Not to mention burned down garages/houses because of ICE vehicles combusting.
Of course people parking their ICE vehicles under, in, or near where people live is completely normal and socially acceptable. Even though they do occasionally burn.
And when I say occasionally, I actually mean: vehicle fires are most common reason for fire trucks to be called. And the overwhelming vast majority of those fires are good old ICE vehicles catching fire. That's not news because the media would be in a permanent stat of OMG, another one burned down hour more or less 24/7 around the year. If you think that is exaggerating things a bit, The US actually has hundred of thousands of vehicle fires reported per year causing billions in damage. And a year is only 8760 hours. You might want to consider your fuel bomb on wheels a bit further from where your loved ones reside, just saying.
Batteries are mostly safe. There was (past tense) a problem with low quality cheap Chinese e-bikes using unsafe and uncertified components. That already is being addressed through stricter regulations and tariffs. For the same reason, the TSA is now completely fine with you bringing phones and other battery equipped electronics on planes.
Home storage systems are far less problematic and usually involves professional electricians and using quality components from very responsible manufacturers with stellar reputations. I'm sure there are some isolated cases of these things having issues. And I'm also sure that that's not going to be a huge number of incidents. And that that pales in comparison to the statistics on gas boilers/furnaces, ICE vehicles, etc.
The (mock) outrage here is very selective and targeted. There's a crowd of fossil fuel funded lobbyists out there promoting any article that serves their agenda. They drip feed news papers, magazines, etc. with a non stop flow of articles to promote their agenda of spreading FUD about EVs / renewables.
I'm sure this is otherwise a fine article. And maybe somebody even is peer reviewing it; the site wasn't very clear on that (other than the 0 citations statistic). But is it really that interesting / world shocking? Why does dry bit of otherwise completely uninteresting statistics literature end up featuring on the front page of HN and getting tens of thousands of views?
A fossil fuel fire can be extinguished by snuffing it. By a fire extinguisher if it's caught small enough, or by a fire department with sufficient quantities of water.
Lithium Ion battery fires are self sustaining. Like with thermite, they produce their own oxidizer - they can't be snuffed. You might be able to flood one and cool it to the point where it self extinguishes (creating a flood of heavy metal contaminated water), use special equipment to drown it, or just let it burn itself out (spewing toxic gasses and at least three times the heat of petroleum fires) but once they are going, they are far more of a disaster than other kinds of common fires.
And even if put out they can re-ignite later forcing salvage yards to keep them physically isolated; causing all kinds of follow on problems that don't exist with traditional vehicles or other battery tech.
As others noted, this study did NOT explore these follow on effects, which is unfortunate. Perhaps they really aren't as bad as they appear - it would be nice to see them studied as well.
Of course people parking their ICE vehicles under, in, or near where people live is completely normal and socially acceptable. Even though they do occasionally burn.
And when I say occasionally, I actually mean: vehicle fires are most common reason for fire trucks to be called. And the overwhelming vast majority of those fires are good old ICE vehicles catching fire. That's not news because the media would be in a permanent stat of OMG, another one burned down hour more or less 24/7 around the year. If you think that is exaggerating things a bit, The US actually has hundred of thousands of vehicle fires reported per year causing billions in damage. And a year is only 8760 hours. You might want to consider your fuel bomb on wheels a bit further from where your loved ones reside, just saying.
Batteries are mostly safe. There was (past tense) a problem with low quality cheap Chinese e-bikes using unsafe and uncertified components. That already is being addressed through stricter regulations and tariffs. For the same reason, the TSA is now completely fine with you bringing phones and other battery equipped electronics on planes.
Home storage systems are far less problematic and usually involves professional electricians and using quality components from very responsible manufacturers with stellar reputations. I'm sure there are some isolated cases of these things having issues. And I'm also sure that that's not going to be a huge number of incidents. And that that pales in comparison to the statistics on gas boilers/furnaces, ICE vehicles, etc.
The (mock) outrage here is very selective and targeted. There's a crowd of fossil fuel funded lobbyists out there promoting any article that serves their agenda. They drip feed news papers, magazines, etc. with a non stop flow of articles to promote their agenda of spreading FUD about EVs / renewables.
I'm sure this is otherwise a fine article. And maybe somebody even is peer reviewing it; the site wasn't very clear on that (other than the 0 citations statistic). But is it really that interesting / world shocking? Why does dry bit of otherwise completely uninteresting statistics literature end up featuring on the front page of HN and getting tens of thousands of views?