the breakthrough that makes EVs safer than ICE cars
Did Toyota write this? EVs already are much safer than ICEs, the headline reads like it’s trying to gaslight people into thinking otherwise.
Except ones with no handles. You’re supposed to burn alive in these.
Which has nothing to do with the drive train.
Except the fact that batteries burn extremely rapidly. In case of fire you have seconds to open the door and help the driver/passaners escape out of the vehicle
Dude…gas cars blow up every day. It’s so common it’s not news.
Vehicle fires report | NFPA Research
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) https://www.nfpa.org/ › research › fire-statistical-reports Oct 31, 2024 — The 195,927 highway vehicle fires per year in 2018–2022 caused an average of 579 civilian deaths; 1,336 civilian injuries.
I’ve heard that gasoline also tends to burn rapidly. The Mythbusters usually had to add gas to make their explosions look cooler
Not as rapidly as lithium batteries. From firefighting perspective this is much uglier case. Bonus issue: unlike gasoline, you can’t extinguish it reliably - it has to burn out on its own
Except their weight which leads to insane amounts of energy transfer and also none of the intrastructure, like guardrails, is built to handle that much weight so low down.
The way to safer is to reduce the amount of cars.
Next best thing to improving public transport to reduce the ammouny of cars would be reducing the size of cars, thus in large part negating the weight issue.
But like you said, nothing beats just having fewer cars on the road.
Just make cars insanely expensive, eventually Less cars will be on the riad
That just punishes poor people. If you male public transport good, people will take it.
I was being sarcastic and it didn’t come off well
EVs weigh similar to similar ICE vehicles.
Yeah, no.
This is a golf compared to an id.3. Two very comparable vehicles. The id.3 weighs 41% more. Don’t get me wrong I’d love to be able to get an id.3 but all we get in the states are these horrible SUVs. That said EVs do still suffer a major weight penalty that comes with its own issues.
WTF Lemmy…EVs are massively heavy.
Not even a little bit, and I’d say “but good effort” but really no, not even that.
EVs already are much safer than ICEs
For the occupant or those who are involved in a collision with one?
EVs are heavy
They don’t catch fire that often though.
Which is what that headline is about.
Do ice car catch fire more often?
Yes.
EVs already are much safer than ICEs
You do realize that article neither negates or supports the above statement.
Safer cars get into less crashes. You seriously want to argue semantics?
There are electric cars that are not Teslas…
Sodium is absolutely less of a fire risk which is good and is made of less rare earth minerals which is also a bonus.
The major downside is the energy density. If I am not mistaken it is about half of current litium ion batteries. Which would result in a halving of range for the same weight.
On top of that, if they ever get them into production, the solid state Lithium ion batteries are not only more energy dense than current batteries, they are also safer due to the lack of flammable liquid electrolites.
In conclusion with what I know, I doubt most cars will use sodium ion batteries. I would see them as great home batteries for solar installations. And maybe batteries for farm equipement or construction vehicles although the weight might become an issue.
Maybe a bit irrelevant but why is the article calling it “China’s battery“? I feel like if the researchers were from any other countries academy of science, say France, the title would have simply been something like “scientists discover new ways for fireproof battery”. Maybe it’d say French scientists or so, but not simply “France’s battery”?
Classic fluff piece to make China look more innovative than they actually are. I wouldn‘t be surprised if we never heard of this tech or if they recycle the same article next year. Tech ‚journalism‘ about China is a mine field of false claims and exaggerations.
These batteries are already in production cars. Have been for a while. If you don’t have access to them it’s because of your regressive protectionist government.
No no no. China is Fake News. They don’t even make cars. If they made cars, I would have seen Chinese cars driving around in America.
Regressive protectionism isn’t exactly unique to the American auto industry but yea.
Na+ batteries are really cool tech, and with a few more iterations of R&D they can potentially replace Li+ batteries, removing the need for rare earth elements that are toxic to people and the environment, dangerous to extract, and more often than not extracted by child slave labor (such as in Xinjiang and Congo).
It doesn’t matter how you feel about China, although framing Na+ as “China’s battery” is problematic for other reasons.
Well it stinks like Chinese propaganda. That much was blatantly obvious to me. It‘s just not always obvious what part they‘re lying about. So it was the part about it being Chinese in the first place. Not very creative I must say.
The particular innovation discussed in the article was developed by Chinese engineers. But that doesn’t make Na+ batteries “Chinese batteries.”
If all tech was owned by the country where it was developed, there would be a lot more “american this,” “american that.” Planes, computers, automobiles, nukes, etc.
Too much of it already is controlled by US patents, though. There needs to be more freedom to invent, develop, and iterate…
Sodium batteries won’t fix the mining issue for rare earths. Lithium is not rare.
Because it’s written as Chinese propaganda.
