If everyone in the world bought an electric car...

As hybrid cars gobble rare metals, shortage looms

The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells.

Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed. One promising U.S. source is a rare earths mine slated to reopen in California by 2012.

Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines.

Close cousins terbium and dysprosium are added in smaller amounts to the alloy to preserve neodymium's magnetic properties at high temperatures. Yet another rare earth metal, lanthanum, is a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries.

Production of both hybrids cars and wind turbines is expected to climb sharply amid the clamor for cleaner transportation and energy alternatives that reduce dependence on fossil fuels blamed for global climate change.

Toyota has 70 percent of the U.S. market for vehicles powered by a combination of an internal-combustion engine and electric motor. The Prius is its No. 1 hybrid seller.

Jack Lifton, an independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert, calls the Prius "the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world."

Each electric Prius motor requires 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of neodymium, and each battery uses 10 to 15 kg (22-33 lb) of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota's plans to boost the car's fuel economy, he said.

Toyota plans to sell 100,000 Prius cars in the United States alone for 2009, and 180,000 next year. The company forecasts sales of 1 million units per year starting in 2010.

As China's industries begin to consume most of its own rare earth production, Toyota and other companies are seeking to secure reliable reserves for themselves.

Reuters reported last year that Japanese firms are showing strong interest in a Canadian rare earth site under development at Thor Lake in the Northwest Territories.

A Toyota spokeswoman in Los Angeles said the automaker would not comment on its resource development plans. But media accounts and industry blogs have reported recently that Toyota has looked at rare earth possibilities in Canada and Vietnam.

Just as FYI, the green car movement has accused Lifton of being a stooge for Ford and/or the rare earth metal industry. Go figure.

More to the point, the only truly green car is the one you don't own or drive.

or the Flintstone model

More to the point, the only truly green car is the one you don't own or drive.

I rest content in this knowledge.

With current generating capacity being mostly fossil fuel based the effect would be that greenhouse gas emissions would go up.

Mmmmm...not necessarily. Some studies have found that a fully electric car (not a hybrid) running entirely off of electricity generated from coal would still have 1/5 less greenhouse gas emissions than a gasoline-powered car, including the emissions from driving and manufacturing. And of course, if there was a god we would be shifting heavily to clean energy in the near future, driving down emissions even further.

And of course, electricity generated 100% from coal is the worst-case scenario. The region you live in plays a big role in the sources that make up your electricity portfolio. If you live in California, which uses way less coal per capita than most of the U.S., driving a plug-in hybrid would be way more beneficial than if you live in, say, Missouri.

More to the point, the only truly green car is the one you don't own or drive.

I rest content in this knowledge.

― Ned Raggett

And yeah, ^^this^^ first and foremost

When will the fucking USA get serious about improving public mass transportation? Electric trolleys with 40 people on board make more sense than electric cars carrying one person.

I'm taking all my money out of the bank and buying neodymium

Not really metal but they could groove for some white boys.

http://www.nationmaster.com/wikimir/images/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b3/Rare-earth-20-cen-mast.jpg/250px-Rare-earth-20-cen-mast.jpg

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/tesla-model-s-gets-near-perfect-score-consumer-reports-satisfaction-survey.html

I really want a tesla

I'm very seriously considering in getting an EV, with the Leaf probably the make that I'd get. I basically only drive to the supermarket once a week (well, that was my pre-quarantine schedule; nowadays I also drive to a park to exercise twice a week, as I'm leery about taking the bus), and occasionally to visit the 'rents (about 40 miles away).

The leaf is not a great car, the battery is sub-par and it’s range estimates are wildy inaccurate which makes driving a bit of a gamble. Also none of the tech in the car is as good as it could be. Simple stuff like having to plug, unplug and replug your phone to get CarPlay or android auto is infuriating.

My pick for an electric car right. Or is the Hyundai ioniq. Probably the best value EV on the market right now, great battery, remarkably efficient, it’s easy to keep it below 120Wh/km which no other electric can touch in my experience. It’s not big flash, but it is a useful size and good quality.

Depending on where you are used VW eGolfs might be worth a look. Haven’t driven one, we don’t have them here, but they have a good rep.

