So electric vehicles are going to save the planet, eh? Somebody forgot to tell Joe Biden something important when he authorized the spending of tens of billions of dollars for EV subsidies, more billions to build charging stations (still not enough), and still more billions to auto manufacturers to “incentivize” the design and building of more and more EV’s. That important bit of information is the fact that electric car fires are darn near impossible to put out.
That’s right. There’s going to be something close to 48 million EV’s on the road by 2030 (if the Biden administration statistics are right) and fire departments across the country don’t have a clue how to extinguish EV car fires.
Researchers say EV fires last longer, are harder to put out, and have a tendency to reignite. Not only do lithium-ion batteries contain extremely flammable chemicals, but when those chemicals burn, the toxic smoke can kill you.
“I think if we were faced with a similar scenario next time, we might need to let it burn,” said Franklin County (Tenn.) Fire Marshal Andy King after his crew doused a burning Nissan Leaf with 45,000 gallons of water.
Did no one mention this to Biden and the Democrats before they spent a couple of hundred billion dollars to build the darn things?
Unfortunately, there are 170,000 vehicle fires in the U.S. every year but the government doesn’t keep separate statistics on electric vehicle fires. Some independent studies show that EVs catch fire less frequently than gas-powered cars, but that’s not very helpful, considering that a non-electric car fire can simply be extinguished with water.
There is still a debate about the best way to put out an EV fire.