Teslas are bursting into flames in Florida after being flooded during Hurricane Idalia | Saltwater and lithium-ion batteries are a bad combination

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 474 points – Teslas are bursting into flames in Florida after being flooded during Hurricane Idalia
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Teslas are bursting into flames in Florida after being flooded during Hurricane Idalia | Saltwater and lithium-ion batteries are a bad combination::undefined

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I’m all for bashing Tesla. It’s good fun. But this applies to all EVs and lithium ion batteries that came into contact with salt water.

Bad TechSpot! Bad!

I wonder if a laptop would blow up, too. Probably, right?

Classic click baiting. If it was about laptops the title would contain ‘Apple’. Popular brands work well in titles.

Depends how well the battery is packaged. Here's a cheap disposable AA lithium battery dropped in a bowl of water - it bursts into flames almost instantly:

https://youtu.be/cTJh_bzI0QQ?si=dgkKYSqo-zXulNt_&t=345

However they had to disassemble that battery. If you just dropped the undamaged battery in the water nothing would've happened.

So - this really is Tesla's fault. They should be wrapping a water tight barrier around the batteries. It's one thing for a battery to catch fire after a serious crash. Fair enough. But it shouldn't happen in floodwater.

Try the same experiment using salt.

The problem isn't really about the water getting things wet, more about the salt in it adding conductivity that can corrode metals making holes and also shorting any exposed electronics.

As much as I dislike tesla and it's unnerving ubiquity along with being under an unstable leader, we have to remember... These are land vehicles, not submarines. They weren't designed for prolonged immersion in salt water. Most of the environmental testing very likely revolved around using chambers to simulate different weather patterns.

Pressure and immersion testing are generally used only for individual components that do get sealed, permanently. So if you were to seal the battery pack or even just sections, you would still need to connect it all to the electronics like the BMS and in/output. With enough time just these two points could allow a path to short the battery causing the cells to overheat, expand, crack any seals (further increasing the reaction), build enough pressure and eventually pop like a shotgun shells fired outside of a barrel

They weren’t designed for prolonged immersion in salt water.

I'm guessing you don't live in a city that has hurricanes or tropical weather in general?

Cars are submerged in water all the time in certain parts of the world and if you live in one of those places then there's nothing you can do to avoid it. Every car I've ever owned has at some point been exposed to water depths deep enough that the tesla battery would've been fully submerged.

It's not uncommon for a tropical storm to rain billions of gallons of water over a small area in a short period of time. When that happens you just can't keep your car dry.

If it destroys the car, OK that's an insurance job. But if the car catches fire it has the potential to burn down buildings/etc which is really really bad especially if it happens during sever weather when a fire fighter will not be able to respond potentially until days later even if the nearest fire station is a few city blocks away.

I'm sure this is a solvable problem. Also - it's worth noting only two cars caught fire and I'd bet a lot more than two EVs were submerged a widespread flooding incident like this one. There must be more to it than just "if you expose an EV to salt water, it'll burn".

One of the YouTubers I watch, Tavarish, is rebuilding a flooded McClaren. McClaren went to great lengths to water proof the car (IIRC almost all the connectors for the electrical harness and many of the other cables/wires in the car were all fine). The car is an engineering marvel and it still had damage done to the battery and almost every inch of the car had water intrusion.

Not disagreeing with you but salt water tends to fuck shit up. Maybe a better solution is some kind of system with a series of sensors and other inputs that could disable the battery until it's checked out? Or maybe better education on how dangerous lithium batteries can be.

There's not much to disable unfortunately. Provde a short circuit path between the anonde and cathode and you're going to get thermal runaway. You could try inside the cell protection, but that's going to be pretty expensive given a Tesla containing thousands of smaller capacity cells. Other OEMs use larger "large format" pouches, but they still a have hundreds.

He does find some other worrisome things when going through that car.

This warning applies not only to electric sedans, trucks, and SUVs but also to smaller and lighter electric vehicles like golf carts, scooters, and bicycles that also have rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

It's in the article.

The title is still clickbait.

Sort of...two Teslas caught on fire...I haven't heard of any other EVs spontaneously combusting.

Teslas are by far some of the most popular EVs. When someone thinks EV they think Tesla.

At least near me I see 10 teslas for every ID.4, taycan or ev6. Until someone else steps up their game tesla has quite the lead on sales thanks to their head start. Volkswagen is the only company making a fairly affordable EV that people actually want and that only states recently. EV6 could catch up but Kia dealers are almost universally shit here in the US.

Where I'm from. I see 50 ID4 for every Tesla, and that's being generous. The world is a bigger market than just the US.

Blame the author https://www.techspot.com/community/staff/dragonslayer101.498521/

Yeah definitely, I remember sailing in the ocean when I was in Sea Scouts and one of our leaders had his battery let out the magic smoke on his phone, no lithium fire luckily

Side note - people need to be super careful buying used cars for the next several months because of scammers cleaning up flooded cars and brining them north to sell. Check under the carpets and so on, etc. Avoid Florida cars.

Idalia brined them, not the scammers. Just to be clear.

right, the scam is taking a flood car north and not disclosing flood damage to an unsuspecting northerner.

It seems like it always happens every time there's a bad flood/hurricane etc.

I remember used lots in Oklahoma getting flooded (heh) with Katrina cars back in 2005-2006.

