Featured No boat for you

A Prius battery is very reasonable cost wise to replace - it is not very challenging if you have electrical training.
It is also not hard to rebuild/repair the old battery if you have proper electrical training, tools (battery balancing chargers etc) and can follow online direction

2006 Toyota Prius Hybrid Battery Replacement - Best Hybrid Batteries




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also a wealth of Prius Battery reconditioning tools available

 

I'm not sure your reply is a reply to what Trollbait said. Trollbait's words, "Without a spark" (which you even quoted), would seem to be about the initial input of energy that begins combustion. You seem to be replying with the fact that combustion, once underway, is exothermic. I'm not sure I saw anyone doubting that.

 

'Cost prohibitive' isn't the same as 'costs more than car replacement'. Tesla packs that are referred to as structural are glued together; they are essentially one module. You can't open up the pack to replace just the problem module as is this case with many other pack designs. replacing an entire pack, case and all, is going to cost more than replacing just an interior piece that is a third, quarter, etc. of the pack's capacity.

As for shipping packs separate from the car. Any car with the structural pack removed is going to have a less stiff chassis, which could lead to damage during transit.

The AI also says this, "Oxygen-acetylene mixtures do not spontaneously combust but require an ignition source to ignite. Acetylene is highly ignitable, and a spark or flame can easily initiate combustion, especially when mixed with pure oxygen, which drastically lowers the required ignition energy. While acetylene can undergo explosive decomposition under high pressure (above 15 psi), this is a self-driven explosion, not true spontaneous combustion."

I wasn't speaking of spraying water into the pack. There are nozzles that are just under carriage washers sized for fire truck hoses. The spray is mostly for cooling down the battery by hosing down the under panel of the case.

A large portion of car fires don't involve fuel, traction batteries, or even other fluids. It is just all the plastics in the car burning. Hosing down the pack cools the battery. This will slow the reaction going on inside; doesn't have to put the fire out, or stop the thermal runaway, just get it small to more easily control. It also will keep radiated heat from igniting other fuel sources in the car. A blanket further helps but cutting off outside oxygen.

Yep. Putting out a fire by spraying water on it isn't smothering it. The water is cooling the fuel to the point combustion no longer occurs.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. I've rebuilt the battery once already and have all the tools including to charge and balance the whole pack, but the whole thing really needs to be replaced as now it's a whack-a-mole battery module replacement game.

But the car isn't worth it. The engine burns way too much oil and also needs replaced, the catalytic converter needs replaced (and this is a California compliant state, so no used cats and no aftermarket ones), I need to replace a wheel bearing, I'm still trying to fix issues with an accident that squished the front and I had to get a hood and fender and bumper and lights that still don't line up and I still need to replace the windshield, I'm having now several electrical issues and codes as the dash doesn't work nor can I see my speed, and now the water pump died yet again. So I need to just find the time to haul it off to a junk yard and forget about it.

 

I understand what your saying - I sold a 2008 Prius in 2019 after owning it for 12 years and 125,000 miles.
It still got 52 mpg but felt it was on a limited lifespan at that point.

I had to replace a wheel bearing on it - what a nightmare - because of the metals used on the hub and bearing assembly they basically weld together over time. Ended up in a Machine shop and finally after putting it in a hydraulic press and heating up the hub, it broke loose after about 2 hours of fooling with it.

 

@bwilson4web had his pack replaced by tesla, around 9k iirc

 

9k as in $9,000? That's good info to know.

Or did you mean 9k as in 9,000 miles?

 

$9,000. he has a thread on it.replacing-my-model-3-battery.254982

 

That's right, now I remember. And it sounds like with more modern monitoring apps and such that it would be possible to avoid the same problem if it happened again.

 

Not just monitoring apps, but the system itself updates regularly and adds such monitoring elements.