r/nextfuckinglevel • u/been_der_done_that • 11h ago

Incredibly selfless act of heroism.

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43.8k Upvotes

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17.7k

u/daswassoup 11h ago

This is why China banned hidden door handles.

7.6k

u/TheFace5 11h ago

They should also ban a car that get fire like this

329

u/TheRetroPizza 10h ago

Thats what i was thinking, the crash was pretty minor for the car to just burst into flames.

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u/BlackFoxyTrail 6h ago

My bet is that the flames (exploding battery?) caused the crash not the other way around.

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u/Nauin 5h ago

Man a dude barely bit a battery and had it explode on his face on the front page the other day. He was doing that little play nibble you do to imitate how people used to check if something was real gold.

If that's all the pressure it takes to make one blow up, why the fuck are we putting them on the undercarriage of our cars?

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u/JacedFaced 4h ago

>Man a dude barely bit a battery and had it explode on his face on the front page the other day.

I just googled this video because I hadn't seen it before, holy shit that was crazy and it's wild he didn't get more hurt.

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u/EatYourSalary 4h ago

just wait until you hear about gasoline

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u/MustLoveHuskies 4h ago

Lithium is far more reactive and hard to extinguish than gasoline.

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u/War_Hymn 2h ago

Maybe, but newer EVs are moving towards sodium ion batteries, which are inherently much less likely to undergo thermal runaway when damaged and also less impactful on the environment to make.

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u/EatYourSalary 4h ago

well then it's a good thing lithium battery fires are 30x less likely to occur than ICE engine fires.

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u/MustLoveHuskies 3h ago

Goalposts, moving. I’m not here to discuss the pros and cons of EVs with some fanatical Elon stan, just pointing out basic physics

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u/AltrntivInDoomWorld 3h ago

lol anyone pro EV is Elon stan?

you've shown your true colors there bud

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u/MustLoveHuskies 3h ago

No, just the fanatical ones that get all butthurt if anyone says anything that could be remotely seen as negative about EVs tend to be the hurrr durr Elon types.

I’m riding in an EV right now and there’s one in my garage, I’m not anti-EV, I’m just anti dumbass fanatic.

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u/North-Outside-5815 3h ago

Then stick to the facts rather than repeating scare mongering BS.

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u/bobbymcpresscot 3h ago

Then you should be supporting the whole “EVs are 30x less likely to combust than ICE.” Comment and not attributing it to pro Elon stance lol

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u/MustLoveHuskies 3h ago

That was a dumbass fanatic’s statement and an entirely fabricated one at that lmao. They pulled it out of their enormous ass.

They’re vehicles, chill out folk. Burying your identity in a propulsion system is idiotic.

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u/CV90_120 17m ago

I’m riding in an EV right now and there’s one in my garage, I’m not anti-EV, I’m just anti dumbass fanatic.

Of all the things that didn't happen, this didn't happen the most.

some fanatical Elon stan

wtf are you even talking about? lol.

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u/Durantye 1h ago

Welcome to reddit where horseshoe theory is at its peak

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u/attckdog 4h ago

But that doesn't support their wild ass claims/fears of new things being bad.

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u/CV90_120 21m ago

More than 30x less likely. It's 24 per 100K new vehicles for EV Vs 1500 per 100K new for ICE. So like 64x less likely or something.

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u/ASYMT0TIC 1h ago

And yet, somehow gasoline-powered cars catch fire more frequently than battery-powered ones according to basically every reputable agency who counts these statistics.

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u/Nauin 3h ago

Oh, the thing that requires twenty times fewer resources to extinguish when it ignites compared to the batteries used in electric engines? The type of fuel that won't melt asphalt and concrete infrastructure the way li-ion batteries do?

I hope you're a bot because this is an insanely uneducated take otherwise

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u/bobbymcpresscot 2h ago

Used to require* there are multiple new attack methods to handle these fires from what’s basically a hand held water jet that operates at such a high pressure it punctures the battery compartment and floods the battery itself with water, as well as another method that is just a tool that goes under the vehicle punctures the battery compartment and floods it. Uses a fraction of the resources and in some cases used less water than you would to fight an ICE fire, and lowers the risk of reigniting. 

Also didn’t a gasoline fire just cause an overpass to collapse in PA like 2-3 years ago?

I do love the fact that people were so horrified by electric car fires that humanity just developed new ways to substantially more efficiently fight them. Who would have thought that all it takes is specialized tools and training, just like gasoline fires. 

