Anyone concerned about Li-Ion batteries?

nope. everyone's using them, without the slightest hint of issues. we have them in the pip, with plenty of cumulative miles. and the euro toy hybrid minivan has them. all the other mfg.'s are using them.

airplanes had a bad design, hover boards? cheap and dirty. laptop charger problem. car fires? read up on gasoline fires, makes electric look like nothing. plus, all the prius fires have been nimh.

 

yes, it's difficult to alleviate concerns caused by fud and hyperbole. try to educate her, she'll come around when she understands the facts.

 

sorry, no idea where to go. try nhtsa website. car fires specifically. research all the hybrids and ev's out now with lithium. leaf, volt, tesla, how many fires per vehicles manufactured compared to gasoline cars.
i know there are articles on the poor engineering of the airline batteries.

 

There have been about 100,000 Chevy Volts sold globally and I can't recall any battery-caused fires among actual owners. Same for the 200,000 Nissan LEAFs sold during the last 5 years. Just between those two models that works out to about 67,000,000 lithium pouch cells. There have presumably been about the usual statistical number of serious accidents with those cars. There have been no fires due to the Lithium cells that I can recall offhand. The same is true for the nearly 75,000 Prius Plug-ins sold globally.

 

Some of the concern relates to the little LiPo batts used in toys (small drones) that can be a problem if cheap and not controlled well during charging. Not sure what the hoover boards were using but that was another toy problem.

The car Li batts are very carefully designed with safer more robust chemistry with robust control systems. Unfort I believe there is some secrecy on Li batt design specifics so I don't think we can roll off our tongue exactly what the chemistry and design is. You can rest assured Toyota has thoroughly studied and developed a bullet proof system.

As bisco said, but I would modify that, numerous "spontaneous" car fires every year and many of those are electrical in nature, and it's all kinds of cars and has nothing to do Li or NiMH batteries. Therefore any car must be looked at possible fire source. This has implications to think about fire safety, alarms, etc. sorry that your wife actually needs to worry about all cars, we have no info to suggest Hybrids/plug-ins any worse to date.

All Li batts can burn because they contain organic liquid as electrolyte. So if exposed to a fire they will burn, and airlines for example generally do not allow flammable liquids.

 

The Teslas were involved in some kind of accident, not randomly caught on fire

 

Just to show how ridiculous this has become, I ordered three CR-1632 lithium button cells for Pearl S' remotes. From MEC. I asked that they be shipped to the Edmonton store from Vancouver, for pickup. Well, they arrived last week. In a box about 12" long by 5" square. With "lithium battery warning stickers" all over it. And by ground!

You just know you can take down an airliner with one of those button cells!

 

Sounds like over-packaging for button batts but I do not know about air. Duracell or somebody could tell us fire potential of button batts. They are so so easy to short out with the small gap, and they do transfer the elec fairly fast in a short. That's why they are a swallowing hazard the can burn a whole thru the esophogas or whatever (mainly CR2032 which are bigger with more power).

 

Sounds like the title of a YouTube video.

Bob Wilson

 

The button cells are in "adult proof" blister packs, the ones they make in sheet size, then separate each cell-card by breaking the perforations in the cardboard. I had two cells in one piece and one separate. None of them were out of the packaging.
I'm told they will not ship them by air, -EXCEPT- when they are installed in something. Then it's just fine. So a fire prone Apple computer battery is fine in the computer, but not by itself. You just know there is a fire suppression system built into the Apple.

Cover your a$$ is the motto of the bureaucrats.

As I posted, this is getting ridiculous. We need some people who know how to actually -USE- their brains!

And this in no way reflects on those who wonder if it's safe. With those who are supposed to -know- pulling this nonsense, it's no wonder the public is confused!

 

I bought button batteries twice. Both times the blister pack card (as described) was placed in a legal size envelope (#10) requiring $0.49 worth of postage. I was surprised the facer-canceller machine at the Post Office didn't rip the envelopes to shreds.

Sometimes the guy in the shipping dept. just uses whatever is in front of him.

 

so if the gen 4 lithium batteries are buttons, your wife will be relieved.

 

My wife's Apple watch arrived with the same warning labels on the package. However in cars the battery systems have cooling systems to help the battery from over heating. I think Tesla uses a liquid cooling system.

 

Li-ion batteries are much more stabile when not fully charged. A fully charged battery puts the greatest mechanical stress on the cathode and its protective layer. Also, limiting State Of Charge greatly increases cycle life. The Prius of course limits SOC.

 

The only thing I worry about Li-Ion is the effect of hot climate. It gets pretty hot here in Vegas in the summer and my work does not have shaded car ports to park under. For 4 months, temperature can vary from 102 F to 115 F, interior temperature can climb up to 150 degree. Li-Ion is known to degrade in hot climate, just ask a Leaf owner in AZ.

 

The problems for the Leafs was likely due to sitting in the heat and the battery being fully charged.

With A/C use, a hybrid traction pack likely won't be at full SOC when parked in hot climates. The solar powered vent blower that was available on the gen3 would have been a nice option to keep the interior air circulating while parked in hot climates. There are ones that can be put in the window, for those that want the extra peace of mind.