This is what lithium batteries can do

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Remember this?.........................
September 2010: A United Parcel Service 747 cargo plane carrying more than 80,000 lithium metal and lithium-ion batteries from Hong Kong caught fire and crashed near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The plane's two pilots, who were killed, reported smoke in the cockpit so thick they couldn't see their instruments.

Charles
 
Isaac-1 said:
I knew a guy in high school that drove one of those, he went on to go to the Naval Academy, became a fighter pilot, and was unfortunately killed in a training accident in California when his F/A-18 went down near El Centro, it is hard to believe that was nearly 20 years ago.
Click to expand...
Was his name Frank?

Sounds like this one:

Accident McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C Hornet 163495, Wednesday 18 January 2006

Destroyed in crash at 1830 hrs in an uninhabited area 5 miles (8km) north of NAF El Centro, California, during a night bomb training sortie.
aviation-safety.net

May he Rest in Peace.
 
Yes it was, real nice guy, he was raised by his grand parents who lived in a house across the street from the hole in the wall Mexican restaurant about a mile from my current house where I eat a couple of times per month. He played trumpet in the high school band, married his high school sweetheart Mendy, who moved back here after his death. On a trivia matter, he was the pilot that made the 390,000 landing on the USS Constellation, shortly before the ship was retired (I remember reading about the event, it made the local paper, but I had to look up the number just now).
 
Chef Duane said:
1973 Ford Pinto anyone?

And uh oh... https://www.usnews.com/news/us/arti...de-gm-recalls-40-000-pickups-to-fix-fire-risk
Click to expand...
Isaac-1 said:
I knew a guy in high school that drove one of those, he went on to go to the Naval Academy, became a fighter pilot, and was unfortunately killed in a training accident in California when his F/A-18 went down near El Centro, it is hard to believe that was nearly 20 years ago.
Click to expand...
I actually owned one of those. For 5 days, then I totaled it out in Cisco Grove about 20 miles west of Truckee, CA in March 1977. Didn't blow up, but the car was a mess. Me and the girlfriend lived.
 
I bought a Sony handicam in 2011 for our upcoming Alaska caravan trip in 2012. Then I bought a 2-pack of lithium batteries from Amazon for the camera for spared.
I plugged in the charger in the kitchen of our MH one evening and about midnight heard a shot. I got up to investigate and found what was left of the charging battery on the tile kitchen floor, still smoking.
Had the battery landed on the living room carpet this might have gotten exciting quickly.
After that, I only recharged batteries outside the MH.
 
Last edited:
Gr8bawana said:
That is very misleading. That statistic is actually about cars involved in a collision.
Lithium battery powered cars can burst into flames just sitting there parked.
Click to expand...
So can gas powered cars, about 25 years ago I saw a brand new Toyota Camry (still had temporary license plates) burn while parked at Wal-Mart, It belonged to a collage age girl who was half way home on an 8 hour drive on a holiday weekend. She was either ignoring or oblivious to the repeated PA system announcements asking the owner of a Blue Toyota Camry to come to the front of the store immediately, as they repeated the call over and over and over again, for over half an hour. The fire trucks got there in under 10 minutes, but by then it was way too late.
 
Tulecreeper said:
I actually owned one of those. For 5 days, then I totaled it out in Cisco Grove about 20 miles west of Truckee, CA in March 1977. Didn't blow up, but the car was a mess. Me and the girlfriend lived.
Click to expand...
I bought gas in Truckee, CA in 2008, it is the only place I have ever set foot in California , I was on a trip to Reno, and had time to kill (cheaper to stay an extra day, and save on airline tickets), so I drove the rental car over to Truckee, bought gas, then drove back into Nevada along the east shore of Lake Tahoe. This was in I think March of 2008, and there was still snow on the ground around the lake.
 
Isaac-1 said:
So can gas powered cars, about 25 years ago I saw a brand new Toyota Camry
Click to expand...
I recall a story from many years ago where a guy purchased a brand new Ferreri. Took it home, parked in the garage and his house burn down during the first night. IIRC, he escaped without injury.

The cause of the fire was discovered to be a leaky fuel pump or hose connection to it that caused the gasoline flumes to get too close to the furnace when it ignited and . . . . .

BTW, Tom & I were often here in Reno in year 2008 at our Cold Springs Valley House (the one I sold a few years ago).

BTW, the Standard gas station at Cisco Grove (Lucky's Travel Plaza) now has every type of EV charge station known to man. (2)J-1772, (2)-CCS, (2)-CHAdeMo and twelve 250 KW Tesla Superchargers. Has everything covered. Diesel and Gasoline too! A great location for my rides in the high Sierras with any of my seven EVs.

See here and here.

But I have no use for any of it when I go between Reno and Auburn as I usually take one of my 4 EVs (perhaps 5, but I won't chance one of them as it would cause me "range anxiety") that can make it all the way on a home charge. But Cisco Grove is close to the middle between my houses, and at the end of Hwy 20, which I often take when on a motorcycle. I really like to ride around Willow Valley (Near Nevada City, CA).

-Don- Reno, NV
 
Gr8bawana said:
That is very misleading. That statistic is actually about cars involved in a collision.
Lithium battery powered cars can burst into flames just sitting there parked.
Click to expand...
Nope. Nothing to do with collisions.
 
Don, I can do you one better, I had a co-worker about 18 years ago, she was nearing retirement age, and had driven the same car for over 20 years since it was new, a white Lincoln Town Car. She finally got a new car, it was a Chevy Tahoe (which kind of puts up back on topic another way), less than a week later someone ran the yield sign about half a mile from our work, ran her into the ditch, it rolled over and was totaled (gas engines don't like running upside down). This is not the end of the story, when the insurance settled she got another Chevy Tahoe, and within 2 weeks it caught fire while parked in the garage at her house, and burned the house down. No exact cause was ever found, she had driven it home from work, and immediately went somewhere with her husband in his F250 pickup truck, when they got home the house was on fire.
 
Apparently there were two battery packs built by an individual and one of the packs had an issue. I don’t think a factory made battery is a dangerous
 
Rene T said:
Apparently there were two battery packs built by an individual and one of the packs had an issue. I don’t think a factory made battery is a dangerous
Click to expand...

From the pic, that looked like an older cart so I figured someone had adapted some sort of lithium batteries to it. Actually not hard to do but They may have tried to use the regular 36v cart charger.

Charles
 
CharlesinGA said:
From the pic, that looked like an older cart so I figured someone had adapted some sort of lithium batteries to it. Actually not hard to do but They may have tried to use the regular 36v cart charger.

Charles
Click to expand...
It was a older cart but it wasn’t being charged when the fire started
 
There is no question that any lithium-based fire is super nasty. It burns extremely hot and very difficult to put out and keep out. And lithium-based battery chemistry seems to be much less forgiving of abuse than lead-acid, so needs rigorous charge management. Thus the use of built-in BMS circuitry on the better brands and the extensive control circuitry and temperature regulation & cooling in EVs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 749 (members: 10, guests: 739)

Forum statistics

Threads
132,806
Posts
1,400,964
Members
138,422
Latest member
Bridger
Back
Top Bottom