Good tip! I'm a little wary of VW ever since their diesel debacle, tbh, even though I currently drive a (non-diesel) Beetle.

Most EVs can plug into a standard outlet, right? I don't imagine every really needing a fast-charging station.

Yes, standard outlet should be fine. You might want to install a wall box for the convenience of having a cable to hand and slightly faster charging.

Also check if you can get cheap over night power from you utility. You can often get a rate with a pretty good deal between say, midnight and 4am, and most, of not all EVs have a setting that allows you to preference when they charge.

Also great if you have solar and the car is parked at home when the sun shines.

the honda e is pretty. not sure about its spec

It does look cuet, but from a 10 second googling, it's not going to be available in the US. :(

...would the resulting surge in demand for electricity cancel out the environmental benefits of the drop in demand for petrol?

― Hello Sunshine, Wednesday, April 25, 2007 9:01 AM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

no. we have to drive less.

https://www.curbed.com/a/texas-california/electric-cars-climate-change-sacramento-california

“There is a persistent belief, among both state officials and the public, that clean cars and clean fuels alone can achieve California’s climate goals, but this is fundamentally untrue,” he says. “Even if we have 100 percent zero-emission vehicles and 75 percent renewable energy production by 2050—both ambitious goals—we still need a 15 percent reduction of VMT (vehicle miles travelled) beyond what current regional plans project to achieve.”

we like our chevy bolt just fine. we chose to lease rather than buy which still seems to be the general advice for new EVs.

i should be picking up a plug-in hybrid (toyota prius prime) in about 10 days or so. originally thought about an all-EV but i cant charge at home (big apt complex parking lot) and theres nowhere to charge at work, so that about cancelled that idea. looked at all the plug-in hybrids there are and can tell you a decent amount about each, ama.

(all the PHEV's in the US, that is)

Do you have to lease the battery? If so, how much do you pay? I hadn't realised until recently this was a thing with EVs (or it is in the UK anyway)

no, in the US it's just part of the cost of the car.

My folks just got one where they lease the battery but they had the option of buying it outright. Don't know if it was just this manufacturer that offer this.
Is the cabin noise noticeably less with a EV / hybrid?

I have no real idea how a plug-in hybrid works -- does it constantly run on a mix of electricity and gasoline or is the gasoline like a backup?

Depends on the car. Most have a certain amount of electric only driving. Some the petrol kicks in when you run low on battery, some if you exceed a certain speed or demand more acceleration than the electric motor alone can provide.

In rare cases the petrol motor is just there to recharge the batteries and doesn’t drive the wheels at all.

My folks just got one where they lease the battery but they had the option of buying it outright. Don't know if it was just this manufacturer that offer this.
Is the cabin noise noticeably less with a EV / hybrid?

― kinder, Sunday, April 4, 2021 2:56 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, the EV engine is super quiet, altho the road noise is still a factor

Another Q I have which is unrelated to plug-in hybrids: are Tesla's especially badly made cars or no? I get very mixed impressions from twitter and everyone seems to have an agenda.

tesla owners seem bad, elon musk is also bad, i have no idea bc i didnt look much into them bc expensive and cant drive long-distance in them.

it sucks tho bc tesla's are like single-handedly pwning the EV game right now

like at this point i think most commuters would be able to do the vast majority of their driving in electric mode assuming they can charge at home overnight, and depending on the size of your commute you def dont need tesla's gigantic battery packs (~400 miles at full charge) to do that.

It seems the early shipments of any Tesla have quality problems but they get fixed over time. This doesn’t seem to be unique to tesla, Hyundai just had to do a battery recall on their Kona. EVs and plenty of people have had to have a reduction gear or electric motor replaced under warranty.

Speaking of which the new Hyundai ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 (which are more or less the same car) look like tesla beaters, at least specs wise, although still not really mass market price wise. The big win is that, like a tesla, you can charge them mostly full in 10-15 minutes so you are no longer really dependent on having to charge at home over night. (Although that is still the cheapest option)

the fast-charging time is rly the difference maker tho the infrastructure is not there in the US except maybe in a few tech-heavy markets. there are some sparsely scattered level 2 charging stations around my area, for example. building up that capacity is where i'd rather the fed gov spend its EV money than subsidizing car purchases (tho tbh i could only afford this car with the subsidy so lol).

like at this point i think most commuters would be able to do the vast majority of their driving in electric mode assuming they can charge at home overnight, and depending on the size of your commute you def dont need tesla's gigantic battery packs (~400 miles at full charge) to do that.

