Tesla Model S Batteries Violently Explode In Fatal Crash

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While vehicle fires are not uncommon when it comes to high-speed wrecks like this, dealing with battery fires is something new for firefighters and rescue crews.

A Tesla Model S crashed into a tree in downtown Indianapolis early this morning, killing both of its passengers and bursting into flames, WTHR reports. The crash sent battery cells “firing off almost like projectiles around the rescuers,” the Indianapolis Fire Department told the news site. You can see it yourself in a shocking video of the crash scene.

 
Bandalo said:
Imagine if we fueled our cars with some sort of highly flammable liquids instead!
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Ha Ha we all ready do after all it called Gas how ever Liquid Propane/Natural Gas now that a diff story
 
Still i agree with everyone but if we had this sarcastic logic we wouldnt have seatbelts, breaks, modern glass, airbags etc... Things still need fine tuning and if its a serious risk regulation will force it. I hope u guys dont stop your cars with a curb like in the old days .
 
"Jones said the fire department had a problem extinguishing the high-voltage lithium ion battery cells, which require “copious amounts of water,” saying there were enflamed battery cells scattered throughout the scene."

Jesus Christ, how the fuck are firefighters not equipped for chemical fires now with the number of electric vehicles currently on the road... Water is useless when a lipo battery pops and ignites, they are literally just wasting water if they are using it for that.

I'm guessing the next step will be regulating electric car manufacturers to include some kind of auto-foaming feature around the batteries, like they do for fires in commercial buildings. If it detects a crash/leak, it instantly fills the battery compartment with some kind of foam that seals the batteries and prevents them from igniting when exposed to air.
 
Biznatch said:
"Jones said the fire department had a problem extinguishing the high-voltage lithium ion battery cells, which require “copious amounts of water,” saying there were enflamed battery cells scattered throughout the scene."

Jesus Christ, how the fuck are firefighters not equipped for chemical fires now with the number of electric vehicles currently on the road... Water is useless when a lipo battery pops and ignites, they are literally just wasting water if they are using it for that.

I'm guessing the next step will be regulating electric car manufacturers to include some kind of auto-foaming feature around the batteries, like they do for fires in commercial buildings. If it detects a crash/leak, it instantly fills the battery compartment with some kind of foam that seals the batteries and prevents them from igniting when exposed to air.
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Water's not useless for this, it will cool the surrounding area and keep the fire from spreading to other cells or the environment (trees, brush, the driver's remains, etc). It won't completely extinguish the cells that are reacting, but almost nothing will. Luckily they will burn themselves out pretty quick, so just keep pouring on the water until they do.
 
Biznatch said:
"Jesus Christ, how the fuck are firefighters not equipped for chemical fires now with the number of electric vehicles currently on the road... Water is useless when a lipo battery pops and ignites, they are literally just wasting water if they are using it for that.
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My small town of 5000 people has a handful of tesla's. Lets say 3. Do you propose a tax across the city to pay for foaming systems for the firetrucks? I volunteer at my firehouse (its all volunteer) and there is no money for such systems. Your talking about the vast majority of departments in the nation unable to afford trucks and simple things like thermal imaging and you think they are all prepped to handle .01% of the driving population? The only fire departments I would say are able to handle such fires right now are airports.
 
Biznatch said:
"Jones said the fire department had a problem extinguishing the high-voltage lithium ion battery cells, which require “copious amounts of water,” saying there were enflamed battery cells scattered throughout the scene."

Jesus Christ, how the fuck are firefighters not equipped for chemical fires now with the number of electric vehicles currently on the road... Water is useless when a lipo battery pops and ignites, they are literally just wasting water if they are using it for that.

