Parking EVs indoors

[3930dave]

I haven't asked one yet, but I suspect that a Sr. Actuary would list "identifying and quantifying emerging (financial) risks" as one of their top responsibilities.

Because of Tesla's profile, those tend to make the news....

..... feel free to chime-in on those, but my interest is primarily in Commercial vehicles.

One example, in China....

.... if you haven't seen that ^ before or don't watch till the firefighters arrive..... Note: those are only tiny (by N. American standards) mini-buses.....

What I'm interested in is any emerging trends in the Insurance industry, to require EVs to be parked outside, esp. during Charging cycles.

Rgds, D.

 

[Jstpssng]

That problem has been around for a long time, and is not limited to electric vehicles.

Ford recalls SUVs that could catch fire, urges owners to park outside | Fortune

And, in a separate recall, company reveals pick up truck airbags might not work as expected.

fortune.com

Some Kia and Hyundai cars are bursting into flames for no reason, car safety group says

The Center for Auto Safety has found complaints from 120 consumers who described either their Kia or Hyundai vehicles bursting into flames for no apparent

www.consumeraffairs.com

I won't have an attached garage for that reason; I want my house at least 50 feet away.

 

[Roadworthy]

The problem seems to be in the manufacture of the batteries themselves. For awhile Samsung had a problem with their phones burning in people's pockets. My phone lives in a belt pouch and my car is in a detached carport.

 

[3930dave]

That problem has been around for a long time, and is not limited to electric vehicles.

Ford recalls SUVs that could catch fire, urges owners to park outside | Fortune

And, in a separate recall, company reveals pick up truck airbags might not work as expected.

fortune.com

Some Kia and Hyundai cars are bursting into flames for no reason, car safety group says

The Center for Auto Safety has found complaints from 120 consumers who described either their Kia or Hyundai vehicles bursting into flames for no apparent

www.consumeraffairs.com

I won't have an attached garage for that reason; I want my house at least 50 feet away.

Cadillac for one, had electrical problems on gasoline vehicles in recent years that had them sending notices to registered owners telling them to park those vehicles outdoors.

So No, I don't view it as an "EV" problem exclusively......

Pretty much any insurance company will insure a residential detached garage at a lower premium..... follow the money, was part of the reason I built mine detached here too.....

Cell-phones, laptops, now EVs...... all went (or are going) through the same cycle...... notable cases of battery pack fires, esp. during initial production. (And.... as anybody involved in volume production knows, the requirement to be eternally vigilant tends to diminish, and not just with Time.... later stage cost pressures are usually non-trivial).

I have a general interest in this Thread Topic..... but w/o going into specifics concerning planning (or lack-thereof) and politics @ work, I have significant concerns about this major fire-risk being dealt with proactively, in a large commercial application.

Getting delayed, driving slowly down a major road or highway past a Tesla fire may waste some of your personal time that day, but other than that, impact is minimal.

Spending significant time in your workday, in proximity to large commercial vehicles being charged inside a building........
^ even One of those vehicles going up..... the direct-impact on your lungs could be significant, or even life-ending......

Rdgs, D.

 

[Diggin It]

I have an attached garage. I like it and wouldn't be without it. Lots of things burst into flames including lamps and TVs.

In addition to the stories mentioned above, I recall one of one of those forensics TV shows. Person was charged with murder for a car fire that killed her elderly Mother. Lots of 'evidence' presented including so called pour patterns investigators said meant some sort of flammable liquid was used. In the end, it was the result of a defective ignition switch in some Fords and Mercuries. Switch would short internally, overheat, melt and ignite surrounding plastics in the steering column that dripped onto the carpet which then also ignited, but left a characteristic pour pattern.

 

[Eagle1]

I've personally seen 2 RV trailers light themselves on fire while no one had been in them for days. Really eye opening how much toxic stuff is flammable. One was a refrigerator going up in smoke, the other I have no idea not much left but I would guess an overloaded outlet or bad connection at the outlet. All RVs use the crappiest outlet that make mobiles home wiring look wonderful.

 

[3930dave]

I've personally seen 2 RV trailers light themselves on fire while no one had been in them for days. Really eye opening how much toxic stuff is flammable. One was a refrigerator going up in smoke, the other I have no idea not much left but I would guess an overloaded outlet or bad connection at the outlet. All RVs use the crappiest outlet that make mobiles home wiring look wonderful.

You've got a point there...... given how a lot of RVs are thrown together, it's a wonder they don't Let the Smoke Out of the Wiring more often.... There's a major RV dealer here, that lost their entire main building, due to one RV going up suddenly, in the middle of workday. Fortunately no loss of life; building was reduced to ash.

A neighbour lost his brother to lung-cancer a # of years back, @ a relatively young age. Fit looking guy, not a tobacco user.

Now standard-practice (respirators On, any sign of smoke), but when that brother joined the Fire-Service, it was less common.

Go back and look @ the (now ancient) old fire-hall pictures...... many firefighters sported beards, and would just cover their face with a cloth...... you'd be coughing up black after a big fire back-when, but the difference was No Plastics, so mostly just wood-smoke.

High enough density of wood-smoke can obviously asphyxiate you, but the impact of even trace amounts of smoke from burning Plastics and other modern compounds is huge, though not necessarily immediate.

Rgds, D.

 

[ruffdog]

That problem has been around for a long time, and is not limited to electric vehicles.

