RE: Fancy a first gen Formula E car? Yours for ?1

[blueg33]

HustleRussell said:

There are a number of people in this thread who need to clue themselves up on lithium fires.

Really? They are so dangerous that they are now widely used in passenger aviation, used in cars and in pretty much every electrically powered consumer device. People are dropping like flies, they are so dangerous.

They are really no more dangerous than other energy sources, eg a steam boiler can fail and blow up, a fuel leak in a petrol car can cause a fire and/or explosion, a gas oven can blow up, ffs even custard powder is explosive. As with everything you just need appropriate safety precautions.

[HustleRussell]

blueg33 said:

HustleRussell said:

There are a number of people in this thread who need to clue themselves up on lithium fires.

Really? They are so dangerous that they are now widely used in passenger aviation, used in cars and in pretty much every electrically powered consumer device. People are dropping like flies, they are so dangerous.

They are really no more dangerous than other energy sources, eg a steam boiler can fail and blow up, a fuel leak in a petrol car can cause a fire and/or explosion, a gas oven can blow up, ffs even custard powder is explosive. As with everything you just need appropriate safety precautions.

You chose not to clue yourself up on lithium fires then.

[HustleRussell]

PGNSagaris said:

Article said:

“These first Formula E cars offer just 12 to 17 laps of running before they need a re-charge”


fk OFF..how st is that.

st sport. st concept.

Where can I read more fresh, unique and forward-looking insights such as this

[blueg33]

HustleRussell said:

blueg33 said:

HustleRussell said:

There are a number of people in this thread who need to clue themselves up on lithium fires.

Really? They are so dangerous that they are now widely used in passenger aviation, used in cars and in pretty much every electrically powered consumer device. People are dropping like flies, they are so dangerous.

They are really no more dangerous than other energy sources, eg a steam boiler can fail and blow up, a fuel leak in a petrol car can cause a fire and/or explosion, a gas oven can blow up, ffs even custard powder is explosive. As with everything you just need appropriate safety precautions.

You chose not to clue yourself up on lithium fires then.

Quite the opposite - maybe you didn't.

[HustleRussell]

blueg33 said:

Quite the opposite - maybe you didn't.

I dare say your debate lacks quality.

Let me guess: "No it doesn't"

[G321]

blueg33 said:

G321 said:

Electric cars aren't allowed to enter hill climbs competetively as far as I know, something to do with the fire risk of the batteries. Shelsley walsh recently had a formula E car go up the hill but it was for demonstration purposes only for that reason

How dumb is that? There must be at least as much risk having fuel pissing out of a home made petrol driven weird machine, or a 1920's race car where seatbelts were thought to be detrimental to safety

As i corrected further down the thread. They are allowed however the venues don't have the infrastructure to contain a lithium ion battery fire for reasons already mentioned.

[blueg33]

HustleRussell said:

blueg33 said:

Quite the opposite - maybe you didn't.

I dare say your debate lacks quality.

Let me guess: "No it doesn't"

Please present data that supports your assertion that LIB's are more dangerous than other energy sources used in vehicles. If I am proven wrong I am happy to accept that, but here is a basic level starter - Fires from LIB's do not generate as much heat as fires from petrol.

You could also start with this for info:

Hybrid electric vehicles and their challenges: or this

Cathode material comparison of thermal runaway behavior of Li-ion cells at different state of charges including over charge

or this

lithium-ion battery state of charge estimation and management system in electric vehicle applications: Challenges and recommendations

Then find similar papers on the challenges with petrol etc

You then need to look at the likelihood of catastrophic failure, the extent of the impact of such a failure etc. This then needs to be compared with the same issues for other fuels.

Thanks

[Monkeylegend]

Won't you need to buy two though?

[HustleRussell]

blueg33 said:

HustleRussell said:

blueg33 said:

Quite the opposite - maybe you didn't.

I dare say your debate lacks quality.

Let me guess: "No it doesn't"

Please present data that supports your assertion that LIB's are more dangerous than other energy sources used in vehicles. If I am proven wrong I am happy to accept that, but here is a basic level starter - Fires from LIB's do not generate as much heat as fires from petrol.

You could also start with this for info:

Hybrid electric vehicles and their challenges: or this

Cathode material comparison of thermal runaway behavior of Li-ion cells at different state of charges including over charge

or this

lithium-ion battery state of charge estimation and management system in electric vehicle applications: Challenges and recommendations

Then find similar papers on the challenges with petrol etc

You then need to look at the likelihood of catastrophic failure, the extent of the impact of such a failure etc. This then needs to be compared with the same issues for other fuels.