I remember that happened after a huge Mississippi flood in the 90s. Definitely be careful

katrina. was not that long ago and tons of those cars got drug all over.

No, this was before that.

Lol. I meant it's happened before. Katrina cars poped up all over with clean titles. And huge issues. But history like repeating since we never fixed the hole in the damn dam and there's no little dutch boy around to save everyone.

Wouldn't this be applicable to any EV and not just a particular brand that it's popular to throw into titles for maximum views right now?

Maybe all brands, but can't be sure.

Tesla is "known" or at lest publicised in multiple places that they have pretty bad quality control, and I guess also bad design on some parts.

So bad protection on the battery at tesla design? Maybe? Is there a "review" on car internals somewhere? I have no idea.

Could another vehicle survive the same thing? Who knows, maybe? Maybe not?

Tho there are some who said they went with a tesla directly into water slashing over the hood. So maybe some are waterproof?

I looked at this awhile ago. There is a google doc maintained by some anti-Tesla investors who track every fire that can find. It is still much lower than the US average fires per car.

I think it gets more attention because:

  1. some people are financially incentivized and;
  2. battery fires really are a much worse deal than a normal car fire

The advice I’ve been given (on train/bus batteries) is to shove the vehicle if safe when it starts; then do whatever possible to fully submerge in fresh water. Obviously that isn’t really feasible.

You asked a lot of questions that you didn't know the answer to. A good journalist would have attempted to answer most of those questions in the article. Seeing how these questions weren't answered, it's safe to say this was a clickbait article written by a trash journalist.

Tesla doesn’t advertise so any clickbait involving them is fair game.

You know who does adverise? Other competing manufacturers and boy do they have a hard-on for advertising on news sites and broadcasts. Coincidence?

Every car flooded with salt water is a fire waiting to happen. Either a literal fire, or a fire sale. Salt water does horrible shit to all metals.

Didn't The Dipshit say that Teslas can be used as boats at one point?

Only the cybertruck I think, but in the end neither will be able to so it doesnt matter. I work with tesla and will never even consider buying one, even apart from all the stuff muskrat is doing.

I figured people would have stopped considering one when it came out that Tesla employees made memes out of Tesla drivers as apparently they've been spying on people via the cameras on the car. Which isn't enough that they did that, but they were encouraged to share the memes around the office.

Idk man, and the fact people suggest tweeting (or x-ing) Elon if you run into difficulties with the Tesla stores (such as warranty). I find it insane. That's if you separate Elon from the brand Tesla, but if you don't it's all the more. He is a highly vindictive, self-centred ego fuelled bag of lies which is a personal reason I don't like Tesla.

Were the cars good before he bought the company?

I dont know, but i would probably say yes. I only started working with them ~3 years ago. My big issue with them is that they seem to have no idea what they want or what theyre doing. Constantly changing plans, requirements, shipment dates, shipment locations, color specs, etc. All of their engineers ive talked to are super young, they must be new hires. But such overarching disorganization must come from the top.

At least two Teslas caught fire

Wow, what a huge issue!

Saltwater and basically anything is a bad combination

Couldn't have spent the extra ten dollars potting the battery casing with conformal resin Elon?

I was under the impression that battery packs are watertight so where is the fire starting?

They are likely IP rated in some form or fashion, that means they are rated for protection for a period of time at a certain depth. Deeper water or longer time in water means you still get water past the seals.

It could also be a control fault or short on the electrical side allowing the other components to catch fire or overloading the batteries causing them to overheat and catch fire.

Also, IP rating is not valid for salt water or any other fluids such as alcohol, only fresh water

I doubt their designs are hurricane + flood proofed.

Also the high voltage disconnect/fuse is under the seats. Flood that and you've got a problem.

I truly doubt anybody at Tesla thinks that far ahead. A prime example of this was that magnificent cyber truck showcase.

If manufactured properly, they should be.

Water ingress can happen where cables plug into places - literally like a straw that draws water towards the battery pack. Again, if properly sealed, this should not be an issue.

But I can't imagine any modern vehicle surviving being flooded by saltwater. If not the battery then any other electrical component, or even the motor, would corrode over the coming days, weeks, months.

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If previous incidents are anything to go by, most batteries that actually react that way are physically damaged during the Hurricane part. Usually the teslas are fine even completely submerged.

https://youtu.be/SUNw8-rHHV4

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Seems like the NHTSA needs to expedite regulations around protecting batteries from salt water.

I’d be surprised if there weren’t some kind of guidelines already but once we see EVs on the road 25-30 years old held together with duct tape things might get interesting.

> be a burger driving muh Tesla (sniffs farts)

> suddenly drowned in flood

> bursts into flames

Such is life in Burgeristan

Does this have anything to worry consumers about in cold climates where cars could accumulate snow and road salt on them, and then say - park the car in the garage where it all melts into salt water?

Did any other makes of electric vehicles also burst into flames in Florida?

You're not going to have frozen salt water on the underside of a car. That's kind of what the salt is for. You will get salt water eating at the metal.

Ever seen a 30 year old car from where it snows a lot? They have rust holes that eat clean through the floor. We don’t have EVs that old yet but I seriously wonder how big of a problem that might be, as the salt will eat through the battery tray at a certain point. Especially for some of the budget EVs like the Bolt.

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B-b-b-b-but we need to save the planet. Just like how we need to switch from plastic straws to chemical paper straws, to save the planet.