Teslas are bursting into flames in Florida after being flooded during Hurricane Idalia

[Caribbeans]

Tesla car fire in Pinellas Park, Florida

Teslas are bursting into flames in Florida after being flooded during Hurricane Idalia

Saltwater and lithium-ion batteries are a bad combination

Techspot.com | Kishalaya Kundu | September 5, 2023

In context: Hurricane Idalia tore through Florida last week, leaving a trail of destruction that included destroyed homes, uprooted trees, and flooded neighborhoods. While most of the damage has already been widely reported, a peculiar new consequence of the hurricane is only now emerging. According to reports, the flooding has not only damaged many cars but is also causing some of them to catch fire spontaneously.

As reported by CBS News, at least two Teslas caught fire in Florida after being submerged in saltwater during the flooding that accompanied Hurricane Idalia. One of the two cars caught fire while it was being towed by fire crews after being flooded in Pinellas County. These incidents prompted the Palm Harbor Fire Department to issue an advisory to all EV owners, requesting that they remove their electric vehicles (EVs) from their garages if they came into contact with saltwater.

According to the department, lithium-ion batteries in EVs could ignite if they have been exposed to saltwater. Therefore, individuals with water-damaged electric vehicles should relocate them to higher ground for their own safety. 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.

The department also advised people not to drive EVs through saltwater because salt residues in batteries could act as a conductor between the battery's cells, potentially igniting a fire. While salt increases the fire risk for all types of EVs, larger vehicles are more susceptible than e-bikes because they have many more cells in their batteries. Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) are also at risk as they also contain lithium-ion batteries...more
https://www.techspot.com/news/100032-teslas-bursting-flames-florida-after-flooded-during-hurricane.html

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Think. Again.]

1. Yeah....

...water and electricity don't mix. Or they do mix?, too well?

I'd say a simple breaker of some kind could fix that.

[Caribbeans]

3. Shouldn't the Tesla CEO face some kind of reprimand...

for lying about his "CyberTruck" and Model S being able to function briefly as BOATS?

He won't, he can do anything he wants including bald faced lies

and never ever have to pay for any of them. The UGLY side of totally unregulated capitalism.

Link to tweet

Reminder: Some of the people who are literally in charge of Energy are TSLA stockholders.

Philseok Kim, a director in the Energy Department division that funds research into emerging energy technologies, disclosed owning stocks and trading options in companies that stood to be affected by that research. Ethics officials highlighted seven stocks on his disclosure form in July 2021, including some related to his division’s research efforts.

Mr. Kim reported owning several investments in Tesla Inc., the electric-car maker, at a time when his division was funding research into making longer-lasting and more-efficient batteries. He reported that at the end of 2020 he owned between $18,004 and $95,000 in Tesla call options, which are bets on the stock’s price to rise. https://archive.ph/iVPpZ

It's a disgrace that this is somehow allowed.

[getagrip_already]

4. It's the salt....

It causes a short that overheats the batteries and poof.

Elon is an idiot. The last place you want to be in moving water is a vehicle. You will be swept downcurrent and trapped very quickly. That kills lots of people. They are not boats. They are tombs.

[Think. Again.]

6. The salt conducts electricity...

...and causes a short but the water doesn't somehow?

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

7. Pure water doesn't conduct electricity

salt makes it very conductive

[Think. Again.]

10. I did not know that, Thank you!...

So now I can take a bath with my beloved toaster after all! Yay! Be back after my bath! But NO bath salts! (Tee-Hee!)

(Sorry, I'm feeling silly after a hard day).

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

11. Yeah, don't do that :)

tap water has salts in it too

[Think. Again.]

13. Stopped me just in time!

...but seriously, I wasn't gonna plug it in!

[C_U_L8R]

2. In the winter here, the roads are wet and salty

I wonder if Elon didn't think this through so well.

[JohnQFunk]

5. Maybe they should've gotten the undercoating

All kidding aside - looks to be a design flaw inviting major malfunction that has never been seriously addressed.

[Think. Again.]

8. I do not like musk...

...at all, and I prefer H2 as the basis for our new vehicle technology (which is basically electric also unless H2 combustion is needed for heavier vehicles), but this sounds like an easily corrected problem that was just overlooked before.

It's relatively new tech, there's gonna be lots of surprises for years to come.

[Lovie777]

9. Come on Musk, the genius you think you are..........................

[OnlinePoker]

12. To put this in context, that's 1 out of every 31,000 of Tesla's Florida sales in 2021/22

They sold 62,166 in that period.

[NNadir]

14. The giggling at a tragedy is duly noted.

I suppose of course, this is an attempt to sell fossil fuels rebranded as "hydrogen," a gas with an extremely low critical point that is incompatible with many metals, causing embrittlement, particularly over a broad temperature range, and one of the lowest viscosities known, by claiming, insipidly, that they are somehow superior to batteries.

The fossil fuel salespeople and salesbots here are nothing if inconsistent, not caring a whit about anything but selling fossil fuels as "hydrogen."

Both batteries and hydrogen are excuses for using fossil fuels, since both store energy provided by fossil fuels, batteries with less exergy destruction however, and a hydrogen explosion would be far more difficult to manage than a battery fire, probably killing instantly.

The stupidity of trying to address making the car CULTure sustainable with either approach is incredibly stupid, but the battery business is real, if tragic, whereas the hydrogen scam is just a series of joke demos.

[Mickju]

15. Thank you