Graham Butcher

@wyx087 Good grief, what a load of BS. I have never denied diesel can burn, and I don't feel that I have to defend diesel. I'm merely pointing out the obvious as a person who has been involved with diesels for 59 years, so I think I can speak with some experience of the subject. As for the rest of your claims about me, they are completely wrong. My whole point since we started this discussion weeks ago was about EV batteries going into thermal runaway and how if that happens, it is terrible news for these in the vicinity because of the toxic gases, the rocket like flames that can come from them and how they can cause buildings to fail structurally due to the immense heat they generate, and conventional fire fighting methods are incapable of controlling them. This does not happen normally unless the batteries have become compromised is some way, though. Such events will become more common place as more ICE cars are scraped, and we adopt more BEVs, fact. This latest flare up was the result of a report I posted about reported problems with Jeep 4Es and Renault Zoe, this is just how much you defend against anything EV related if it could be negative. Me I know cars can and do catch fire, like I told you before, I have been a fireman, so I'm not without experience either, how about you? Now perhaps we can get back to normal programming? Without starting another long thread on the subject, I would love to have your thoughts on this article please, in particular the London Fire Brigade findings and I quote "Looking at the London Fire Brigade data, that would suggest an incident rate of 0.04% for petrol and diesel car fires, while the rate for plug-in vehicle is more than double at 0.1%. So far this year, there have been 1,021 petrol and diesel fires and 27 EV fires in the capital." Vehicle fire data suggests higher incident rate for EVs (fleetnews.co.uk)

Arh, yes, I remember these now, I even commented on them at the time. I was actually searching using the terms TSI and also TDI fire and drew blanks each time. Given the time lapse in the thermal incident (blue Octavia) I would suspect either a major electrical fault, or an arsonist was the culprit. The white one, also as you yourself commented at the time, was most certainly electrical related as bonnet clearly shows the main heat was in the area of the battery / fusebox / glovebox. I don't know if the fusebox on that particular model is located behind the glove box (it is on my Mk3 Superb), but there is also a fuse/relay box located close to the battery in the engine compartment. So it would in my view be wrong to put the blame on the cars being diesel powered, they could also equally have been powered by petrol (these were diesel though) as the electrical parts are in the same locations.

Hmm, I'm not finding any such threads for either TDI or TSI

What about petrol cars?

@wyx087 That is just where you are wrong, you choose to decide that I was blaming batteries for fires. All I have implied is that they are a significant major hazard in the event of them going into thermal runaway following damage to them, that is not present with ICE cars which we have had decades of experience of handling them in a fire situation. Batteries burn at far higher intensity and temperatures than petrol or diesel, can send flying firebombs around and even starving them of oxygen which is the normal method of dealing with oil fuels and foam, CO2 or powder is the normal method of dealing with oil fires, but has zero effect on them as they produce their own oxygen when they reach that critical temperature. Petrol Fire Extinguishers - What's the Best Type for Ignited Fuel? (safeworkers.co.uk)

I'm discussing what I think is a biased report by it stating that a diesel car has the highest chance of catching fire, which seems to suggest that the fuel itself is the cause of many fires which I cannot accept. It seems as if the world is just too willing to point fingers at diesels, when the most volatile fuel currently in popular use is petrol, then diesel followed by electric. There are more petrol cars on the planet then there are diesel and they out number electric cars. Given that all cars, regardless of the means of power all share common items, electrics, carpets, seats, plastics etc and have people inside them that maybe smoke, use power cords to power add on devices, phones etc all of which are capable of starting fires, to say nothing at all about the possibilities of fires starting through bodged DIY electrical installations for after market add-ons. When it comes to car fires, around 95% of them are caused by faulty electrics, and often it is a DIY job with poor cable routing, undersized cables etc that are the source of fire or poor maintenance, the fuel itself is not a major contributor.

WTF??? Just where did you state the above in your earlier post, which I quote below, you thought you stated it but you didn't. The implication in your post was that the Guardian article gave a similar stat as the Guardian article, with the same caveats such as age of vehicle in the data set. You also said "Thanks for finally confirming there are ways vehicle can catch fire other than simple fuel being set on fire. 👏", where did that come from, I never said anything else, in fact I think I have always stated that most car fires do not include or originate from the type of fuel being used, far more likely to be an electrical fault and that was infact the Top Gear joke about French cars self combusting because of faulty electrics 😉

This is where the association of the report and the Guardian figures came from.

From personal experience and having spent a few years working on a large fleet of diesel vehicles, I have to say no to the first statement/question you made. Modern cars are all injection are they not, true not operated at such high pressure as diesel injection do. I think that any fire caused by diesel being atomised and coming into contact with say a very hot exhaust manifold and possibly catching fire, is more likely to be because of poor maintenance or the lack of it rather than a fault in the system.

The above post was in response to me posting about smart meters were going to be made mandatary and that you can refuse and if you did, that the Police would get involved as well and come with the supply authority to assist in them gaining access to your property and installing said meter. I was unable to locate the article where I read it, however this link also backs this up and he has evidence from an expert on the subject.

That BYD is very impressive indeed.

Nope, doesn't mean it won't though, it was just very poor design, just as it would be to put the petrol cap and filler inside the car, no?

