Featured Big EV company fire

End of Life cars. So most likely EVs with old lithium ion batteries. They just recently switched to LFP 5 years ago but are still use Lithium Ion as well.

 

If you notice. Almost all portable power stations switched to LFP. But Ebikes and Escooters still use Lithium ion and those are catching fire like crazy. Everyday one is catching on fire.

Fire experts ‘kept awake’ over growing hazard of lithium-ion batteries | Lithium-ion batteries | The Guardian

 

I had to modify my ebike to take LFP. But my escooter I couldn't.

 

LFP is a type of lithium-ion battery. It refers only to the cathode chemistry of the lithium-ion battery, such as NMC or other chemistries. There is no other difference than other lithium-ion battery types, really. LFP is a less-flammable, cheaper cathode material, yes, but it’s also heavier per kWh and performs worse than the more expensive, more premium NMC cathode material.

LFP-cathode lithium-ion batteries could be safer than NMC-cathode lithium-ion batteries, yes, but they are still awfully dangerous:

https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocRefId=%7BB0A3DD95-0000-CD5E-934A-5151244BC6E0%7D&DocTitle=LFP%20Batteries%20Are%20Dangerous%202-24-25

 

We had one case of a Prius driver report their LFP traction pack caught on fire. But after closer look, it just off gassed a lot and a lot of heat. But not even the foam padding caught on fire. And that is reassuring that your whole car won't burn down. He replaced the pack back and kept on driving.

This guy also states thermal run-away happens but not out of control fire.

I'm definitely leaning toward Sodium Ion batteries, but their availability is very low and only starting to enter the market. I think that is why Jack switched to Sodium Ion packs for NexPower. The risk of fire drops even more.

 

and while you're talking them down all you want, you might add that LFP is much more resilient to being charged up to 100% without losing CAPACITY - or having to use a massive upper buffer

 

new bolt got LFP, people are pretty happy about it. much safer and better charging dynamics

 

Not saying LFP is bad, but addressing the common misconception that LFP is not lithium-ion. It uses the same lithium-ion technology but with a different cathode active material (LFP) than the widely used NMC. So, LFP refers only to the cathode active material, not to the battery framework.

 

Most people mean the 3.6-3.7V nominal voltage chemistries such as NMC, NCA, LMO, LCO, etc. when they refer to "lithium-ion batteries" and then call lithium-ion batteries with lower voltages by their proper name, such as LFP or LTO batteries. I don't include LFP batteries in as lithium-ion batteries in my normal vocabulary unless we are talking about technical details because it only clouds communication. It's very clumsy to say "LFP vs. three-point-six to three-point-seven lithium-ion chemistries." Instead, "LFP vs. lithium-ion" is perfectly understandable by your average English speaker even if excluding LFP from lithium-ion is technically incorrect.

Languages are fluid. Nothing we say truly makes sense if you analyze it too much. Perfectionism only makes things harder to understand.

 

Most people are clueless about the nominal cell voltage of a lithium-ion battery.

 

But do they care? If not, then trying to explain the semantics only falls on deaf ears.

 

Only if they are trying to match cells for a drone or some other such thing where such voltage or weights actually matter.

 

There are people who care and those who don't. It's best to explain these things those who care.

How many people care about standing wave ratios?
How many people care about subjunctive tenses?
How many people care about the difference in bread with either yeast or baking soda?
How many people care about the ISO/aperture/shutter-speed triangle?

A couple of days ago I was trying to explain to my 20-year-old niece why I was wanting a certain camera because it has a large adjustable aperture so I can get that bokeh effect where the background looks out of focus. So, she immediately suggested that I just get an iPhone instead because there's a setting called "portrait mode" that does all that.

 

"In one incident, a 75-year-old woman from New Jersey who died when the power bank exploded in her lap while she was charging her phone. She suffered second and third-degree burns, later dying from complications.

Another major incident involves a 47-year-old woman who was charging her phone on a plane and suffered first-degree burns when her power bank “caught on fire and exploded”. "

https://cybernews.com/news/430000-casely-power-banks-recalled-after-woman-dies-in-charger-explosion/

The entire powerbank, ebike, escooter needs to start making the shift to more stable chemistry soon. Car jumper packs with lithium ion left in the car doesn't sound like a good idea.

 

Most people are clueless about whether their plug in is using NMC or NCA. There is a higher chance they know the battery in the standard range model(LFP) is generally safer than the Li-ion one in the long range model.

The 'typical' Li-ion chems are grouped together in public discourse, because their behavior and treatment is virtually the same. While LFP has different safety limits and care requirements.

 

If you notice, more and more car dashcams are using super capacitors that can tolerate higher heat. They realize that leaving a dashcam with lithium ion kills the battery very fast. No lithium ion based dashcam will survive very long.

 

Most people don’t even know their batteries contain lithium.

And don’t count on your battery not catching fire if it has an LFP cathode. Videos of cars with LFP batteries catching fire even in minor crashes are all over the Internet. Safer? Perhaps. But that will probably not help you much when things go wrong. No lithium-ion battery is safe in a crash. And LFP is lithium-ion.

 

I think most people realize that their devices, as well as EVs, all have either typical lithium-ion or lithium-ferrous-phosphate batteries that contain lithium.

All the more reason to hate cars in general. Gasoline and diesel aren't necessarily non-flammable either.