Cont: Luton Airport Car Park Fire part II

[LondonJohn]

My understanding is that EVs are heavier by volume than their ICE counterparts.

True.... but only when measured in Nm.

 

[Trebuchet]

Thank you. Frankly I had neither the patience nor the inclination to deal with yet another round of Vixen's idiotic ramblings.

One additional note re point 4; the nonsense about EVs being heavier has become yet another element of the anti-EV conspiracy theories. Apparently, according to the kooks, they'll destroy roads and bridges.
Unlike 44 tonne artics.....

Aha! Now we know what REALLY knocked down the bridge in Baltimore! A Tesla!!

 

[LondonJohn]

I understand you're using it to construct a straw man argument. The notion that something has "suddenly" changed is your invention. The notion that any discussion of EV fires has until now been "carefully avoided" is your invention.

Making **** up and telling us that's the story is not persuasive because it is not true. You have your little X-files conspiracy theory tale in your head and it's so exciting you can't tell when it's your own confirmation bias making it look like all kinds of stuff supports your fantasy.


For the removal of doubt this interminable thread has not been about EV fires not happening, nor about EV fires being easy to extinguish nor about EVs not being burned up in the Luton fire.

This thread has been about all the cranks insisting that the diesel car fire which started the conflagration was an EV fire (because, they insisted, it looked exactly like one and they should know because their brother in law works in a car showroom) and the authorities were conspiring to cover up the fact it was an EV fire because <fantastical reasons>.

So don't give us any of your nonsense about "suddenly they admit - EVs can catch fire!". The thread is not about that. It's about cranks being persistently and confidently wrong.

What he said.

Nobody can fail to miss the gigantic goalpost-shifting exercise Vixen has engaged in since the categorical disproving of her ludicrous conspiracy theory (oh, sorry! I meant "just seeking the unvarnished truth") that the initial car was some form of EV and that (for equally ludicrous "reasons") Beds Fire & Rescue Service plus the UK Government were colluding to hide that "truth" in order to protect the EV industry in general and Jaguar Land Rover's owner's planned UK EV battery plant in particular.

 

[LondonJohn]

Aha! Now we know what REALLY knocked down the bridge in Baltimore! A Tesla!!

I'm not so sure about that. But I did hear that some people are saying the ship in question was an electric vehicle with a 75-ton Li-ion battery.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

My understanding is that EVs are heavier by volume than their ICE counterparts.

I believe so; that EV versions of ICE designs are perhaps 10% to 20% heavier. But as Andy_Ross points out cars have got gradually heavier over the decades anyway.

(Take a typical UK middle-size car like a Ford Escort/Ford Focus. The 1960s Mk.1 was around 750kg. As the decades passed it crept up over a ton. The Focus models which followed got up to about 1.3 tons and the Focus EV version is about a quarter ton more.)

Then there's the issue that people are no longer buying the styles of car they bought decades ago, they're moving up to larger, taller SUVs instead.

So yes, EVs are typically heavier, but if car weights are becoming a concern for the floor loading of 1960s multi-storey car parks, then EV batteries are the final straw, certainly not the whole problem.

 

[Steve]

I'm not so sure about that. But I did hear that some people are saying the ship in question was an electric vehicle with a 75-ton Li-ion battery.

Now there is a conspiracy worth exposing!

 

[JayUtah]

I am not asking for respect.

No, you just tacitly demand it every time you insinuate that you're better informed and more insightful than everyone else. I wrote extensively on how you do this, but of course you won't read or comment on it.

At least I explain my views.

You Vixensplain them. This means you just state your ignorant belief du jour and expect it to be taken as fact.

 

[theprestige]

I believe so; that EV versions of ICE designs are perhaps 10% to 20% heavier. But as Andy_Ross points out cars have got gradually heavier over the decades anyway.

I'm sorry, but this just seems like a weaselly acknowledgement that EV cars are in fact heavier than their ICE counterparts. Would it be nice if all cars were smaller and lighter than they are in the current marketplace? Yes. Would it be better, weight-wise, for roads and car parks if all the cars on them were ICE instead of comparably-sized EVs? Yes. Are people going to start buying tiny EVs to replace their giant ICE cars, giving up luxurious volume for virtuous weight? Hell no.

 

[Mojo]

No, you just tacitly demand it every time you insinuate that you're better informed and more insightful than everyone else.

It's the basic motivation behind many conspiracy theories. Only the conspiracy theorist is smart enough to see what the sheeple can't.

 

[Mojo]

Nobody can fail to miss the gigantic goalpost-shifting exercise Vixen has engaged in since the categorical disproving of her ludicrous conspiracy theory...

It's left submarine tracks clear across the Baltic.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I'm sorry, but this just seems like a weaselly acknowledgement that EV cars are in fact heavier than their ICE counterparts.

I don't quite know what the weasels add, but yes it is an acknowledgement that cars offered in an ICE and EV version are indeed typically heavier in the EV version.