― class project pat (m bison), Sunday, April 4, 2021 5:43 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean tbh I hadn't really given plug-in hybrids any thought before, but they seem like a potential solution to the chicken/egg problem of getting people to buy EVs vs building charging stations (i.e. you need enough demand for the charging stations but people are afraid to buy EVs because there aren't enough charging stations)

I also imagine our electrical grid is going to need some retooling before everyone can go full electric.

green new deal baby

Is the market for electric cars ethically driven or is it a thing like wind power that a lot of unscrupulous speculators have moved into.

Is it a thing that is trying to move away from exploitative mining where possible or is that something that the industry is stuck with. Just had the mining aspect brought up on a webinar I was at recently. So hoping that Ways are being developed to avoid needing minerals for components if that is possible. But it is the auto industry which hasn't been exactly scrupulous in the past and it is responding to some level of public demand. But how much Greenwich is involved. Or is the reduction of emissions in itself the end goal as far as people are concerned without thinking about what it takes to get there.

i think this is where the battery size matters a lot. its gonna require a shitload of lithium to make the tesla battery packs or any other strictly EV of considerable range (ie chevy bolt, etc). if those massively displace internal combustion engines, thats a lot more lithium. you'd need a fraction of the lithium to make the current wave of plug-in hybrids that have limited electric range but an ICE that can power it elsewhere. so thats the downside, still reliant upon fossil fuels to avoid the massive lithium requirements.

the solution is to ban cars ofc.

as far as auto manufacturers are concerned, i think they mostly dont know wtf to do with EVs of any kind. honda has a plug-in variety (honda clarity) that has been around for nearly 4 years and received basically little marketing. there is little product to be found at dealerships who are either uninterested in selling these things or unwilling to learn how to fix them. some manufacturers have loaded these cars up with substantial warranties on the battery components (hyundai's is a lifetime warranty for the initial owner, toyota is 10 yr/150k miles for whomever owns it) to mitigate this, but especially if you own one of these things in a market with little supply, theres a good chance your local shops won't know what to do with them if some aspect of the EV powertrain fucks up. at that point you take a risk on the reliability of that manufacturer.

so short version: auto companies dont wanna market them, dealers dont wanna sell them, and shops dont want to fix them. same old shit, big auto trying to strangle these things in the crib, but they spend enough money on making them that they look like they're honestly trying to make a go of it. tesla's success is at least testament to the idea that if these companies believed in their products theyd have more success with them.

just read my post back and phone autocorrected greenwash to Greenwich, how lovely

i figured it was that or greenpeace

i think most of the public relations appeal of "green" cars is the zero-emissions or at least zero-gasoline message it sends. i dont think theres enough public awareness around the environmental and human costs to mining lithium et al so i'd gather that auto companies dont give a shit. i think these folks are at least preparing for a future where they cant make ICEs (or as many) and pushing the idea that we can maintain our same driving habits as we transition to renewables, but thats patently untrue. still need to drive less, EVs running on renewable just means we dont need to cut back as much.

so anyway ban cars etc etc

i got to take a ride in a Polestar 2 about a month ago, and then last week a VolvoXC40 Recharge. tbh i was completely blown away by how they handled and the sheer power available. crazy.

i've been thinking about an electric car. i haven't owned a car since i was 18 years old but i now have kids, a dog.. it would be handy. and very possible in London.

you still like the Ioniq Ed?

any thoughts on your 3 months with the Prius Prime, m bison?

the Polestar guy told me he wouldn't buy a pure EV right now. he says there's no way to replace the battery in a Polestar and he thinks the battery recycling is a work in progress at best. still i'm tempted as i'd be just driving around town 95% of the time.

sorry those thoughts a little jumbled!

a Porsche Taycan passed by me the other day which was kind of a moment. this gleaming white shark-thing moving silently up High Road Leyton.

