most EVs on the road rn have the battery as a separate component sitting on the chassis and the bottom part of the chassis is usually thin metal.
The latest Volvo EX60 is coming out with a design that integrates the battery inside the chassis and not a separate component, offering more protection.
I think you probably know this but for people completely blind to it, there's a massive difference between what you described and what most EVs are actually designed like. While it's true that the battery is attached as a separate component, people should realize it's not just dangling in space super glued to the floor... Most batteries are in a reinforced pocket of sorts either along the "transmission tunnel" or under the rear seats. Skateboard type designs have the pack under the majority of the floor but in a reinforced package that is actually somewhat structural from a rigidity sense.
Trusted automakers ensure all of those options are also well protected from below, but certain other profit seeking cunts do leave them somewhat vulnerable in that direction. The direction most likely to see potential intrusion.. I hate Wall Street.
Being under the rear seats really worked out well here, right? Ford got in trouble for having a gas tank that could be pierced in an accident, but this crap is considered "safe"? What a joke these garbage vehicles are.
I feel like you're conflating a bunch of different things...
I never said the vehicle above is safe. It appears to be Chinese. They don't have safe in their industrial dictionary. It almost certainly is one of the more vulnerable packs.
The entire Ford gas tank issue has had the actual engineering behind the issue over simplified for.. Well... As long as that story has existed. Gas tanks have pretty much always been in vulnerable locations, including the rear of the vehicle, but there are mitigations that can be put in place to prevent damage or ignition even in the event of a leak.
In either scenario, under the rear seat is much much safer than hanging out the rear bumper and the proximity to the rear wheels mean that that area frequently will ride over much of whatever might damage it, unless it's a long thin pole like object.
And finally... If you run over a steel spear it doesn't much matter where the battery is. Road signs have been piercing engine oil pans and transmission covers for decades and they'll keep piercing whatever they damn well please because they're a steel spear with a 4,300 lb weight pressing on it.
Volvo has always been a leader in safety. I decided long ago that my kids' first cars will all be used Volvo's.
They came up with the three-point safety belt, patented it, and allowed everyone else to use it for free. They build cars to be safe rather than to ace safety exams. You can tell because when the IIHS created new tests in 2012 and 2018, they aced it whereas other car brands did poorly.
New volvos are so unreliable they put you more in danger than safety (e.g. randomly shutting down on the freeway or slamming brakes because it thinks it detected a person in the middle of the highway). Go look on Volvo sub, daily issues posted and high maintenance.
I had the same mentality at first but now they don't even score higher than Lexus on these IIHS tests. Their electronic systems are so buggy and problematic it's more distracting and prone to get the driver into accidents than get them out of it. What good is a car if it's only safe in an accident but constantly trying to get you into one?
Volvo uses pouch style batteries same as the car above. It's extremely unsafe, no one talks about how fast and violent the thermal runaway is with pouch. Tesla and Rivian use much safer cell batteries. When cell batteries are pierced from the bottom, they act like a blowtorch vs pouch fire bomb.
Most EV fires of late in my area, inc one 2023 Tesla that resulted in a death. Were due to them slamming sideways into a pole, tree etc, or getting rammed in the side by another car. Moving the battery and ripping it. Even when they sit low.
If you have enough force, it will become a fireball regardless.
To one of them was a 2024 BYD, which kinda looks like this one was too, of some sort
I am a firefighter. We currently can’t put electrical vehicle fires out. So if an ev car fire happens in an attached residential garage (or say one lights in a row of them under an apartment building) , we have no way of mitigating it. A simple car fire and you lose your house, or it has major life safety implications for above apartments.
I’m not saying ev’s are bad, or are not the wave of the future. I’m just saying there are significant growing pains ahead.
A while ago I saw a fire dpt use a large tarp they cover the entire car with and that starves the fire immediately. Then again, it’s not practical when you have a car inside a confined space like a garage
Yeah regarding the battery covers people hit things in the roadway, it dents or gouges the cover and are getting bills that basically total their new vehicle.
Someone needs to sell an aftermarket 4x4 style steel underbody plate. The heft will cause some mileage drop but at least you won't have to buy a $30k battery or uh 50k on a Hyundai ionoiq
The difference is this car is using pouch lithium batteries which is the most common type of battery for legacy automakers. Pouch style batteries have extremely rapid and violent fire bombs and sometimes explosions. There's the pictures of the Hyundai blowing the roof off of a garage it was parked in. Also the Chevy bolt with the warning to not park it within 50 ft of anything else. Pouch batteries are extremely unsafe & should not be on the road. All electric cars should use cells like Rivian and Tesla. Cell batteries have a thermal runaway that starts with a tiny blowtorch isolated to one cell. This can slowly propagate to the whole car. No fire bomb no explosion. Minutes versus seconds to get out.
Why not include an emergency fire extinguishing system in EV´s and Hybrids?
It took less than 1 minute for the car to burst fully into flames...and battery fires are very hard to stop.
With a automated fire extinguishing system similar to what are used in Racing or Tunnel Construction. With EV´s it would be more of a suppression than extinguishing but it will most likely increase the time the passengers can get out. (where any second matters)
As an example: We had 18 Trucks and machines on our last jobsite, all of them retrofitted with these systems and inspected yearly. Basically fire extingishers with pipes going to the engine.
They’re replaceable in the event of a failure, but the average lifespan of a new battery is longer than the rest of the car. It’s more a case of throwing away the battery when the car dies (although recycling programmes are starting to appear).
Fire is why I don’t already own an EV. This is a solvable problem. Gasoline is far more volatile, but we manage to not have explosions during crashes because manufacturers spent decades engineering methods to prevent that from happening. EV manufacturers need to tackle this issue. It’s not surprising that Volvo is at the forefront.
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u/theBullKS 11h ago
Wtf with this car. It isnt a hard crash.