> Try now to imagine an electrically driven vehicle catching fire during Christmas shopping season in mid-December in midtown Manhattan in front of Macy’s department store during rush hour at six o’clock in the evening.<p>Why would I imagine that? This kind of thing happens from time to time with gas cars. Example (picked lazily and randomly): <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/video/car-erupts-in-flames-near-chelsea-piers/#x" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/video/car-erupts-in-flames-n...</a><p>In some respects, Lithium Ion fires are harder to manage, but they also seem to happen less frequently.<p>Maybe don't jump to conclusions based upon ~10 fires in vehicles flooded by saltwater?
So what seems to have happened is that N number of EVs - where N is unconfirmed in any of the articles I have seen but all have the same photo of a white Tesla Model X - which were submerged in <i>salt</i> water storm surge for many hours, experienced battery fires due to this corrosion / conductive water intrusion following a hurricane which had the worst level of storm surge in a populated part of Florida that I can remember in my lifetime.<p>I know that at least some gas car fires also happened in the aftermath of this storm, submerging even a standard 12v car battery in salt water is inadvisable.<p>I'm not sure what we can usefully draw from that, other than to avoid leaving EVs in areas expected to be submerged in salt water, but that's generally good advice anyway.<p>I do think the difference in how these fires are managed versus a gasoline fire should be considered. The most interesting thing I have seen to deal with this is a fire department that just had several car-sized metal dumpsters. Drop the car in the dumpster, fill it with water from a firetruck, and come back in a day or two.
> Try now to imagine an electrically driven vehicle catching fire during Christmas shopping season in mid-December in midtown Manhattan in front of Macy’s department store during rush hour at six o’clock in the evening.<p>sure, sure, the snow in which enough people drive for there to be a rush hour is totally comparable to a hurricane.
This gets blown up because of the anxiety/kickback about EVs. The writing is on the wall that ICE cars are going to if not disappear at least decline.<p>That’s a big freaking deal as millions of people make their living around cars. The number who will be in the future is a smaller number.
You know what else is prone to ignition? Gasoline.<p>The article conspicuously ignores gas car fires.<p>I think the only actual point is that BEVs are more likely to kind of spontaneously combust after corroding? Abs that bev fires are hard to put out.