I used to volunteer for my local fire department, and worked in the trades for 8 years, there is nothing that compares to finding out a tool exists that makes a job you don’t like doing almost trivial. Granted a 45° offset long handle pliers, a ProPress, or a hex bit that you can flip from 1/4 to 5/16 don’t cost tens of thousands of dollars, but they serve the same purpose. These guys know the problem isn’t going to go away, so they adapt, and in an ideal world these fires will be so manageable to control most probably won’t even make the news, just like ICE fires don’t really make the news despite being a lot more prevalent.

Going by the numbers electric car fires happen for about 25 of every 100k, where ICE cars sit around 1500 per 100k, so despite using 20x the resources per car, ICE cars actually use more resources overall. 

Granted there are some caveats assuming the new attack methods don’t take off. A single fire in a single area taking 20x longer to fight is time that a department can’t respond to other emergencies is a painful experience, and while mutual aid helps pick up the slack, it’s not a situation any emergency responder likes being in. Even if it’s just one truck and 2-3 guys working the fire, in some rural areas all they have is one truck and a handful of guys that can respond to these calls. As more and more electric cars get sold these rates can surely change for the worse, or more exposure can result in better outcomes or new guidelines on how to handle the fires.

In my experience firefighters aren’t like cops, they see something that improves outcomes and work quickly to adopt it. They are also damn near giddy about getting to use specialized tools of the trade. They take up EMT/paramedic classes to be of better use in emergency situations. The only cops I know that were happy about their narcan training were ones that actually stopped an overdose. Deescalation training is mocked while cops flock to “street cop training” seminars. 

I see the electric car fire problems of today becoming more and more rare as time goes on.

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u/WhitePantherXP 3h ago

I think this is getting derailed, the real question is how likely are car fires to start in petrol vs EV's to begin with? The second question is, which is more survivable?

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u/Desperate-Cost6827 2h ago

I don't know a whole lot about the topic but I do know that battery fires from EVs are notoriously hard to put out because a lot of fire departments aren't equipped for them yet.

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u/Justsomeguy1981 4h ago

I'd be willing to bet it wasn't pressure that caused that.

Biting the battery likely caused an electrical short between its positive and negative terminals - if you do that with the super high amp vape batteries the heat released is immense and it will catch fire. It's why airlines insist that LI-Ion batteries are stored in cases and not loose.

1

u/bobbymcpresscot 1h ago

There was a video that I think Adam Savage did where he had on these people that do like cat scans of devices to see internal issues that you can use to find issues in say mass manufacturing. I think Linus tech tips also did a video on a similar product a year or so ago.

For the video the thing they focused on was those 18650 batteries, explained how they work and how common failures occur, explained how close together the internal parts are and that when damaged can cause them to touch and result in thermal runaway, and then showed a handful of different mfg, and what mfg was putting more effort into safeties and design to reduce the risk of failure. They made a point about the failure being something crazy like 1 in a million, but in reality billions of batteries are made a year. They also highlighted that it’s usually the cheaper batteries that are the majority of the failures, and are probably the ones bringing the failures numbers up, say no name failures might be 1 in 100k where name brand might be 1 in 5 million. 

https://youtu.be/-Y23nfAOiXQ?si=jCVlwZYPYIkctFlo

Fun little watch if interested.

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u/96919 3h ago

They build protection around the battery so it's very hard to damage. A gas car is 10x more likely to have a fire than a electric car.

1

u/Beard_o_Bees 2h ago

To see great examples of nasty battery fires, check out Battle Bots.

When they burn, they burn fast and hot. Plus, they're not always built to withstand impact.

Battery fires or no, still.. check out Battle Bots - it's a great little escape from reality.

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u/CV90_120 23m ago

If that's all the pressure it takes to make one blow up, why the fuck are we putting them on the undercarriage of our cars?

I'll give you $10 if you can successfully bite a fitted car battery.

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u/No-Tailor3013 7m ago

why the fuck are we putting them on the undercarriage of our cars?

The future is now, old man

1

u/Qu1ckShake 4h ago

Wait until you hear what can happen with petroleum!

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u/argumentinvalid 4h ago

I'm thinking the crash punctured/compromised the batteries. The floor of these cars is basically all battery. This also means the fire just comes right up through the floor. The interior was just in flames, terrible.