Damaged electric cars ‘quarantined’ over fears they will explode
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Electric cars that sustain minor bumps are being kept 15 meters apart in repair yards over fears they might explode, adding to insurance bills.
Government guidelines recommend electric vehicles with damaged batteries should be “quarantined” from other vehicles due to the risk of battery fires. Damaged batteries pose a risk of “thermal runaway” where the energy stored in the battery releases rapidly, creating temperatures of up to 400C.
But the practice threatens to increase costs for the insurance industry by more than £600m, costs which ultimately could be passed onto drivers in increased premiums, according to a report by automotive risk firm Thatcham Research.
It said insurers would need to spend an additional £900m a year on quarantine facilities for damaged cars as a result of the safety measures by 2035, as more battery-powered vehicles take to the roads. The extra costs risk adding £20 a year onto all car insurance premiums, rising to £28 by 2050 when there are expected to be some 360,000 electric cars on the road network.
Just two damaged electric cars can fit into the same space that would otherwise fit 100 petrol or diesel cars, under current the DVLA and Transport Department guidelines.
Last year 9,400 vehicles were potentially involved in collisions resulting in batteries needing repair – a figure that could reach as high as 260,000 by 2035, the report said.
Claims for damaged electric cars cost insurers 25pc more than their petrol counterparts, the report found. Electric vehicles also take 14pc longer to repair.
Rapidly depreciating values mean the cost of replacing a battery outweighs the cost of the car after just one year, leaving insurers no choice but to scrap the car, it said.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/insurance/car/damaged-electric-cars-quarantined-fears-explode/
Don’t worry though, because Sir Humphrey has got it all in hand:
A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We are investing in innovation and research, as well as working with insurers and manufacturers to further improve the ways electric vehicle batteries can be repaired, refurbished and recycled.”
Meanwhile the useless SMMT think that a VAT cut on public chargers will see millions flocking to by the equally useless EVS:
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which represents car makers, called for a tax cut on public charging stations to help accelerate the update of eco-friendly vehicles.
Drivers with chargers on their driveways pay just 5pc VAT to power up their electric car, while those reliant on the public network pay 20pc.
The SMMT said levelling out this disparity could make electric car ownership a more realistic target for people, regardless of their home ownership or property status.
Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said: “Most electric vehicle owners enjoy the convenience and cost saving of charging at home but those that do not have a driveway or designated parking space must pay four times as much in tax for the same amount of energy.
“This is unfair and risks delaying greater uptake, so cutting VAT on public EV charging will help make owning an EV fairer and attractive to even more people.”
Does he really believe that a saving of a couple of quid a time will make the slightest difference to drivers who will face queuing up for hours at a charger?
Should not the SMMT be sticking up for the interest of motor manufacturers and their customers, and not promoting the government’s green agenda?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Climate-obsessed governments want millions of these potential disasters on the roads.
“A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said…”
I’m beginning to get a preference for the ‘Department for Energy Security OR Net Zero’. Makes for more sense.
Didn’t this government pledge to cut domestic energy VAT to zero?
How about fulfilling that promise before cutting VAT on pet vanity projects.
To be worthwhile it will be necessary for electric car owners to have permanent access to a reliable supply of electricity. One thing natural disasters show is that essential supply lines can be broken.
In earthquakes the power lines have to be inspected before they can be switched on.
In floods power pylons can be damaged when land is swept away from beneath. Restoring power to communities can take days. It would be a good idea to have stand by petrol driven vehicles mandated for Emergency Services otherwise the rescuers will need to be rescued. And where are the electric helicopters ?
The Danish Fire Service have already thought about this:-
https://brandogsikring.dk/en/news/2020/container-puts-out-inextinguishable-fires-in-electric-cars/
GG
Madness takes more than the mad politico, there has to be a mad customer also!
Smug, more like, from the ones I see around me, especially Liberal Democrats.
How long a wait is safe?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tesla-fire-car-rancho-cordova-b2107186.html
How about levelling up the taxes on Petrol & Deisel so that millions get the benefit?
How about scrapping ALL the taxes on petrol and diesel? Taxes on essential items are disgraceful. VAT at a lower rate than the standard rate could stay, but it must be ringfenced so that the revenue only gets used for maintaining existing roads and building the still missing new ones.