I know that diesel can be burnt, but there are far fewer diesels than petrol cars and understanding that diesel does indeed need a lot of persuasion to catch fire, it is therefore less likely that the fuel is the source of the fire, even if there is a fuel leak. Petrol will be ignited even if the car has been standing for some time and the engine and exhaust system has got cold, if there is fuel leak and a spark or a discarded cigarette comes into range, the petrol will ignite, diesel will not. That is why I do not believe the figures quoted in that article or the Guardian. Don't forget that petrol will vaporise at temperatures from as low as -43C but diesel needs to be higher than +52C, so petrol remains a real threat for 95C lower temperature than diesel. Can diesel vehicles catch fire more? Impossible in my view that the cause of the fire was the fuel, it could be anything else, arson, electrical who knows, but the same things apply equally to petrol and indeed PHEV, or BEV's. The plain truth is that any vehicle fire seldom is started with the fuel being the culprit, it is more likely to be electrical, and the fuel may or not become a factor at a much later stage of the fire, very often it does not enter into the equation, even with plastic fuel tanks, as the plastic acts an insulator, unless the fuel tank is almost empty when it will begin to melt, but as long as there is fuel in the tank it will absorb some of the heat, petrol is again the worst fuel to be heated as it vaporises rapidly and becomes more flammable. BEV, PHEV, Diesel or Petrol, the fuel used is not likely to be a factor in most car fires in the early stages, it could be at a later stage if the fire cannot be extinguished by the use of extinguishers or firemen with their equipment.

Not denying any of that, but, when you are inside said car, it could have been venting directly from beneath the rear seat, into the car for some time. The gases might be odourless for all we know, and the occupants could already be rendered incapable or even dead was the point that I was making. In the videos, both cars had massive openings already letting toxic gas out, the Jeep had 2 smashed windows that the firemen smashed in order to get water into the car, and the Zoe had the tailgate wide open and yet the explosion had such force behind it that the roof was blown off the Jeep and the Zoe had the doors bent outwards from the force. With vents designed to vent to the outside rather into the car, the casualties could be minimised, especially up in Scotland as from my recollection, it is often windy up there?

@wyx087 why the groan, did you watch the video?

Personally I don't believe those figures, have you ever tried to set diesel on fire? It is very difficult whereas petrol will happily take you face off if you go anywhere near with a lit match, diesel will is more inclined to extinguish a match if you put a lit match on a pool of diesel.

Those outside are far less likely to suffer as how many times do people stand around that close to a car that is giving off vast clouds of smoke/fumes whereas those inside might already have become incapacitated due to the concentration of the toxic fumes. Outside the fumes are subjected to the breeze and less toxic due to their dilution with fresh air.

Well I think it is all done in an effort to keep costs as low as possible on the both the Zoe and the Jeep as apparently both have access panels under the seats. To my mind that is like having a petrol car with its filler cap beneath the rear seat, so any problems with the filler cap seal would allow highly explosive petrol vapours to build up inside the passenger area, I mean what could possibly go wrong, I wonder 👿

Hmm, that is very interesting, thanks for posting. Firstly Munro Associates threw me a bit because I used to do a lot of work with a company called Munro Associates but here in the UK, they are electrical and building services consulting engineers and I have worked on many large construction projects with them on the electrical designs. They are not part of the Munro Associates in this video though. I'm actually quite impressed with the level of integration on this, but at the same time, while it maximises profits and saves time for Telsa in assembly, it also adds massively to the repair costs to the car owners. With regard to the Zoe battery pack in the Ebay listing, that is totally different to what was shown in the video of what was alleged to be the Zoe traction battery beneath the rear seat base. So with that in mind, it looks as if the problem with that battery with the firemen access panel in the middle of the battery, on top is either an old, or newer model then that in the eBay advert,

It's not situation that really be considered to be worthy of a recall. However it might also only be applicable to certain models, as the reports don't specify. It also is only really an issue if the battery goes bad. The main danger as I see it is if you are prevented from escaping due to doors being prevented from opening for any reason and the occupants are exposed to toxic gasses. That said it not an everyday situation, but I suspect a decent engineered car like a Tesla has a solid floor and the batteries are beneath it preventing them from venting internally?

True, I likewise have not seen any for some time, the last car fire I recall seeing as on old VW split screen microbus (petrol) which caught fire while being driven just down the road from me, by the time fire brigade arrived, it was a total loss. Still, all the same, these events are happening and the StachedD is a trained fire officer and is researching these EV fires and if he thinks that although, they don't happen currently, as often ICE cars, when they do, they are far worse and more dangerous, then he ought to be listened to.

Was anyone aware of the dangerous design flaw with the Renault Zoe and The Jeep Wrangler 4E plug-in hybrids? I wonder if this flaw has been built-in with some other PHEV, or possibly even with some of the lesser high spec, more budget orientated BEVs. It has to do with using of the battery casing as part of the cars structure and also building in a firemen access panel to the batteries to allow them to be able to get water jets directly onto the batteries to cool them down. It seems that this allows all toxic fumes from a battery when it goes wrong, to directly vent into the cars' interior rather than to the outside, what could possibly go wrong 🙄

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May or may not be true, but there are vehicles out there in daily use older than 23 years old is there not?

The whole point of what I was trying to say is that the whole process of someone trying to prove that system A was better than system B is entirely pointless and impossible to prove with having the identical numbers in each sample used in the experiment and then both sets of examples must be exposed to the identical conditions and ageing etc in order to formulate a conclusion. That is currently not possible as there are so many unknown factors that come with ageing and also manufacturing process have also changed over years.