More Than A Dozen Fisker Karma Hybrids Caught Fire And Exploded In New Jersey Port After Sandy

With those cars it was likely to happen anyway!

 

Why?

 

The Karma is manufactured in Finland. These are likely cars that came from Finland to be sold in the US. I doubt Fisker has anyone competent that is tasked with thinking about disasters Otherwise they might have moved the cars out of harms way, or kept them in Europe until after the hurricane.

 

From Fisker and Toyota feel the wrath of super storm Sandy - latimes.com (from someone on MNL):

 

They've already had a couple of fires and not that many have been sold...

 

Who are you going to get to move 4,000+ cars quickly? Where are you going to put 4,000+ cars? Once they are off port property, who's insurance covers them? Who's going to provide security for 4,000+ cars scattered about the region?

 

Baltimore & Philadelphia also have yards. If shopping for a car one may want to check dates. Wth thinking also applies to shipping. Someone thought it was a good idea to bring a tanker to Staten Island during the hurricane. The tanker is now ON Staten Island.

In S.J., families wait and worry | Recordnet.com has a different view.

 

It seems some Toyotas caught fire as well so I'm still not sure what you mean by:

 

So is Apple Computer. It's stock was trading at about $40 a share when he started helping them out.

 

Salt water is electrically conductive. The shorts that caused the fires are just as likely to have come from the 12 volt system. They export US/Canada made vehicles from Newark also. I do see that the Cetus Leader is now headed for the Port of Baltimore to off load. Really cant move them from the port until they've been prepped and had their official stickers applied and it takes several 24 hr days to move that many cars. The storm was so big just where would have been safe? No ships were still in the area having offloaded before the storm even formed.

Mazda shredded all ~5000 cars that were on the Cougar Ace when it listed over in the Gulf of Alaska. Safety and warranty concerns about the airbag system after being exposed to sea air while dangling on their side for several weeks.

Con Ed says Saturday for power at the condo in Chinatown (on Madison). So says the robo calls to cellphone here in WV. Customer service from Con Ed hmm. Previous calls recommended unplugging everything to protect from surge and spikes as power went off and on.

 

JOHN B CADDELL - Vessel's Details and Current Position - 5173204 - 367010880
WWII era tanker not in service that was moored not to far from the beach it's on now.

 

The Volt also had fire issues.

DBCassidy

 

No volt in the wild has ever had a reported fire issue, unlike toyota's most recent recall of 7.4Millon cars because of fire hazard demonstrated by fires in the wild. And I've seen no reports of volt fires related to sandy (though there were Prius, including 2 plug in prius that caught fire similar to the Karmas.

Back to the thread...

Given the potential for fire's if submerged, I wonder if it would be worth having the batteries in all PHEV have water sensors and the ability to totally disconnect all external connections. Maybe there should be a "imersion" test. While any car's 12v can start a fire, they don't have enough energy to do the damage of a Li-ion. Then maybe its not that dangerous.. I'd be out of the car before its submerged.. and its totaled as soon as it is.




Its a shame to see such beautiful cars destroyed, but in the bigger issues of sandy, this is almost nothing. And Fisker's bigger issues are the potential for A123 to back out of the contract for batteries. That is where Fisker really has to worry about getting burned.

 

The Volt has been water tested:

"Special attention is given to the connection between the high voltage lines coming out of the front of the pack to the inverter, and these are sealed especially well. The pack also has the means of detecting water seeping into the pack allowing it to shut down."

Chevy Volt Underwater Testing

 

Thats not underwater testing.. that is just a rain shower.. This is testing in deeper weater

But still that is not a soaking immersion. I know the volt has water detection and cut off circuitry, but not clear how that would do soaking in salt water for a day or so. But my comment was really about the need for regulations with respect to safety design and testing.

 

Believe what you want, or be in denial - your choice. Conn and NC both had issues with the Volt fires. Conn fire unoffically cleared.NC fire points to charging station. Government Motors is involved with investigations - BAD IDEA. Independent investigations - excluding Government Motors, would establish credibility in the fire reports. When Government Motors is involved, cover ups,squashing the stories, and most importantly - the TRUTH is prevented or strongly contested and refuted.

Sources: what you use as a search engine: Google. Also NLPC.

The big difference between Toyota and Government is: Toyota acknowleded the issue and issued a recall - they stepped up to the plate. Government Motors is in a complete state of denial, lurks in the shadows of the dugout.

DBCassidy

 

Hmm you are the one that seems to be in denial. GM's handeling of the NHSTA investigations and fires when beyond what NHSTA required -- they never issued a recall, but and despite the fact tht NHSTA testing did not properly "drain" the battery (but did drain the gas tank), GM developed and offered, for free, an enhancement that to address the issue of battery fires weeks after crashes. NHSTA closed the investigation back in Jan 2011.

On the other hand, its Toyota that has a reputation of resisting recalls, and been fined millions of dollars because of it. The issue behind these recent recall/fires was reported to NHSTA and toyota back in 2008.
Toyota Learned of Window Switch Defect Four Years Before Recall - Bloomberg
which includes the quote from Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive, explaining

But NHSTA is not yet satisfied. Lynda Tran, a NHTSA spokeswoman, said:

And if you consider NLPC a viable source of information about cars or automative companies, then, there is no point discussing anything related to GM -- you drank some bad kool-aid a long time ago.

 

We can see where your mind is, again, complete, utter denial, yet you respond like a 6th grader. No surprise there. Government Motors trys to put spin control on their snafus rather than do the right thing: owe up to their mistakes and be honest. But that is asking way too much of them. You haven't understood the fires I mentioned above. You are fixated on "crashes" concerning the Volt.

DBCassidy