This is off topic but I found the penultimate paragraph interesting, something slipped through BBC Verify.
“Chances are that July will be the warmest ever, and with it the hottest month ever: ‘ever’ meaning since the Eemian which is some 120,000 years ago,” said Karsten Haustein, from the University of Leipzig.
The rest is pretty standard stuff from Matt MacGrath, with a nod to El Niño, which in fact also chips away a bit about CO2 being the only cause of warming.
The world’s average temperature reached a new high on Monday 3 July, topping 17 degrees Celsius for the first time.
Scientists say the reading was the highest in any instrumental record dating back to the end of the 19th century.
The high heat is due to a combination of the El Niño weather event and ongoing emissions of carbon dioxide.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66104822
On Mark Steyn Tuesday with Mark Marano it was mentioned that BBC Verify was funded by Melissa and Bill Gates Fund, if it is true words fail me.
Can’t be too surprised though as their evil cancer reaches everywhere now.
New technology normally develops at a slow rate initially, starting with prototypes, then pre-production, testing, fix the bugs, if it looks OK invest in some tooling, make a few hundred and get them in the field and monitor what happens, evaluate, make changes, invest in more tooling make a few thousand , see how they perform also get a feel for the market at the price we think they can be made.
Now the big decision…..Invest in full tooling for a largely automated factory, and hopefully make a big enough profit to pay back these costs in less than 10 years (the shorter the better).
Now consider the net zero world of wind generation, battery vehicles, solar panels, large storage batteries, hydrogen power, etc etc.
The completely arbitrary deadlines imposed by governments, under pressure from ill informed activists, together with the magic money tree of government grants, as well as generous subsidies to the public to buy into the green is good mantra, have led to production quantities ahead of the normal development curve, so now design defects and unforeseen problems are occurring after investment in the tooling and factory together with many defective products needing repair.
So most of the start up electric vehicle companies have recently gone bust taking investors money with them as well as the government grants.
The wind turbine manufacturers are all struggling to make good returns and we know Siemens have warranty costs that are worrying investors.
The last straw was the rise in interests rates from 0.2% to 5%, it finished them off.
There is no common sense solution other then go back to fossil fuels, at least for the next 30 years, giving time to develop nuclear power at scale, by then it should be obvious that a small rise in temperature is not an emergency.
It’s worse than you think.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/siemens-gamesas-q1-net-loss-widens-884-million-euros-2023-02-02/
Thirty years ago, I thought that in thirty years time the climate change nonsense would have died a death as it would be obvious by then that there wasn’t a problem. It is now obvious that there isn’t a problem and yet the lunacy continues.
Proof it was never about the weather.
Don’t know much about the financial state of wind turbine manufacturers in China but in Europe all 5 turbine builders have been operating at a loss for at least 30 months and Wind Europe has recently tol the European Commission that
“we simply don’t have enough factories and infrastructure today to build and install the volumes that Europe wants” (Wind Europe CEO Giles Dickson, press release 16 March 23 ‘EU Green Industry Plan falls short for now)
https://windeurope.org/newsroom
…”by 2050 when there are expected to be some 360,000 electric cars on the road network.”
Ah, they’ve revealed the plan; reduce UK car numbers from the present 35 million! (Or maybe its a numeracy error).
But most of those 360,000 (or 35 Million?) EV’s will be sitting at the roadside waiting for a “Jump Start” to get them to the nearest charging station…
Imagine the roadways during a natural disaster. I remember an old Mad Magazine cartoon of asphalt and road-building machines covering over cars and the people in them during a traffic jam. Prophetic?
There’s something amiss about that figure, ie not enough noughts. |In October 2022 SMMT estimated there were 477,000 EVs in the UK and 790,000PHEVS and sales of EVs in 2022 to that October were 137,498.
Outburst of commonsense – seize and crush e-scooters. Why do I think this will cause an outcry and hasten Shapps to legalise them!
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/don-t-let-e-scooters-ruin-our-summer-seize-them-and-crush-289370/
The first electric cars arrived in the 1880’s, crude versions even earlier, before the arrival of ICE, they lost the technical and logistic battle then, state mandated compulsion is not going to win anyone over.
First cars required a crank to start. That was difficult and dangerous. Electric autos had no such problems. They were favored by the less macho types. When electric starters were developed there was a quick demise of the fully EV.
