Musk-negligence: why electric cars are increasingly burning in Russia
An increase in the number of electric vehicles on the roads leads to an increase in the number of accidents with them, including fires. The number of such incidents has increased by a third in a year. At the last strategic session on the development of electric transport, representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, experts, as well as manufacturers of electric vehicles and batteries for them discussed safety issues. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Security, not threats
The growing number of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure entails additional risks of fires and fires. This was stated by Alexander Kurenkov, Minister of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Disaster Management, at the strategic session on the development and safety of electric transport in Moscow. He noted that in order to prevent such incidents, as well as to eliminate their consequences, a response model is needed that will take into account modern scientific research, international experience and practical developments of fire and rescue units.
"Innovations should bring safety, not threats,— stressed the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
According to the agency, 120 fires involving all types of electric vehicles were recorded in Russia last year, including electric vehicles, trams, electric motorcycles, electric scooters and other SIM. In 2023, there were 89 of them. Thus, the number of such incidents has increased by a third in a year.
According to Valentin Nelyubov, head of the Fire Department of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, 40% of electric car fires occur during their storage, 30% during their charging, and another 30% are associated with accidents.
— We have experience extinguishing electric vehicles. However, the presence of high—voltage systems, difficult access to battery packs, the risk of their re-ignition, and toxic gas emissions from burning batteries make extinguishing electric vehicles more difficult," Gorenje said.
A representative of the Ministry of Emergency Situations said that various methods are used to extinguish burning electric vehicles.: This includes cooling the car itself and the batteries with a large amount of water, and controlled combustion, when firefighters allow the battery to burn out completely, preventing the spread of fire to other objects, and the immersion method, when a burning electric car is completely placed in a special container filled with water using special equipment. At the same time, Valentin Nelyubov noted, currently there is no universal method of fighting electric car fires.
100 tons of water
Traction batteries of electric vehicles consist of many different components, which often requires mutually exclusive methods of extinguishing them, says Oleg Dvoenko, Head of the Department of Fire Engineering at the Academy of GPS of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, Candidate of Technical Sciences. In addition, additional factors complicating the work of rescuers when extinguishing electric cars are high voltage in the gorenje area, as well as the risk of explosion, he added.
Gorenje Gorenje gorenje of an electric vehicle battery is a fire of two classes at once — D (burning of metals and metal-containing substances) and E (burning of installations and equipment under electric voltage). This requires combined methods and extinguishing methods," Oleg Dvoenko emphasized.
According to him, one of the ways to eliminate the ignition of traction batteries is the use of sprayed water. However, it takes much more energy to extinguish an electric car than for a conventional car, he noted.
"Practice shows that it can take up to 100,000 liters of water just to eliminate an open flame and cool an electric vehicle and battery, while extinguishing one car itself takes several hours," Oleg Dvoenko said.
Warn and prevent
The main danger posed by the traction battery is the possibility of so—called thermal acceleration, in which its temperature rises sharply, which leads to a fire, said Gleb Tagirov, chief designer of Renera LLC. This is caused by external heating of the battery, internal short circuit, charging at low temperature, mechanical damage and other factors of improper operation, he noted. At the same time, at an early stage, "thermal acceleration" is accompanied by the release of various dangerous gases even before the flame appears, Gleb Tagirov emphasized.
— Our task as a developer of a traction battery is not only to ensure its safety by ensuring proper operating modes, but also to inform the user in advance that something is happening to the battery. This will provide an opportunity to prevent and prevent negative developments at an early stage," he said.
To do this, the batteries manufactured by Renera are equipped with leakage sensors, gas analyzers, and advanced battery monitoring and management system algorithms that allow for advance notification of potential problems, Gleb Tagirov said. In addition, the company is working on the introduction of new chemical current sources with the prospect of replacing liquid electrolyte with semi-solid and solid-state, as well as developing more fireproof chemical current sources, he noted.
— As a manufacturer of rechargeable batteries for public and municipal electric vehicles, we see the particular importance of discussing safety issues on a broad agenda. This will increase not only the efficiency, but also the safety of electric transport operation," said Anastasia Mikhailova, General Director of Renera.
Working with maps
The so-called rescue cards are an important aid in the work of firefighters and rescuers who eliminate the consequences of an accident or fire with electric vehicles, experts say. They are diagrams of a particular car, which show the reinforcement points of the body, the recommended areas for opening and cutting it, data on the locations of airbags, gas generators, electric motors, emergency switches and disconnectors of high-voltage systems, data on batteries, their shape, type, power, etc.
— To date, there are 1,915 "salvation maps". At the same time, according to new Chinese models, including electric cars and hybrids, they are either missing, or rescuers have to independently search for information on them," said Kirill Borodin, Honored Rescuer of the Russian Federation, senior researcher at the Federal State Budgetary Institution VNII GOChS.
According to him, automakers often refuse to provide such information, citing technical secrecy of developments and intellectual property. The Ministry of Emergency Situations proposed discussing a solution to this problem, including through restrictions on the certification of new models if the manufacturer did not provide a "rescue card".
"We intend to discuss with the Ministry of Industry and Trade the possibility of restrictions on the issuance of OTTS for vehicles if they do not have rescue maps," Anton Dorotyuk, a representative of the Department of Educational, Scientific and Technical Activities of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, said during a round table on electric transport safety.
The Rescue Card is really necessary for rescuers working to eliminate an accident or fire involving an electric car or hybrid, Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of Za Rulem magazine, believes. For such models, the introduction of restrictions on certification is quite justified, he believes. However, it is not worth introducing the same requirements for cars with internal combustion engines, the expert believes.
— Hybrids and electric cars may have different battery shapes, capacities, capacities, and sizes — rescuers need to know these data in advance in order to extinguish such a car as efficiently as possible or to know exactly where it cannot be cut in an accident so as not to damage the same battery. Cars with internal combustion engines, if we are not talking about some kind of special equipment like an armored car, are very similar in design to each other, and rescuers have long known where the cushions are located, where it is better to cut or bend one or another body element to get the injured out of the cabin, Maxim Kadakov believes.
Parking problem
Experts are seriously concerned about parking electric vehicles in multi-storey underground parking lots. By the way, in some countries it is forbidden to leave "electric trains" and hybrids there. Since the ignition of such models is accompanied by a large amount of smoke containing extremely dangerous substances such as prussic acid and hydrogen fluoride, parking lots for them should be equipped with particularly powerful smoke extraction systems, experts say.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia notes that the agency has developed a set of rules regarding fire safety of parking lots for electric cars. It takes into account the proposals of industry organizations and international practice. For example, according to the proposed requirements, it is planned to limit the spread of a potential fire inside parking spaces using fire barriers. This will reduce the scale of a possible fire, protect neighboring cars from fire, and ensure faster elimination of such fires. The Ministry of Emergency Situations clarified that the document is currently undergoing approval procedures in the technical committees for standardization.
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