24
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
24 points (96.2% liked)
Technology
37443 readers
301 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
That is not really true, especially when you consider lifetime emissions of ICE cars and the refining of oil.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths
It is true that there should be more done about using cobalt and to a lesser extent lithium, but even with those issues it is better in the long run. There are companies that are focusing on recycling those minerals and new battery chemistry is moving away from cobalt.
As far as fires go, yes battery fires can be very hard to contain. That being said, EVs catch fire far less often than ICE cars.
https://electrek.co/2022/01/12/government-data-shows-gasoline-vehicles-are-significantly-more-prone-to-fires-than-evs/
Ah, interesting. I did not know this! But I had thought that the concern with the EV car fires was mostly because the cars can set fire unexpectedly, they are hard to contain, and carry more hazardous fumes than a traditional vehicle, not that they catch fire more often.
There have been a couple recalls with LG batteries that had the potential, but AFAIK the number of times it happened is very low, and again more likely to happen with ICE cars. They tend to err on the side of extreme caution with EV batteries.
Lithium fires are for sure harder to contain, and I won't deny that not all Fire Departments are equipped. There is special equipment needed, but once you have that it becomes much less of an issue. As far as fumes, I don't know which is worse. There are a lot of nasty things in both EVs and ICE cars. I'll have to look into it.