I'm guessing the next step will be regulating electric car manufacturers to include some kind of auto-foaming feature around the batteries, like they do for fires in commercial buildings. If it detects a crash/leak, it instantly fills the battery compartment with some kind of foam that seals the batteries and prevents them from igniting when exposed to air.
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I don'the know much about li-ion, but I wonder if the foam they use for oil and fuel fires would work better than water. I am guessing it still wouldn't do much more than water , because li-ion is an oxidizer, right?
 
wizzi01 said:
I don'the know much about li-ion, but I wonder if the foam they use for oil and fuel fires would work better than water. I am guessing it still wouldn't do much more than water , because li-ion is an oxidizer, right?
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AFFF (Aqueous Film-Forming Foam) used for fuel and oil fires is basically soap. It floats on top of the oil/water and keeps the O2 from reaching the fuel. AFFF is usually like 3-5% foam, and the rest is just water. So really it wouldn't do much more than water in the case of a lithium fire. A battery fire like this is self-oxidizing, so really you just try to remove/absorb the heat and wait for it to burn out.
 
Hmmm, it only seems like the Tesla batteries are exploding. Any word on the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt?
 
A lot of bullshit in this thread from people who failed or just didn't take high school chemistry, or are ignorant of Li Ion batteries.

Foam does nothing against Li Ion fires, and it has nothing to do with it being rated against chemical fires. Foam works by cutting off the oxygen flow to the fuel source. Guess what? Li Ion batteries contain their own oxidizer. Foam or any other usual chemical fire retardant won't work on them, because they don't need outside oxygen to burn. The only way to stop a Li Ion fire is to reduce the temperature, and once its lit, that's impossible.

Here's what you do when there's a Li Ion fire: You treat everything around it with water or foam or whatever is appropriate and let it burn itself out. To prevent the surroundings from catching on fire. That's it.

Tesla does have a problem here, and I'm a Tesla fan and Model 3 reservation holder. If you're in an accident and get knocked out or otherwise incapacitated and the battery pack starts to go, somehow you've got to wake up and get out of that vehicle, or you burn to death. You have mere minutes to do it, and typical firefighting techniques outside of jaws of life won't save you, may only exacerbate the situation by creating new short circuits if they hose down the vehicle before pulling you out.

Maybe every Tesla needs smelling salts installed with every air bag. Maybe the battery pack needs a zero-zero ejection device. Or the passengers. Or the doors. All I know is that statistically, Teslas will save many lives, but some will be lost that would have survived in an ICE vehicle, and that won't sit well with some people. I'm surprised that this Indianapolis accident hasn't gotten more traction with the press actually. And it happened right after the Cubs won the World Series, so that might be a factor.
 
I'm confused...I thought there was no real way to put out a Lipo fire until it has used up all the fuel source. The amount of energy stored is staggering...can't believe people want to put these in their houses...
 
aokman said:
I'm confused...I thought there was no real way to put out a Lipo fire until it has used up all the fuel source. The amount of energy stored is staggering...can't believe people want to put these in their houses...
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A Li-Ion battery has a specific energy of around 0.8 MJ/kg. A Tesla's battery weighs about 544kg. So you're putting 435MJ of energy in your car. Gasoline is about 46MJ/kg, so a full tank of 15 gallons would be 1955MJ, or about 4 times as much stored energy.
 
She must have been going FAST
Not just to lose control and crash into a tree, but to puncture/compress the battery enough

It's horrible that anyone died, but again, bad drivers kill people and die all the time. I get nervous enough in the car with shitty drivers
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
My small town of 5000 people has a handful of tesla's. Lets say 3. Do you propose a tax across the city to pay for foaming systems for the firetrucks? I volunteer at my firehouse (its all volunteer) and there is no money for such systems. Your talking about the vast majority of departments in the nation unable to afford trucks and simple things like thermal imaging and you think they are all prepped to handle .01% of the driving population? The only fire departments I would say are able to handle such fires right now are airports.
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You realize this would also be needed to Hybrid vehicles, not just pure electrics.
 
EODetroit said:
A lot of bullshit in this thread from people who failed or just didn't take high school chemistry, or are ignorant of Li Ion batteries.