Thanks

What we have currently is a flammable liquid which is limited in quantity and will form a pool fire which can be knocked down with the aqueous foam, powder, CO2 extinguishers carried by a marshal. AFFF extinguishers in the car knock down fire within the car hopefully for sufficient time for the driver to be extricated. If we're talking about hillclimbs there is probably a gallon or two in the car.

Runaway Lithium fire of a fuel cell of sufficient capacity to power a car is almost impossible to knock down within a reasonable time frame and is prone to spontaneously reigniting for hours or even days afterwards. The chemicals given off by such a fire and the risk of those to fire fighters and onlookers necessitate special precautions on their own.

If you're trying to run a small motorsports venue how are you going to adequately protect yourself from the risk when you have amateur competitors, volunteer marshals, hundreds or thousands of people on site with limited containment of the risk area? Especially since places like hillclimb venues are all running on a financial knife edge as it is.

[kambites]

Lithium Ion fires are easy enough to suppress for extraction purposes, using much the same technique as you'd use for a petrol fire - keep the oxygen away and it wont burn. Any extinguisher you'd sensibly use on a petrol fire will work on a Li-Ion one.

There is, as you say, a problem that once oxygen is again present the material can reignite without a heat source. That shouldn't be a safety problem, you can simply keep people away, but it can certainly be an infrastructure issue and means fires can cause substantially more damage to property.

[blueg33]

HustleRussell said:

What we have currently is a flammable liquid which is limited in quantity and will form a pool fire which can be knocked down with the aqueous foam, powder, CO2 extinguishers carried by a marshal. AFFF extinguishers in the car knock down fire within the car hopefully for sufficient time for the driver to be extricated. If we're talking about hillclimbs there is probably a gallon or two in the car.

Runaway Lithium fire of a fuel cell of sufficient capacity to power a car is almost impossible to knock down within a reasonable time frame and is prone to spontaneously reigniting for hours or even days afterwards. The chemicals given off by such a fire and the risk of those to fire fighters and onlookers necessitate special precautions on their own.

If you're trying to run a small motorsports venue how are you going to adequately protect yourself from the risk when you have amateur competitors, volunteer marshals, hundreds or thousands of people on site with limited containment of the risk area? Especially since places like hillclimb venues are all running on a financial knife edge as it is.

I'm sure

Graphite based dry powder and plenty of water are the recommended ways to extinguish LIB fires even large ones. Outside as in a motorsports venue the risk is actually reduced as hydrogen will not build up.

I don't think it is necessarily much more onerous than dealing with a petrol fire as long as marshalls are properly equipped and trained, neither of which are prohibitvely expensive.

[HustleRussell]

kambites said:

it can certainly be an infrastructure issue and means fires can cause substantially more damage to property.

Ah yes, forgot to add- something like that happens at a hillclimb and it's game over for the weekend, fire service brought in, the other hundred competitors who were hoping to run and all the spectators and photographers sent home... probability of damage to the circuit itself or circuit furniture, while present with a petrol or oil fire, more than likely with battery cell.

[kambites]

Swings and roundabouts though. A Lithium Ion fire is far less likely than a petrol one in the event of a crash because you need penetration into the (generally very highly protected) battery cell itself whereas petrol fires can be triggered by damage to anything between the fuel tank and the engine inclusive.

Quite a lot of forms of motorsport are now using Lithium Ion cells in hybrid power plants; has there ever been a Lithium Ion battery fire at a motorsport event?

[HustleRussell]

You can't really conflate big budget national or international motorsport with your normal hillclimbing event, the level of budget and facility are worlds apart.

[kambites]

HustleRussell said:

You can't really conflate big budget national or international motorsport with your normal hillclimbing event, the level of budget and facility are worlds apart.

I can see why would you wouldn't want home-brew EVs competing in hill-climbs until you have the facilities to put out fires, certainly. But that's not what we're talking about here. A Formula-E car is presumably no more likely to catch fire on a low-budget hill-climb than in a multi-million pound Formula-E race.

Out of interest, are hydrogen powered cars allowed at hill-climbs? LPG?

[HustleRussell]

kambites said:

HustleRussell said:

You can't really conflate big budget national or international motorsport with your normal hillclimbing event, the level of budget and facility are worlds apart.

I can see why would you wouldn't want home-brew EVs competing in hill-climbs until you have the facilities to put out fires, certainly. But that's not what we're talking about here. A Formula-E car is presumably no more likely to catch fire on a low-budget hill-climb than in a multi-million pound Formula-E race.

Out of interest, are hydrogen powered cars allowed at hill-climbs? LPG?