That's not some kind of trick or gotcha. It's just a recognition that the size of battery people want to get a desirable range typically more than offsets the loss of engine, gearbox and fuel tank.

 

[Mojo]

I don't quite know what the weasels add, but yes it is an acknowledgement that cars offered in an ICE and EV version are indeed typically heavier in the EV version.

That's not some kind of trick or gotcha. It's just a recognition that the size of battery people want to get a desirable range typically more than offsets the loss of engine, gearbox and fuel tank.

If people were happy with a range big enough for the 15-minute city they could probably make them lighter.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm sorry, but this just seems like a weaselly acknowledgement that EV cars are in fact heavier than their ICE counterparts. Would it be nice if all cars were smaller and lighter than they are in the current marketplace? Yes. Would it be better, weight-wise, for roads and car parks if all the cars on them were ICE instead of comparably-sized EVs? Yes. Are people going to start buying tiny EVs to replace their giant ICE cars, giving up luxurious volume for virtuous weight? Hell no.

I'd agree. But I would also say that roads and car parks in industrialised nations have long been substantially over-engineered with respect to vehicle weight. And EV cars are, size for size, hardly an order-of-magnitude heavier than their ICE counterparts (which is what's relevant for the purposes of this thread). So even the potential additional EV-battery weight should not pose any form of risk to properly-engineered roads and car parks.

I suppose that the caveat to this might potentially be car parks that were designed and built prior to, say, 1960: even though they might have been over-engineered for their time, it's possible that the combination of increased car sizes over the succeeding decades, plus the added weight of EV batteries, might put them uncomfortably close to their design limits. However in mitigation against that is the high probability that there are now very few pre-1960 car parks still in operation.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

In the United States, a lot of roads are built to carry class 8 vehicles, weighing up to 36 tonnes. An empty semi-trailer weighs about 5 tonnes all by itself.

ETA: Those trucks are seldom parked in multi-level car parks.

 

[theprestige]

I don't quite know what the weasels add, but yes it is an acknowledgement that cars offered in an ICE and EV version are indeed typically heavier in the EV version.

That's not some kind of trick or gotcha. It's just a recognition that the size of battery people want to get a desirable range typically more than offsets the loss of engine, gearbox and fuel tank.

"EVs are heavier than ICEs. That's going to be a problem for roads and car parks as EVs become a larger percentage of all cars."

"All cars have gotten heavier in recent years, not just ICEs."
"People buy cars by size, not weight. The problem for roads and car parks is going to get worse faster, as more people buy EVs."

"Yes, but it's still true that all cars have gotten bigger and therefore heavier in recent years, not just ICEs."
The highlighted sections are just attempts to deflect from the obvious and growing problem of EVs being heavier than their ICE counterparts.

 

[phiwum]

A couple of blasts from the past, so that Vixen can remember what this thread was once about.

In this post, Vixen showed the picture of the burning vehicle and asked what it looks like (to Jack by the hedge).

In a later post, she explicitly said that the image showed a Lithium Ion battery fire. When zooterkin pointed out that the initial vehicle had been confirmed to be a diesel, she waved it away by commenting that this confirmation was explicitly "subject to verification".

I asked her, "And if it is verified in some future press release, then will you concede that this is a plain old diesel?"

So far, Vixen has not explicitly conceded that she was wrong and that it was a bad idea to rely on her own interpretation of a photo of a fire in order to deduce the cause of the fire. She has moved on to pointing out that EVs were involved (since there were EVs which burned in the carpark), but this is irrelevant to her original certainty. Of course it was an EV or a hybrid! Just look at the damned photo!

So, Vixen, I wonder if you're willing to concede that you were wrong to cite that image so confidently as proof that the initial vehicle was an EV or hybrid.

 

[junkshop]

<adopts a listening pose>

 

[SpitfireIX]

The issue with EVs' being heavier isn't that they wear out infrastructure significantly faster; it's that they wear out their brakes and tires significantly faster. Future improvements in battery technology are expected to mitigate this problem.

 

[Agatha]

This may be a stupid question, but when comparing the weight of ICE to EV model by model, is the comparison made using the weight of an ICE with a full fuel tank or an empty tank?

My new EV car will weigh more than my current ICE car but it's much bigger because I need extra boot space for my wheelchair and hoist - my new chair doesn't fit in my current car which is making life a bit difficult just now.

 

[theprestige]

My new EV car will weigh more than my current ICE car but it's much bigger because I need extra boot space for my wheelchair and hoist - my new chair doesn't fit in my current car which is making life a bit difficult just now.

This is exactly the weaselly nonsense I'm talking about. You need a bigger and heavier vehicle. And if you buy an EV that meets your needs, it will be heavier than an ICE vehicle that meets your needs. If everybody does that, the problem for roads and car parks will grow much faster than if everyone keeps buying ICEs. It's a serious tradeoff that should be taken seriously, especially if we want to encourage people to switch to EVs sooner rather than later.

But here you are, disingenuously comparing an EV that meets your needs to an ICE that doesn't. Why not just acknowledge the trade-off between weight and emissions, and move on?