Foam does nothing against Li Ion fires, and it has nothing to do with it being rated against chemical fires. Foam works by cutting off the oxygen flow to the fuel source. Guess what? Li Ion batteries contain their own oxidizer. Foam or any other usual chemical fire retardant won't work on them, because they don't need outside oxygen to burn. The only way to stop a Li Ion fire is to reduce the temperature, and once its lit, that's impossible.

Here's what you do when there's a Li Ion fire: You treat everything around it with water or foam or whatever is appropriate and let it burn itself out. To prevent the surroundings from catching on fire. That's it.

Tesla does have a problem here, and I'm a Tesla fan and Model 3 reservation holder. If you're in an accident and get knocked out or otherwise incapacitated and the battery pack starts to go, somehow you've got to wake up and get out of that vehicle, or you burn to death. You have mere minutes to do it, and typical firefighting techniques outside of jaws of life won't save you, may only exacerbate the situation by creating new short circuits if they hose down the vehicle before pulling you out.

Maybe every Tesla needs smelling salts installed with every air bag. Maybe the battery pack needs a zero-zero ejection device. Or the passengers. Or the doors. All I know is that statistically, Teslas will save many lives, but some will be lost that would have survived in an ICE vehicle, and that won't sit well with some people. I'm surprised that this Indianapolis accident hasn't gotten more traction with the press actually. And it happened right after the Cubs won the World Series, so that might be a factor.
Click to expand...
EODetroit said:
A lot of bullshit in this thread from people who failed or just didn't take high school chemistry, or are ignorant of Li Ion batteries.

Foam does nothing against Li Ion fires, and it has nothing to do with it being rated against chemical fires. Foam works by cutting off the oxygen flow to the fuel source. Guess what? Li Ion batteries contain their own oxidizer. Foam or any other usual chemical fire retardant won't work on them, because they don't need outside oxygen to burn. The only way to stop a Li Ion fire is to reduce the temperature, and once its lit, that's impossible.

Here's what you do when there's a Li Ion fire: You treat everything around it with water or foam or whatever is appropriate and let it burn itself out. To prevent the surroundings from catching on fire. That's it.

Tesla does have a problem here, and I'm a Tesla fan and Model 3 reservation holder. If you're in an accident and get knocked out or otherwise incapacitated and the battery pack starts to go, somehow you've got to wake up and get out of that vehicle, or you burn to death. You have mere minutes to do it, and typical firefighting techniques outside of jaws of life won't save you, may only exacerbate the situation by creating new short circuits if they hose down the vehicle before pulling you out.

Maybe every Tesla needs smelling salts installed with every air bag. Maybe the battery pack needs a zero-zero ejection device. Or the passengers. Or the doors. All I know is that statistically, Teslas will save many lives, but some will be lost that would have survived in an ICE vehicle, and that won't sit well with some people. I'm surprised that this Indianapolis accident hasn't gotten more traction with the press actually. And it happened right after the Cubs won the World Series, so that might be a factor.
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I'm assuming you are trying to be a dick. I was asking a legit question. I wasn'the sure if water spread the chemicals more than if foam was used on it.
 
Bandalo said:
A Li-Ion battery has a specific energy of around 0.8 MJ/kg. A Tesla's battery weighs about 544kg. So you're putting 435MJ of energy in your car. Gasoline is about 46MJ/kg, so a full tank of 15 gallons would be 1955MJ, or about 4 times as much stored energy.
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Yes but gasoline requires an ignition source and open air. Lipo requires neither to start the initial reaction.
 
aokman said:
Yes but gasoline requires an ignition source and open air. Lipo requires neither to start the initial reaction.
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Yes...and a violent car accident (enough to puncture a fuel tank or rupture a battery pack) provides plenty of ignition sources.

I agree these battery packs are not inherently safe items, but neither are regular car engines and fuel tanks. The public is just more comfortable with dealing with gasoline since it's familiar.
 
trick_m0nkey said:
Since we're posting about car crashes now, let's post a news item for every time literally any car that uses gasoline crashes and catches on fire.
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We've explained this a million times....BUT...you seemed to have missed it, so let me explain it again.