Also just read this which was an interesting way to think about the time it takes to charge - and the practical questions to think about to hit the sweet spot

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/07/09/the-future-of-ev-charging-may-be-at-50kw-not-the-gasoline-thinking-of-250kw/?sh=62dcfd3b7535

I still think the Ioniq is a great car. I’ve got a small fleet running around Brisbane and a couple have just passed 60,000km in pretty intensive use over a year or so, lots of fast charging. The batteries are almost as good as when they started, holding range and holding performance. These batteries will go

I wouldn’t trust any car industry person with advising me on whether to buy electric. Electric cars are lower margin and have lower trailing revenues and they’d rather sell you a high margin ICE vehicle until they can’t. Dealers will actively try and dissuade people from buying EVs.

I wouldn’t worry about battery replacement, most of the batteries going into cars right now will go ten years or more with ordinary consumer duty cycles. I was just looking at a Chinese made BYD with a 10 year 500,000km battery warranty and I have absolute confidence they can deliver that performance and more.

Battery recycling will be there by the time you dispose of your car, the minerals are just too valuable.

A used current gen Ioniq would be a good purchase I think. The new Ioniq 5 is really good, although a lot more expensive.

Awesome, thanks Ed.

The guy was actually employed by Polestar - which only makes one model - an electric! But I wasn't there to buy one, I was there with colleagues to hack into the Google-powered infotainment system to try out some beta apps - so I guess he felt free to be more honest?

Polestar is Volvo/Geely and still mainly volvo. Volvo have made a commitment to full electrification, but they’ve got a lot of old dead horse to flog.

Mentioned on another thread, I think, but the reason we decided not to get an EV this time around is that as a second car we wanted something that would do more than just supplement the primary car. That is, we'd want it for mostly local stuff and short distances (which would be in an EV's favor) but also, if necessary, longer distances, which really highlights EV's current limitations. That is, going 200+ miles on a charge (under ideal conditions) isn't the problem, it's the time required/wasted charging up en route or when you reach your destination, not to mention planning your trip around said charging stations. We planned out a couple hypothetical trips to see how we would go about charging, and it was pretty precarious. Even at its fastest an EV charge means 30-minutes minimum sitting at the station, iirc. Or an RV park, or a Walmart parking lot. But even if I was doing something mundane, like driving to Madison, WI, which is only about 2:30 away, factoring in another 30 minutes or more each way kind of sucks. Of course, there *are* cars with impressive electrical range and fast charging, but they're impractical luxuries for most people right now.

Anyway, just went back to read the article you posted, Tracer, and it's otm. Essentially we need more charging stations at more places people *want* to stop for 30 minutes to overnight. I imagine it could be a good investment to attract business, too. The comments on that article are useful, especially one that points out that there are a lot of charging stations not in operation, because they were installed do to grant/tax/whatever incentives, not because it was necessarily the best place for a charger, and therefore there is no incentive to repair the station. But if/when they become more common at restaurants and hotels, then even a slower charge might not be that objectionable.

The advantage of PHEVs, from my googling, is (ironically) that the batteries are pretty small, which means they can actually charge up from a standard wall outlet in just a few hours. The ones we test drove, though, were really pokey, which was one of a few too many compromises we couldn't quite get with given we'd be paying a premium for such a car. We did really like the Ioniq, fwiw, which seemed the hybrid most likely to draw from Toyota's dominance (which iirc is already fading a bit), though as I understand it the Ioniq has caught on more in other countries than in the US.

any thoughts on your 3 months with the Prius Prime, m bison?

its been great! i havent had many opportunities to charge, but ive been getting nearly 60 miles per gallon as an ICE hybrid. the times that ive been able to charge at relatives' houses ive been able to get the standard 25 miles of EV out of it.

i mean it's "pokey" (and unless you race cars, this is not a reason to not buy a car ime and imo) but it gets up to freeway speed fast enough.

i highly recommend checking out the carbon counter, just found this a day or two ago. https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore

everyone should listen to Ed imo. if i were getting a BEV i'd get the hyundai ioniq in a snap. in the US with the $7500 tax credit, the out the door cost could be under $20K easily if you ship from out of state.

