In recent days, watching TV news footage of motorists driving through very high floodwaters (sometimes halfway up the vehicle's doors), I was struck by the number of electric vehicles (EV's) - both pure electric and hybrid - among those picking their way through the water and debris. As a former sector officer for civil defense in another city and country, I was trained to look for hazards that might not be immediately obvious, and this seems to me to be precisely that: a hazard waiting to turn into a very serious situation.
In general, it's deemed safe to drive an EV through floodwater, because the battery packs are sealed and the motor and drivetrain are well insulated. Sources confirming that include (but are not limited to):
Can I drive an EV through floods?
However, that's in theory. In practice, floodwaters contain hazards that often can't be seen or avoided: thick tree branches, potholes, stones and chunks of tarmac that have been washed away from where they were before and deposited in the traffic lane, and so on. If a vehicle hits them beneath the water, they can inflict severe damage, particularly on formerly sealed and/or insulated electrical components.
If an EV's battery casing is cracked, or the insulation of its motor and/or drivetrain is torn away, it can deliver a really severe electric shock to all those nearby - most particularly its occupants, who in a flood situation may be wearing wet clothing, sitting on wet seats, and have their feet in water over the floorboards. Talk about an electric chair waiting to go off!
There's also the unfortunate reality that damaged EV battery packs can erupt in flames with little or no warning, and burn at a very high intensity. If one is stuck inside a car when the battery starts to burn beneath one's seat, one may not be able to get out before being burned - perhaps very badly. Look at how fast the battery fire erupts in these video clips:
There have been videos on social media allegedly showing vehicles striking loose paving stones or other obstructions, puncturing their battery packs, and bursting into flames. However, I could only find this YouTube short illustrating that, which I can't embed. Click over there to watch it for yourself.
Bottom line: if you drive an EV of any sort, please be very careful about driving through floodwater. Under normal circumstances your battery and drivetrain should be fine, but a flood is, by definition, not a normal circumstance! You can't see obstacles that might damage your vehicle severely. I'd hate to have electrically shocked and lightly toasted blog readers . . .
Peter
7 comments:
I'm not really sure how this differs from driving an ICE vehicle through floodwaters.
It's true that you might get an engine that dies instead of electricity. But you may also get a fuel leak.
Caution is advised.
In the second one, it stopped after 20 minutes because all the lithium had been consumed. Since lithium reacts with water, the fireman was doing a good job by using powder, but still, it's going to burn.
Steve
A few years ago, I had to drop my wife off at Houston Intercontinental to catch a flight. That part went OK, but it was raining like crazy, heavy thunderstorms, and on the way out of the terminal complex, the traffic stopped. Why did it stop? I found up after about 2 hours, as it inched up. It was stopped at a flooded overpass, the one that's a taxiway over the roadway. The roadway had about a foot of water, under the overpass, like they always do when it rains hard. There were 2 Teslas waiting at the edge of the puddle, unwilling to venture through it, and they had brought traffic to a complete standstill. Geniuses that they were, it hadn't occurred to them to pull over and get out of the way, so that the 85% of people in trucks could get on with it.
EVs are designed to resist water splashing up from the bottom, most are not designed for the entire pack to be submerged (they have vents on the battery to allow pressure to equalize, there are filters there, but they aren't designed to resist being submerged for any significant amount of time)
The Cybertruck has a 'wade mode' where it pressurized the battery pack to keep water out when it's submerged.
But as others note, Gas cars have similar problems. They have high voltage systems that can short out (higher voltage than EVs), vents in gas tanks that would let water get into the fuel. transmissions, differentials, etc (although some of that will show up as long term damage)
EV/Hybrid/ICE doesn't matter. Know your vehicle and realize that you can't see how deep the water is. many vehicles will float (or partially float) while water leaks in, so you can lose control from the wheels not having traction.
Give me a moderately lifted gasoline pickup truck, thank you very much... and it'll go farther on a single "fill up"!
Darwinian Selection always gets its fair share...
That video with the BIKE!!!. It said it was a car that burned up. NO, it was a bike that burned up. The media can not even get the type of vehicle correct.
Heltau
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