The reason we post Tesla stuff is because it is tech related. The reason we post Uber / Lyft stuff and no taxi news is because it is tech related. So on and so forth. I know people think we are picking on Tesla / Uber etc. etc. but, the fact is that, "Damn, I love my Tesla" stories never make the news. No one write articles about "my safe ride home with Uber last night!" You only get crash news, Tesla ran over a bunch of nuns in a crosswalk while on Autopilot or someone suing Uber for sexual assault.
 
Worth repeating from the fire departments press conference:

With any vehicle collision, regardless of its... power... be it gasoline, or hybrid or pure electric like the Tesla is, you have the potential for violent collision and all that damage... that’s not unique to the accident last night.
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Steve said:
We've explained this a million times....BUT...you seemed to have missed it, so let me explain it again.

The reason we post Tesla stuff is because it is tech related. The reason we post Uber / Lyft stuff and no taxi news is because it is tech related. So on and so forth. I know people think we are picking on Tesla / Uber etc. etc. but, the fact is that, "Damn, I love my Tesla" stories never make the news. No one write articles about "my safe ride home with Uber last night!" You only get crash news, Tesla ran over a bunch of nuns in a crosswalk while on Autopilot or someone suing Uber for sexual assault.
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Comes off as a pretty heavy negative bias, and it sounds like I'm not the first one to point it out.

Just my 2 cents, you may need change.
 
what people seem to be overlooking is gas fire stays where it is. If your gas tank gets a leak and catches fire the car sits there and burns up, might have a flare up but that is it. A battery however is like a bomb, it explodes and shoots stuff all around the place. Now I know people think that car crashes in the movies are real, but real cars don't normally explode. This changes that. Might as well strap your car with C4 with randomized timers that all activate some time after the car crashes. In this case the firemen had trouble trying to put out the fire and it was randomly shooting projectiles at them the entire time. That is different that what happens during a normal car fire. Normal car fire you know what will happen, battery fire no idea what will happen.

trick_m0nkey said:
Comes off as a pretty heavy negative bias, and it sounds like I'm not the first one to point it out.

Just my 2 cents, you may need change.
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Should they stop posting apple related stories also? people don't like those either. You are not the first to bitch about the types of stories that they post because you don't like how technology is changing. People bitch about movie news also. They bitch about internet videos being posted. They bitch about science related topics. Bascially if it isn't a hardware review there is somebody that is going to bitch about them posting it. If you don't like an article then guess what, don't fucking read it.

it is not bias to talk about the issues with current technology. EV cars are current technology, self driving cars are current technology. A steam engine train... not current technology. However a new train designed to go 500 mph, that is current technology. The point of this site is to make money. You can only post so many stories about the current specs of the latest video card or latest cpu. How many views would the site get it if was only pc hardware related? No talking allowed about geeky movies, or video games (outside of a review of how the game runs), or some new house hold tech (again unless they are giving it a hardware review). If you stripped all the articles off this site that were not ONLY hardware related this site would be dead, Kyle would have no need to have any workers and he would be doing something else as he would have no user base.
 
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As Exavior said, I think the biggest issue between battery and gas fires is the fact that batteries explode. Gas fires don't usually explode, they just burn, typically doesn't spread far, and the path it spreads is usually slow and predictable. Of course, when you have a 10 pileup with nowhere to go, any fire would have catastropic consequences.
 
The site pulled the video but here's a mirror showing the battery exploding



Kinda funny watching the batteries shoot off like fire crackers
 
I wonder what the emissions produced in that fire were like? California better enact a bill banning the explosion and burning of batteries after a car wreck.
 
Kor said:
You realize this would also be needed to Hybrid vehicles, not just pure electrics.
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Most Toyota hybrids still use NIMH batteries that are safer than Li-Ion batteries.
 
RMCO said:
I wonder what the emissions produced in that fire were like? California better enact a bill banning the explosion and burning of batteries after a car wreck.
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Don't give them any ideas, I can already see them charging a $5000 carbon tax if your electric car battery catches on fire.
 
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