An electric car fires is a scary prospect if you’re in a car when it’s on fire. With the windows closed, even with the air conditioning on, the fire will quickly consume all the oxygen in the car, keeping you from moving for long before it’s all gone. There are a few things you can do to prepare for such an event.
How Common Electric Cars Fires On?
Electric car lights are very rare. There will only be three electric cars in every 1,000 cars over the car’s lifetime. Gas-powered cars will burn out 35 times more often over their lifetime.
Since 2010, investigators investigating car fires have discovered 200 electrical fires in the past 12 years. This research also studied the whole world and not just the United States. The United States, however, has the most fire, 200:52. The researchers also said that in 20 years, the percentage of electric cars that receive electricity can increase after twenty years of consumption.
The number of lights has been constant since electric cars went from an experimental stage to a viable option for car buyers.
Causes Why Electric Cars Fire Up?
Electric vehicles are fuel-free in the traditional sense. Most of them have lithium-ion batteries that pack a small amount of energy into a small space. Different types of batteries generate energy through chemical reactions that transport electrons from one point to another.
Sometimes it is in liquid form, and sometimes it is not. In lithium-ion batteries, the transfer of electrons takes place from the anode, which is usually solid graphite, to the liquid lithium manganese oxide cathode through the electrolyte.
Electrons travel with lithium ions, hence the name of the battery. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another. Therefore, when a lithium-ion battery produces electricity, the reaction produces zero heat. It’s the same process as the battery that powers your phone, but on a much larger scale.
That’s why the battery gets hot when you use it a lot. The risk of fire comes from a phenomenon called “thermal runaway”. This is when the reaction that produces electricity reaches a critical point and becomes self-sustaining. Sometimes it’s mild, but other times it can be incredibly violent.
Batteries can explode, expelling superheated gases and solid pieces from the battery. Batteries can also smoke, burn and burn at high temperatures. The most common cause of overheating is an internal short in the battery itself. Even with the most advanced battery technology, the same old problems cause problems. Besides short circuits, overloads, loads that are too high and too low in sequence, and high temperatures are all causes of thermal runaway.
Which Car Fires Up Most In Previous Time?
Hybrid cars tend to be more fuel-efficient, followed by their gas-powered counterparts. Electric cars are behind these, and electric cars powered by lithium-iron phosphate batteries are the least likely to burn.
Since 2020, all motorists have experienced a little bit of electric car lighting. However, some have real memories based on the fire. More than 80,000 Hyundai Konas have been recalled due to faulty batteries that caught fire.
The fire was not caused by the design of the car or the characteristics of the battery. The battery is being manufactured. About 70,000 Chevrolet Bolts have the same problem. Chrysler’s Pacifica and seven BMW models have the same problem but the numbers are lower. There are less than 30,000 Pacificas and only 4,500 BMWs.
Compare that to the nearly half a million gasoline Hyundai Elantras or four million Honda Odysseys that have been recalled due to low electric power. This data shows that electric cars are not only light but also often have electrical problems in general.
In order to reduce the concern about inaccurate data, it is worth pointing out that Hyundai produced approximately 682,000 Elantras in the US from 2018 to 2022. During the same period, Hyundai built 325,000 Konas. That means nearly two-thirds of Elantras were recalled during that time, while only about a quarter of Konas were recalled.