Charging a Prius Blamed for Starting Fire

I smell an Enginer set-up in here or alike.......

 

One story says one cat died, the other said two. I'm guessing this is a gen II phev conversion. It may have nothing to do with the car, lets wait for the investigation.

 

Too bad about the cat(s).
Time will tell about the rest. Since newspapers are going the way of the Allosaurus, some of the smaller ones aren't able to maintain the [finger quotes] high journalistic standards that the industry once at least tried to achieve.

I don't have a Pip, but I've read where they draw something like 12A while charging, so I'm sure that fires are in their future....especially if owners are not too picky about where they plug their cars in to charge.

We'll see about that too...

 

So, they are talking about a 2004 Toyota Prius PIP?, PIP really?

 

Somewhat vague information here.
Has to be a conversion, if it was a 2004 that was being "charged".
Also a little vague as to whether the fire genesised from the vehicle itself, or a separate "charging system" being used to charge the vehicle.
Need more details.

 

Why would Toyota send engineers to investigate a home converted plug-in?

 

the NYTimes should have Broder follow up and do the investigative reporting.

 

Maybe she was charging the 12V battery.

 

Fire Destroys a Pioneering Plug-In Prius Conversion - NYTimes.com

 

Eyewitness accounts says there was an initial explosion with two large streams of fire shooting of the recharging 2004 Prius inside the garage. That sounds like superheated gases suddenly being released and then being ignited. It sounds like the aftermarket Li-ion battery exploded on this *converted* plug-in Prius.

 

This is the second incident in witch Ron Greenbam has a car if flames.
The first time was about 5/6 years ago in his early 2004 with a primitive CalCars type of conversion.
For the scope of the reporter, it seems that the battery management didn't do the job..........RIP to the Prius.

Edit: the correct spelling is as fallow:" Ron Gremban "

 

Off topic: I wish typical hair dryers were still at just 1500 watts. The last time the household needed a replacement, nearly everything on the shelf claimed 1800 watts (15 amps, almost at the National Electric Code de-rated limit of 16 amps on a 20 amp breaker. Based on other loads that must share the circuit, I refused it. Fortunately an older lower power travel unit still works.

 

...sounds like a pretty good hypothesis Walter. I now understand most Li batts have a organic (flammable) electrolyte solution. Usually not a problem, in this after-market case obviously something went wrong.

 

Do you have an URL for that?

It seems like there are a bunch of misspellings of his name, About the CalCars Initiative for Plug-In Hybrids says Gremban which currently says:

This incident this exactly illustrates the potential dangers of DIY or various aftermarket packs. Those folks almost certainly don't have nearly as much expertise (nor resources) in design, design review, testing, safety, safeguards, etc. as major auto OEMs, not to mention the latter could be the target of costly recalls, big lawsuits and negative PR/media attention.

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I'm sure the information is embedded in the CalCars files. It has been a loong time ago

 

this is the script from eaa-phev.org
"[edit] PriusPlus - Interim Control Board - May 3, 2006
Subject: [eaa-phev] WARNING: Fail-safe systems needed to protect Prius battery in EAA-PHEV conversions
From: Ron Gremban at CalCars
Organization: California Cars Initiative
To: EV-PHEV Email List
Last night I had an undesirable surprise event. Due to a combination of unexpected factors from the installation of new equipment, the original Prius' nickel-metal hydride battery got seriously overcharged and experienced a meltdown. Fortunately, Toyota's battery box was quite good, though not perfect, at keeping this extreme event contained. No one was injured, and my car suffered minimal damage beyond the readily available OEM (original equipment manufacturer) battery that was destroyed. We have been presented with a wake-up call, and this is an opportune time to map out additional safety systems, some of which I will propose below.
Attached to the next message (with it this message was too long) is a picture of the aftermath of last night's event [the attachment may not make it into archives]. I will publish more as we disassemble and replace the OEM battery pack before we replace it. Below, I have some specific safety recommendations for those who are using the Interim Control Board -- plus the added recommendation that we get our heads together to design redundant levels of assurance against OEM battery pack overcharge.
In retrospect, what happened was an unfortunate interaction between three devices, each of which works fine on its own or in combination with any one of the others.
As the world's first Prius PHEV conversion, since 2004, my car has repeatedly been a guinea pig for new technology (it's roughly on a version 3 battery box, control system, and set of batteries). Wednesday we added some data collection equipment that I will explain in detail in a future message. However, what's important feature relative to my event is that it writes messages onto the CAN bus not only when driving but also when the car is on charge. Meanwhile, my CAN-View V4 monitors the CAN bus and turns itself ON when it sees activity. Due to the new equipment, it began turning ON when the car is off but charging.
I noticed this upon installation of the new equipment. My workaround was to unplug the CAN-View when charging. Thursday night, however, I forgot. Also, the car was left with a low OEM SOC, causing the CAN-View, once turned ON during charging, to close a reed relay that the Interim Control Board in my car interprets as a requirement to parallel the battery packs. The Interim Control Board, being a super-basic design without all the niceties of a full control board, doesn't have a circuit to specifically inhibit PHEV operation when the Prius' hybrid system is inactive (causing our READY line, taken from SMRL3's coil, to be low).
Because of all these interactions, the PHEV contactors both closed, putting the battery packs in parallel while the PHEV pack was being charged. And because the OEM BMS was not powered, CAN-View received no messages indicating that the OEM SOC was increasing -- so it kept the contactors closed until the OEM pack got so overcharged that it began seriously overheating.
My girlfriend Lynne and I were at the dining room table not far from the garage when we heard loud but muffled pops. I ran into the garage, where I heard more such pops, now louder but still muffled. My car was full of smoke. I unplugged it and raised the hatchback. The plastic top was still removed from the OEM battery pack due to the previous day's installation work. Every few seconds, I heard an individual OEM battery cell or module blow, and simultaneously saw the top of the OEM battery box temporarily bow further upward. Two small fires had started in the rear seats' carpeting at either end of the OEM pack, the larger one on the driver's side where I had not replaced the heavy battery pack cover member that fits above the thinner cover over the contactors. I extinguished both quickly with a fire extinguisher. The experience, of course, left me thinking about what could have happened if I had not been home, alerted, and prepared with an extinguisher. (I have one powder-based extinguisher that works on electrical fires in my garage and another in my car at all times -- highly recommended for experimenters.)
Note: I need to eat some of my words about the added-battery conversion system (that piggybacks the original battery with a new pack) being safer than systems like Hybrids Plus' that replace both the OEM battery and BMS. The particular failure mode I experienced is unique to two-battery systems, though a BMS failure could possibly produce similar results, depending on the PHEV battery's failure characteristics. Also, this failure mode has little relevance to any systems an auto manufacturer might install in a newly designed PHEV. "

 

The above sounds exactly like what happened to someone who posted here before and overcharged their OEM (or extra OEM) NiMH battery. IIRC, their car was totaled from the fire and smoke.

 

The New York Times has a story on this here: Fire Destroys a Pioneering Plug-In Prius Conversion - NYTimes.com

added comment... oops, I see someone else posted this link already

Yes, this was a conversion. An early one, that has been modified again:

I'd agree that this shows there are risks with aftermarket conversions and modifications.