“China Battery!” typically trips everyone’s “Fake News! Evil Company! Communists Killed 100 Billion People!” alarm
More like “China lies” about everything.
That’s what my government tells me
Maybe you aren’t old enough to remember all the “scientific breakthroughs” that came out of China in the early 2000s that were later proven to be false, completely made up, all of which were published by institutions at least partially owned by ministers in China’s government.
You mean high speed rail and electric cars?
No.
The “they catch fire” argument is fucking bonkers anyway.
If there’s one thing petrol cars are famous for, it’s being filled with flammable liquids that can and do leak everywhere and combust upon collision.
You can ignore them. Same with all the disingenuous cunts who complain about wind turbines “spoiling the view” who ignore the coal and gas power stations that have littered the skyline for over a century.
Lithium fires are hard to contain unlike petrol fire:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/firefighters-forced-submerge-electric-car-082852772.html
So does an airplane crash would be more horrifying than a car crash, but that doesn’t change the fact that airplanes are safer.
Even so, any improvement is still good though
I never said they aren’t safer I only replied to the comment that petrol cars also burn, my point is that even though they are safer overall their fires are more dangerous.
You can put a petrol fire out in less than a few days though. Petrol doesn’t magically catch fire upon seeing oxygen either.
Ah, Lemmy. You never disappoint with sharing hilariously inaccurate information in comments!
ICE vehicles have far more fires. EVs are more intense, but significantly less frequent
Cool source. Ok, I’ll bite. The number of fire deaths in Teslas alone drawfs the number of fatalities in the infamous Pinto. The number is being tracked by volunteers because there’s no data from the NFPA or others that segments by EV vs ICE, but the number of highway vehicle fire deaths has been trending sharply upwards since 2016.
Tesla has sold nearly 8 million cars in total, with 3.5 million cars in 2023-2024 alone. There were 3.1 million Pintos ever produced in its 10 year run.
There are 27 fatalities linked to Pinto related fires and 83 related to Tesla fires according to your volunteer run source. The Pinto had a fatality for every 1 in 116,000 vehicles while Tesla, according to your source, has 1 in every 96,000. So the number of Tesla fire related fatalities does not “dwarf” the number of Pinto related fatalities. On top of that, a key difference is most of the Pinto fatalities were due to rear end collisions with no fault of the driver while Tesla’s are much higher performance vehicles getting involved in high energy collisions due to driver (autonomous and human) errors.
Here is a list giving a different view of fatal accidents by car model. To quote the article:
“Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue,” said Brauer. “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.”
Narrowing down the relevant information from your otherwise interesting comment, we can conclude that, if the sources are accurate, Teslas on average are more unsafe in terms of fire safety than the most unsafe internal combustion engine vehicle ever manufactured.
I think it’s ludicrous to dismiss those concerns as “fucking bonkers” and that we “can ignore them.” New addition to this list is that we can evidently also generalize all those EVs deaths as being “due to driver error,” so I suppose good riddance? Not really sure what to make of that, but boy do these threads sure show the best of humanity.
I think Teslas shouldn’t speak for all EVs.
the company has demonstrated a very high tolerance for risk. In execution, but also they don’t seem to care about reputational risk. Other manufacturers with a larger business at stake, I would expect to handle recalls, safety in a different manner (one of the reasons they are lagging in the EV space)
So… EVs have significantly less fires than combustion engines
But EVs fires are more severe
Tesla is a mess.
EV chemistry is getting better and safer over time.
Combustion engines are largely at their limit.
Absolutely agreed on all points!
You have clearly made up a narrative you want to hear, that doesn’t change the statistics that clearly shows EVs are significantly less prone (~20x) to catching fire compared to internal combustion vehicles.
How have I made up a narrative? My premise from the start was the absurdity of dismissing the dangers of vehicle fires, and there’s data showing that a significant number of people die in EV fires. You’ve decided to argue that the deaths somehow matter less—that’s making up a narrative to justify your, frankly, ludicrous position.
I’m sure that if somebody you loved died in such an event and somebody came along telling you that you’re “an idiot” for having legitimate concerns, should be ignored and lumps you into a group of “disingenuous cunts,” you’d have a different perspective.
This from the people that gave us fireworks… traditions disappear so fast…
God forbid someone does a humor
Wut
the same people that invented fireworks (thing that is set on fire and goes boom) now actively research/made the safe batteries (things that DON’T set on fire AND don’t go boom)
Uh, EVs are safer than ICE cars
That’s incorrect.
EVs crash more. Safer cars crash less.
EVsTeslas crash more.“Some of these accidents involved Tesla’s self-driving system.”
I thought sodium batteries had considerably less energy density than conventional? Is that not a problem anymore? If that hasn’t been solved, I don’t see how this helps make EVs safer.