we leased a phev BMW X3 last september because we needed a bigger car in general and i really didnt want it to be all gas. We went back and forth between the RAV4 hybrid (non plug in) and this, and settled on this for purely cosmetic reasons. it gets 15 miles on pure electric (not much, I know, but it handles most of the in-town day errand stuff which there was a lot of in the past year) but more if you travel a long distance and aren't accelerating or braking a lot. The biggest issue has been that there was a recall on the battery a month after we got it (batteries could blow up!0, which left it unchargeable for four months. To their credit they paid for two months of the lease as a result.

Lots of EVs seem to be running into the exploding battery issue. From what I read it might have something to do with charging it from empty or after a long period left low? Or maybe overcharging it? Something like that. I was reading a Bolt forum (there were a handful of Bolts that caught fire last spring, iirc), and even after all the recalls and updates and replacements lots of folks were limiting their charge to stop at 80% or something to further safeguard against whatever was happening.

One problem we ran into is that the Ioniq is not being sold in every state, for some reason. But yeah, the tax credit (which Teslas and Chevys, at least, can no longer offer) is appealing.

My mother in law actually bought and returned an Ioniq a couple of years ago. There is a big hill near her house in VA, and from a full stop she said the car really struggled, and she was worried about the winter, when conditions were even worse. She's not a car racer, afaik, it just made her uneasy. But different strokes, etc. Different people have totally different expectations for what a car should do or be able to do.

That's weird. One of the selling points of EV motors is that torque is applied directly to the axle, all at once. There are no gears. Hills should present no problem I'd have thought.

I think it was a hybrid model, tbh. Maybe that was it? None of the EVs seem to be particularly pokey, just many of the hybrids and PHEVs, though maybe not the latter in EV mode?

The Bolt we test drove had a ton of zip to it.

okay gotcha.

Lots of EVs seem to be running into the exploding battery issue.

Evidence please? I know of only a handful of battery fires and of those most of those start with the sort of accident that would call a petrol fire.

As for charging on long distance trips. I see having to stop for 30 minutes every 300km as a feature not a bug. Now having said that it would be better if it were 15 minutes. If regular long distance driving were what I needed a car for, I’d look as one of the newer generation of vehicles with 800Volt batteiees capable of charging at 120kW or higher. Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, the BYDs coming next year (plus all the teslas and most luxury options). This relies on there being ultra-fast charging available for those trips (not for everyday) and the UK and europe are well off in this regard, and parts of the US are well provided (PlugShare.com to find them)

Hybrids are how the auto industry muddies the water on EVs. A great idea 20 years ago, they are now an impediment for to full electrification. Don’t buy one unless there is poor access to charging where you are or you really need something in a category where there isn’t an EV yet.

Toyota are bunch of disingenuous fucks, with a poor electrification strategy who like to advertise ‘self-charging electric hybrids’. It’s mainly because they have nothing to sell that’s fully electric. If there’s charging where you live and where you want to go, there’s no need to mess with hybrids.

Lots of EVs seem to be running into the exploding battery issue.

Evidence please? I know of only a handful of battery fires and of those most of those start with the sort of accident that would call a petrol fire.

As for charging on long distance trips. I see having to stop for 30 minutes every 300km as a feature not a bug. Now having said that it would be better if it were 15 minutes. If regular long distance driving were what I needed a car for, I’d look as one of the newer generation of vehicles with 800Volt batteiees capable of charging at 120kW or higher. Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, the BYDs coming next year (plus all the teslas and most luxury options). This relies on there being ultra-fast charging available for those trips (not for everyday) and the UK and europe are well off in this regard, and parts of the US are well provided (PlugShare.com to find them)

Hybrids are how the auto industry muddies the water on EVs. A great idea 20 years ago, they are now an impediment for to full electrification. Don’t buy one unless there is poor access to charging where you are or you really need something in a category where there isn’t an EV yet.

Toyota are bunch of disingenuous fucks, with a poor electrification strategy who like to advertise ‘self-charging electric hybrids’. It’s mainly because they have nothing to sell that’s fully electric. If there’s charging where you live and where you want to go, there’s no need to mess with hybrids.