Ford recalls SUVs that could catch fire, urges owners to park outside | Fortune

And, in a separate recall, company reveals pick up truck airbags might not work as expected.

fortune.com

Some Kia and Hyundai cars are bursting into flames for no reason, car safety group says

The Center for Auto Safety has found complaints from 120 consumers who described either their Kia or Hyundai vehicles bursting into flames for no apparent

www.consumeraffairs.com

I won't have an attached garage for that reason; I want my house at least 50 feet away.

Ford had the brake switch corrosion switch issue back in about 2006-8 that caused fires and we were told to park outside. I had a Ford truck at the time. Yes, now there is another recall and battery problems with the Lightning.

I have a firewall between the garage and house but I fully understand your concern. A fire could be cooking out in the garage for quite a while before you would know about it. I wonder if they make garage specific alarms?

 

[3930dave]

More likely a snow-country thing, but CO in any attached garage can kill quickly....

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...ing-after-car-left-idling-in-garage-1.3363987

Rgds, D.

 

[ruffdog]

More likely a snow-country thing, but CO in any attached garage can kill quickly....

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...ing-after-car-left-idling-in-garage-1.3363987

Rgds, D.

The danger from the Ford brake switch recall was it could burn your house down AFTER you parked it and shut it off in your garage. The switch would leak fluid and short out, causing the fire.

Ford Recall: Brake Fluid in Switch - Fuse

 

[Jstpssng]

Ford had the brake switch corrosion switch issue back in about 2006-8 that caused fires and we were told to park outside. I had a Ford truck at the time. Yes, now there is another recall and battery problems with the Lightning.

I have a firewall between the garage and house but I fully understand your concern. A fire could be cooking out in the garage for quite a while before you would know about it. I wonder if they make garage specific alarms?

It seems like you could put an alarm in the garage and hardwire it to those in your house.

 

[turbo36]

I've personally seen 2 RV trailers light themselves on fire while no one had been in them for days. Really eye opening how much toxic stuff is flammable. One was a refrigerator going up in smoke, the other I have no idea not much left but I would guess an overloaded outlet or bad connection at the outlet. All RVs use the crappiest outlet that make mobiles home wiring look wonderful.

No matter how much you pay for them. They are all still just junk going down the road.

A gentleman I know that is on his 18th RV said “think of it this way, what if your house was going down the road at 55 miles an hour in a hurricane? Well that is what a motorhome is”.

 

[ruffdog]

It seems like you could put an alarm in the garage and hardwire it to those in your house.

It sounds like a heat detector is what is recommended for garages.

Does Garage Need Smoke Detector?

 

[Eagle1]

No matter how much you pay for them. They are all still just junk going down the road.

A gentleman I know that is on his 18th RV said “think of it this way, what if your house was going down the road at 55 miles an hour in a hurricane? Well that is what a motorhome is”.

And these days a growing number of folks want to live in them full time. Not travel just live and it's a LOT harder than they think. If you can not make your own repairs it a never ending money pit in my opinion, or you change out every 3-4 years.

 

[3930dave]

It sounds like a heat detector is what is recommended for garages.

Does Garage Need Smoke Detector?

Starting to scroll down this page, I was thinking of a company I worked for, that produced heat-detectors...... and, there you are ^.

Residential smoke detectors are a high-volume, low-cost game..... it could be done electronically (and, there may be spec-rated ones available, I haven't looked), but in a high-liability application like that, the Operating Temperature Range that many of us need in a garage takes it well out of the normal low-cost smoke detector realm.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

And these days a growing number of folks want to live in them full time. Not travel just live and it's a LOT harder than they think. If you can not make your own repairs it a never ending money pit in my opinion, or you change out every 3-4 years.

It is a lot of work, keeping an RV up.

Blue-sky lottery win..... I'd take a Unimog chassis/drivetrain/cab, and build custom.

Closer (but only slightly ) to reality...... I'd probably stick a new sea-can on a pre-emission roll-off truck. Always a func over form guy (with wise better-half), I'd want the strength of the can to start with, adding interior I wanted, reinforcing window/door openings properly.

That ^ might be fun....... tool around a Run What You Brung country...... drop your "house" in an agreeable spot, then roam in lighter vehicle, barter/trade work with the locals using the roll-off... whatever.....

Seems like ^ something I'd prefer to do..... over working in an enclosed building, cheek/jowl beside experimental early-production extremely volatile technology.......

Rgds, D.

 

[Eagle1]

A can on a roll-off would outlast 90% of the RV by huge margin, if you do your cutouts right. I have seen some RV ice fishing rigs that look like they would last. Drive in and they drop to the ground.

 

[3930dave]

A can on a roll-off would outlast 90% of the RV by huge margin, if you do your cutouts right. I have seen some RV ice fishing rigs that look like they would last. Drive in and they drop to the ground.

Some of the best material I've seen on sea-cans has a tradename something like Corten..... looks like stuff that would outlast me, by a longshot..... if I ever quit being so lazy/get a project like this done, that's what I'd use.

For cost and other reasons, many RV platforms are relatively speaking Kleenex-boxes-on-wheels....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

2 more examples......

VIDEO: Electric bus spontaneously explodes on the streets of Paris

Rgds, D.

 

[Jstpssng]

It would suck to be on that bus. They showed a chart of how many fires per vehicle type, I wonder how many of those were spontaneous vs the result of an accident.