Look up the definition of “compulsion.” In the short-to-medium-term people will do whatever the government damned well wants them to.
“The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which represents car makers, called for a tax cut on public charging stations to help accelerate the update [uptake?] of eco-friendly vehicles.”
Electric cars are not eco-friendly, surely the SMMT are aware of that.
On the contrary – the tax on electricity used to charge EV’s should be INCREASED, which will go some way to covering the extra road damage they cause…
In its 2023 Progress Report to Parliament, the CCC crowed that: “The Welsh government accepted the recommendations of its independent roads review, which included cancelling 31 of 48 road projects reviewed (and reconsidering the merit of a further six) on environmental grounds and introducing stringent tests that will only permit new road projects if they will meaningfully contribute to modal shift, reducing emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change. This is a welcome step which should contribute to reducing traffic growth.” They want the rest of the UK to follow this madness, their objective is absolutely clear: stop the plebs from owning cars and let them walk and eat vegetarian food or cake. Thus, will they reduce the problem of disposal of electric cars by keeping the numbers on the remaining roads low.
Oh Dear, another problem for daft NetZero lobby?
Why not add the cost/bill to “quarantine electric cars” to those who want to use them?
The truth that will be omitted from any legacy media reporting of June car sales is that battery cars barely made 18% of the total. BUT, it gets worse as 79% of sales were to businesses and fleet operators which leaves us with a paltry 3.7% of the monthly total car sales being battery cars bought by ordinary people. Hardly a surge in ownership is it.
UK new car sales were always dominated by fleets and businesses anyway. Maybe in the long term car dealers will stick new or refurbished batteries in ‘quarantined’ or just old secondhand EVs and get sales to the majority who can’t afford, or don’t want to pay for, new ones.
Imagine your shock at the airport car rental counter when they tell you that only EVs are available for your motoring holiday or back-country tour.
They need to buy containers and put the cars in them.
And then sink them somewhere deep
Some footage of electric bicycle fires on the news recently, I was surprised at the ferocity of the initial conflagration, it was almost explosive:
https://news.sky.com/story/call-for-government-to-fund-safe-e-bike-subsidies-after-battery-fire-12915065
The SMMT ought to be making major resistance to the attacks on ICE vehicles. The market needs and wants ICE. It does NOT want EVs.
What about mobility scooters? They have batteries. Are they dangerous?
Aren’t they just normal 12v batteries?
I don’t know. Hopefully you’re right but I can see a time coming …
I’ve just replaced the sealed lead-acid batteries in mine. Some of the newer light weight models are fitted with Lithium batteries, which makes it easier to pack them up and put in car boot. But for most users – who keep them fully assembled – there’s little advantage.
360,000 evs 0n Uk roads by 2050???????????
“Should not the SMMT be sticking up for the interest of motor manufacturers and their customers, and not promoting the government’s green agenda?”
You misunderstand who is actually the customer of SMMT. Their customer is the government because it has the power to regulate and ultimately shut down the auto industry.
The despots of past empires would envy the vast powers of even the lowliest of modern regulatory agencies. We will continue the downward economic and social spiraling path of Leftist-run governments until their denial of technological and economic realities hurts the common man to the extent that piano wire and lampposts become the only option.
“The extra costs risk adding £20 a year onto all car insurance premiums” Why?
Surely in a competitive market most of the cost would be borne by the EV owners?
Maybe the planners should look again at locating battery installations near houses. There are several sites underway and more are planned all claiming to be saving energy. The right place for batteries is at the generators, (which is what they are smoothing). Some are less that 50 m from houses: happily not my house! They are spaced-out but there is no proper guidance about spacing distances and the risk of run-away fires.
As an added bonus to EVs the repair time to fix collision damage is excessive due to limited ‘qualified’ repairers and lack of readily available parts. Anecdote: My neighbor waited 6 weeks and insurance paid 6K $US to get his EV repaired from a minor collision that scraped two panels on the side of his car and had no functional damage. Would have cost about 1.2K $US and been done in less than a week with a normal ICE car. The body shop said the wait and cost was “normal”.
Some relatives were travelling overnight on a car carrying ferry. I didn’t say anything, but I was very glad when we EVENTUALLY learnt they had arrived safe. It’s only a matter of time before we get a tragedy.