Well, here's a Bolt one that caught my eye:

https://electrek.co/2021/05/07/exclusive-the-latest-chevy-bolt-fire-reveals-troubling-pattern-that-owners-should-be-aware-of/

This one was from last fall:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/success/electric-car-vehicle-battery-fires/index.html

I could have sworn I just saw a story about two other brands a couple of days ago, will keep searching. Here's something about Hyundai recalling the ... Kona?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hyundai-motor-electric-recall/kona-ev-owners-say-hyundai-mishandling-recall-for-battery-fires-idUSKBN2BG3ET

I think these are all similar problems, but not only are they not ultimately that common, I don't anyone has been hurt yet, either. Still, it's sometimes a thing.

I don't want to let car manufacturers off the hook, especially with mishandling recalls which is an endemic problem not just with EVs, however here's a quote from that CNN article.

By all indications, electric car battery fires remain infrequent occurrences, even compared to gasoline and diesel fires. But they get attention because electric vehicle technology is still considered relatively new.

Compare this to the Takata Airbags recall, where at least 27 people died, and the car companies were arguing against fixing anything

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defects/takata-airbag-recall-everything-you-need-to-know/

Let's be clear though, cars shouldn't catch fire, ever. However I don't think that this is a risk that should put anyone off buying an EV.

I agree. Though I do think the fact that it's happened to several different brands makes me think there are a few bugs still to be worked out here.

Sort of like the bugs with diesel and gasoline engines, but not as bad

Just in Case

Y'all can care or not care. I don't particularly care. Is it a big deal? Has anyone died? Is it anywhere near as bad as Insert Your ICE Car recall/disaster/explosion Here? Certainly not yet, not at modest EV car numbers. But Ed asked for "evidence," and I offered a few links. Make of it what you will.

Good summary :)

I've done a little more research. You can get up to £2500 off the purchase of these models in the UK - as long as they're under £35K RRP:

https://www.gov.uk/plug-in-car-van-grants

In my borough in London, they're doing good things:
https://www.newham.gov.uk/transport-streets/electric-vehicle-charging-points

I have one of these new charging points at the end of my street. No way to charge at my own house because I don't have a driveway but this ought to work. 2-4 hours, then move it. I wouldn't be driving every day anyway.

Particularly excited about this idea to turn lampposts into charging points?!

The lovely Emma B is talking me down from this. 'If everybody drove electric cars we'll end up just adding more nuclear plants' 'We live in London' etc - and while these details are fuzzy I know in my heart of hearts we can get by without one.

There's Zip cars, rentals, etc if we really need one.

Then there's also this new breed of 'car as a subscription' idea. One make launching later in the year is from (Geely owned) 'Lynk & Co.' - https://www.lynkco.com/en/sharing/borrow-the-01

I believe the idea is twofold. You can buy a monthly subscription for a Lynk & Co. car, like a lease, and then rent it out to other people when you're not using it. Trade up later to a new model if you want to.

OR - you don't have to actually own the car. You can borrow a Lynk & Co. car like a Zip car.

Having said everything above. Owning a car is for suckers. It’s a hopelessly under-utilised rapidly depreciating lump of metal. I haven’t owned a car since 2006, but I can always get one if I need it. I use the local share cars, which are disappointingly still ICE vehicles.

The car companies need to sell electric vehicles to knuckle-walkers, and I know just how to do it: A commercial where a manly man drives a gigantic electric pickup down the street listening to "Bad To The Bone" as prune-faced old ladies and obnoxious skater kids glare at him, only to be vaporized by bolts of lightning as he passes.

lightning from its exploding batteries

maybe they could offset the emissions by burning a truckload of tyres for every EV-SUV sold

The only Trumpy guy I know is my neighbor across the alley, who has a PHEV with a Ben Carson bumper sticker on it. They should just offer EVs with Don't Tread On Me paint jobs and they would be selling like crazy. Or tell people they *can't* buy an EV, which would be like red meat for red states.