There must be hundreds of motorsport venues in the UK, I wonder how many would cry 'enough' if you asked them to facilitate the availability of tens of thousands of litres of water anywhere on site and doubling up the existing extinguishers with special ones for Lithium etc. For the water we're talking several 7.5t trucks?

[kambites]

You don't need specialist extinguishers. Anything you would use on a petrol fire can be used on a Lithium Ion battery fire. You only need specialist extinguishers for batteries which contain elemental Lithium, which Li-Ion car batteries do not.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 21st August 14:41

[RacerMike]

Good to see someone's talking some sense one here. Of course HV applications can be dangerous, but as clearly pointed out, so can any gasoline or diesel based tech. The reality is, the mitigation of risk at every stage of design and application make the likelihood of a thermal event involving a LIB so much lower than it is in an ICE vehicle. Of course it would be foolish to be blase about LIBs, but it's quite the opposite. The amount of risk management involved with HV vehicles is huge.

The reality is, the amount of training involved to deal with a LIB fire is small and could likely be covered in any normal training or refresher exercise.

[Some Gump]

JonChalk said:

The FIA can't allow a technology war to drive development at such a pace that performance starts to eclipse the halo categories (F1, WEC, WRC) so soon that they can't manage the inevitable decline and replacement of these at the rate they want.

Not sure that is the case. The FIA wanted WEC to become more and more hybrid - but when the teams pushed the tech limit they became unreliable. This is why Porsche ran Le Mans with the year old spec hybrid parts (new ones faster but wouldn't last 24h), in part why Audi never passed 4mJ and the 10mJ class was canned before it even started.

If there was to be a credible "superhybrid" or E-car entry to LM, there is a special class (CDNT, cars displaying new technology) that the ACO would do backflips to get a true low emissions thing involved. Recent years have had the Deltawing, Nissan ZEOD (both very interesting but we didn't really get to see them do their thing due to crash / gearbox failure). Other than that, the GreenGT disappeared, the (2?) efforts by Lord Drayson didn't get over the line, and Panoz just pulled the Green4U car.

CDNT entry would allow any OEM to get huge coverage on the international stage without having to throw a huge budget at it. The thing is, they don't. Why would the might of Porsche, Toyota, Tesla, McLaren, Honda or anyone else that is heavily invested in hybrid and / or e-vehicles not want to go there? IMO it's because the technology isn't ready - it certainly isn't because the FIA are stopping them from doing so.

[RacerMike]

Some Gump said:

Not sure that is the case. The FIA wanted WEC to become more and more hybrid - but when the teams pushed the tech limit they became unreliable. This is why Porsche ran Le Mans with the year old spec hybrid parts (new ones faster but wouldn't last 24h), in part why Audi never passed 4mJ and the 10mJ class was canned before it even started.

If there was to be a credible "superhybrid" or E-car entry to LM, there is a special class (CDNT, cars displaying new technology) that the ACO would do backflips to get a true low emissions thing involved. Recent years have had the Deltawing, Nissan ZEOD (both very interesting but we didn't really get to see them do their thing due to crash / gearbox failure). Other than that, the GreenGT disappeared, the (2?) efforts by Lord Drayson didn't get over the line, and Panoz just pulled the Green4U car.

CDNT entry would allow any OEM to get huge coverage on the international stage without having to throw a huge budget at it. The thing is, they don't. Why would the might of Porsche, Toyota, Tesla, McLaren, Honda or anyone else that is heavily invested in hybrid and / or e-vehicles not want to go there? IMO it's because the technology isn't ready - it certainly isn't because the FIA are stopping them from doing so.

The FIA make some strange decisions though. I believe none of the teams wanted a two car per race FE format as it perpetuated the idea that BEVs have range issues, but the FIA insisted on it. The technology to make a suitably energy dense battery that would last a full race has been around for a good while. It's not exactly cutting edge as the energy consumption for the whole race is less than 60kWh. Realistically, the tech is available to run an F1 length race with 're-fuelling'. It would be perfectly reasonable to make a car now that's capable of 10-15 laps at high speed with a pit time of less than 5 mins to recharge. I'd really love to see tech pushed beyond where we're at with road cars. But as it is, road cars are now on the brink of 350kWh recharge speeds, 110kWh pack capacity and 500 mile range, and FE is stuck with circa 50kWh recharging speed max, and 54kWh battery capacity at a frankly weedy 0.14kWh/kg. The technology in the Gen2 car battery has been around for well over 5 years.....a Model 3 battery is already over 0.2kWh/kg.

Edited by RacerMike on Tuesday 21st August 15:58