. LETHAL amounts of Hydrogen Cyanide were present in the air for 3 hours after the fire began…
All that and, as of this morning, still en fuego. ….