I'm rooting for EVs and plan to get one as soon as is practical. But this is an OK summary of 'sploding cars:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/04/tesla-fire/

SAN FRANCISCO — Yogi and Carolyn Vindum were still asleep late last year when their Tesla Model S beamed an alert that charging was interrupted.

Twelve minutes after that, they awoke to a blaring car alarm and a fire consuming their house in San Ramon, Calif. The blaze had started in one of the two electric vehicles in their garage and spread to the other.

“If we had lived upstairs in this house, we’d be dead,” said Yogi Vindum, a retired mechanical engineer.

The fire, which has not previously been reported, is one in a string of recent examples showing what can happen when electric cars are left parked in garages to charge overnight. The issue is causing mounting concern as a number of electric-vehicle makers have warned owners not to leave the cars charging unattended in certain circumstances, or sitting fully charged in garages.

Automakers including General Motors, Audi and Hyundai have recalled electric vehicles over fire risks in recent years and have warned of the associated dangers.

Chevrolet last year advised owners not to charge their vehicles overnight or keep their fully charged vehicles in garages. It recalled more than 60,000 of its Bolt electric vehicles over concerns about the cars spontaneously combusting while parked with full batteries or charging, after reports of five fires without prior impact damage. The company issued another recall last month covering the same vehicles after two reports of battery fires in repaired vehicles.

A Tesla Model S erupted ‘like a flamethrower.’ It renewed old safety concerns about the trailblazing sedans.

“We don’t think every vehicle has this rare manufacturing defect,” General Motors spokesman Dan Flores said. “But we can’t take a chance, so we’re recalling all the vehicles.”

Tesla, which does not typically answer media inquiries, did not respond to a request for comment. Hyundai spokesman Michael Stewart said the company announced a recall for its Kona EV in March in order to replace the battery. Stewart said owners were advised to lower the maximum state of charge in their vehicles to 80 percent, and park outside until the state of charge is lowered.

Audi did not immediately have comment.

Automakers face numerous challenges as they race to get electric vehicles to consumers ahead of regulatory and company deadlines for shifting production away from gas-powered vehicles. They face skepticism about the availability of charging stations, concerns about vehicle range and apprehensions over cost. Fires have drawn attention because of the high-profile recalls and blazes that followed product rollouts, analysts say, further complicating the automakers’ calculations.

Tesla in the past has argued that its cars are a tenth as likely to catch fire as gas-powered vehicles, drawing on data from the National Fire Protection Association and U.S. Federal Highway Administration.

Still, safety experts note that the fires can burn more intensely and last much longer.

“Battery fires can take up to 24 hours to extinguish,” Tesla’s website says in an emergency response guide for the Model S. “Consider allowing the battery to burn while protecting exposures.”

Tesla owners have reported numerous fires involving older-model vehicles, though not all under the same circumstances. The Washington Post has documented at least five fires involving the Model S, including the blaze on Dec. 30, 2020, that destroyed much of the Vindums’ home in San Ramon. In that case, Yogi Vindum recalled, at least six firetrucks came to the home.

Also late last year, flames started shooting out of a five-year-old Tesla Model S in Frisco, Tex., and firefighters struggled to gain access to the cabin after the motorized doors failed to open. Tesla said in 2019 that it had sent investigators to the site of an explosion involving a Model S in a Shanghai car park. Surveillance video showed smoke billowing from the parked car before a fiery blast. In 2018, a Tesla Model S caught fire “out of the blue” on a Los Angeles street, said actress Mary McCormack, whose husband owned the vehicle. Tesla acknowledged that the flames came from the battery.

In late June, a new, top-of-the-line Tesla Model S Plaid was destroyed when it erupted in flames shortly after the owner took delivery of the vehicle.

Meanwhile, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating Tesla’s battery management system since 2019. The agency said Tuesday it does not comment on open investigations.

Tesla had come under scrutiny over concerns it allegedly manipulated battery software in older vehicles to lessen the risk of fire. The company has proposed a settlement over the issue, and Elon Musk tweeted late last month: “If we are wrong, we are wrong. In this case, we were.”

NHTSA opened an investigation into Chevrolet Bolt fires in October 2020, before the initial recall of that vehicle.

Battery-powered vehicles have not been shown to catch fire at rates higher than gasoline cars, but when fires do erupt, they burn longer and hotter, propelled by lithium-ion batteries that supercharge the blazes, experts say. Including gas-powered cars, the National Fire Protection Association says there were 189,500 overall highway vehicle fires in the United States in 2019, encompassing passenger and other types of road vehicles.

The case involving the Vindums’ cars is unique because it involved two electric vehicles parked next to each other in a garage, demonstrating the explosive force they can unleash when burning.

A fire inspection report obtained by the Vindums in July cited the Tesla Model S’s thermal management system as one of two possible causes of the fire, the other being a fault in the car’s electrical system as it was charging.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the specifics of the Vindums’ case, including a short narrative of the events and the Vindums’ view of Tesla’s response to the fire.

Yogi Vindum, who described himself as a Tesla fan, missed the initial alert to his iPhone at 5:25 a.m. In the garage, where the 2013 Tesla Model S 85 had been charging overnight, flames broke out and began spreading rapidly. The other Tesla Model S was parked next to it. The garage erupted in flames, with violent explosions powerful enough to blow off the metal garage doors, they said.

A blaring car alarm woke them up. The house was filling with smoke and alarms were going off as they escaped, he said.

From across the street, the Vindums watched as their home went up in flames. Footage from a nearby doorbell camera includes audible explosions.

The Vindums have not been able to live in their home since the Dec. 30 fire, which led to more than $1 million worth of damage, according to a report from the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District, which was viewed by The Post.

“The firemen said it was so hot that they couldn’t walk up the driveway,” Vindum said.

Vindum eventually replaced the Teslas with a gasoline-powered Audi from the insurance payout, which covered the Blue Book values of the cars. He was disappointed, he said, in what he described as Tesla’s lack of interest after the fire. The charred shells of the cars sat in the couple’s driveway for weeks “waiting for Tesla to assess what went wrong.”

“They never showed as far as I know,” Vindum said.

The fire at his home changed his perspective on whether vehicle fires present a unique risk for owners of electric cars.

“Gasoline driven cars don’t catch fire in the garage when they’re sitting there. And that’s the difference,” he said. “I don’t worry about (my) Audi catching fire downstairs when it’s not running.”

> trailblazing sedans

can't decide whether this is a good or bad choice of words

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7c/4d/14/7c4d14d83803877e4ab059483c2a57ec.jpg

FUD

josh do you keep your toaster plugged in?

No, because they keep burning down my house.

any sufficiently new technology might have new failure modes. if you want, you can use these to justify never changing.

I'm still pissed off that I can't find good whale oil for my lamps anymore, but I heard that electricity was dangerous

josh:

https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/it-may-be-time-to-send-your-toaster-to-the-trash-heap/

I'm rooting for toasters and plan to get one as soon as is practical.

Fully electric is the future, but we're on our 3rd Chevy Volt (with a V) lease and we've LOVED them. One thing to note is that I never even installed a fast charger - just plugged it into a wall outlet (not even on its own circuit) and charge it overnight. There's always enough juice for the commute which is 35 miles round trip. The latest Volt gets 50 electric before switching to gas which means their range is functionally endless. We've only used gas a few times - or when the car forces you to use it after 6 months to make sure the gas doesn't go stale. The leases were CHEAP and we're sad they're discontinuing them. I highly recommend a used one - especially if you can confirm it was mostly used electrically.

Here are some signs that you should part ways with your toasty friend:

The cord is frayed or coming apart from the plug or toaster.
It shoots sparks...even tiny ones.
You get a little jolt of electricity when you touch it. (And no, I'm not talking about the excitement you get when you're about to grab a toaster waffle.)

Thank god for this guidance, my frayed-cord toaster has been shooting sparks and shocking me when I touch it, but now I know it's not me, it might be the toaster.

Next time I'm getting a gas-fueled toaster, that's for sure.

lol. just want to make sure you’re unplugging that bad boy as all manufacturers recommend. all toasters sold in north america are considered “attended appliances” which mean they must be unplugged when not in use.

that's why i stand extra close to the microwave too

It must suck to be a Fisker owner now lol

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/fisker-leaves-headquarters-trashed-landlord-says-19823688.php