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The New York Fire Department recently reported that so far this year there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured 66 people and killed 13. According to FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, “There is not a small amount of fire, it (the vehicle) literally explodes.” The resulting fire is “very difficult to extinguish and so it is particularly dangerous.”
Last year there were more than 200 fires from batteries from e-bikes, EVs and other devices.
A fire ignited at an e-bike shop and killed four people near midnight on the morning of June 20. Two individuals were left in critical condition. The fire commissioner has warned New Yorkers that such devices could be very dangerous and typically explode in such a way that renders escape impossible.
FDNY also reports that in just three years, lithium-ion battery fires have surpassed those started by cooking and smoking as the most common causes of fatal fires in New York City. It’s happening all over the country as these blazes have become commonplace. Cars and e-bikes are randomly blowing up in driveways and garages.
Now let’s be honest: 13 deaths in a city the size of New York with some 8 million people is hardly an epidemic. Regulations should always be based on a cost versus benefit calculation, or there would be no cars at all.
And yet the same scaremongers on the left who have zero tolerance and want bans for small risks when it comes to everything from swimming pool diving boards, gas stoves, plastic straws, vaping, fireworks and so on, have a surprisingly high pain threshold when it comes to people dying or suffering critical injured from “green” electric battery fires.
Or consider this: In 1965, Ralph Nader almost single-handedly helped ban the popular Chevrolet Corvair — famous for its engine placed in the back trunk of the car. Nader’s bestselling shock book “Unsafe at Any Speed” declared the car was deadly. But there was no real evidence of that claim, and to this day there are no reliable statistics on how many passengers — if any — died in Corvairs from rear-end accidents.
What is indisputable is that EVs will cause far more deaths than Corvairs ever did.
One other example: There have been more fatalities in just one city in a single year from lithium-ion batteries in cars than all the people who died from the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident — which was zero.
Yet, after the accident, thanks to the environmentalists’ fear campaign (with the help of the blockbuster anti-nuke movie “The China Syndrome”), no domestic nuclear plants were built for three decades. That is despite the fact that nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases.
But with EVs, the greens are pushing aside any concerns about the collateral damage of deaths and injuries. Biden wants to mandate that nearly ALL new cars sold in the U.S. be EVs by 2032. If that happens, many thousands of Americans may die or will be inured from electric vehicle fires.
All this is especially hypocritical because once upon a time the left’s mantra was “no trading blood for oil.” Now they are willing to trade blood in exchange for getting Americans to stop using oil. An irony of all this is that because of all the energy needed to produce windmills, solar panels and electric batteries, new studies are showing that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to this “net zero” transition is close to zero. It turns out, green energy causes some pollution, too.
For the record, I’m not in favor of the government banning EVs or e-bikes or just about anything. I just believe that we should make policy decisions based on real and factual risk assessments, not false scares and sensationalism.
As for the future of EVs, maybe it’s time for Ralph Nader to write a sequel to “Unsafe at Any Speed.”
Human activity does not affect the climate. However, radical Democrats want to destroy America and want us to use less energy and lower our standard of living. If an EV explodes, catches fire and injures or kills the driver, that is not a tragedy, especially if the driver is a Democrat. FJB/FBHO.
The Biden/Democrat master plan! The phony Covid-19 Vaccine did not kill enough of us, the next plan for mass murder is the EV and its lethal batteries! Just as the vaccine, the EV will be MANDATORY by 2035, should kill off a goodly number of Americans!
Both of them ride around visiting their supporting peasants in huge guzzling huge cars/tanks.
I am sure if you could convert the energy of a lithium battery burning, you’d get a better mileage than recharging it.
FJB’s dementia is due to “human-caused climate change.”. As is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hunter’s crack habit. All of it, so the government’s PR arm, the MSM, would lead us to believe.
I was considering a folding electric bike to carry in my Cessna. Maybe not!
Let the market decide. This new populist movement is as bad as what we complained about democrats- banning everything we don’t like and being reactionary to everything.
If the market were allowed to decide, then would there be available the two seat, six foot bed pickup?
And why not the air cooled, butterfly four, rear engined VW bug? In 1957 the people’s car cost $1,749 from the show room floor, providing an instant 40 mpg when a gallon cost less than a quarter.
What could capitalists possibly know about prosperity?
“In 1965, Ralph Nader almost single-handedly helped ban the popular Chevrolet Corvair — famous for its engine placed in the back trunk of the car.”
Even reading this book as a high schooler, I wondered why he paid so little attention to the Volkswagen, whose suspension – Nader’s chief complaint about the Corvair – made it, if anything, even more prone to rollover.
For the record, my father purchased a VW Beetle in 1963 – costing $1,730 as I recall – and I learned to drive “stick” in that car. Being light but rear-heavy, the car was particularly vulnerable to crosswinds at highway speeds.
I owned three different rear engined VWs. Mileage was about 25 mpg. You might hit 30 mpg on a flat road, and never exceeding 50 mph.
I’ve had at least two dozen various VW air-suckers in my life and they are some of the last genuinely enjoyable ‘authentic driving experiences’. One actually has to be a skillful, knowledgeable and pro-active individual to own and drive one of these adorably cute little history-lessons-on-wheels! While all my (younger) trendy friends are literally peeing their shorts in their desire to buy a TESLA, I drive my latest little vintage Bug as much as a statement of subtle protest against the religion of leading-edge technological progress as an inherently pleasurable ride! And yes, I am probably a proto-neo-Luddite, too, but that’s only a relatively minor character flaw, compared to all the listings in the DSM-5!
LOL.
The DSM-5 is being updated.
The Beetle was designed in the mid-thirties, when designers thought they could shorten the aerodynamic shape still keeping a low cw, which was wrong. The pendulum rear-axle was thought to be a better alternative and probably more important a cheaper one to the normal rear-axle, it was widely used in small cars. The entire drive-line could be put in the car as a unit in one operation, needíng only the fastening of four bolts.,
The result was an aerodynamiccally undstabe car, trying to put the heavy end at front, “assisted” by the pendulum rear-axle. The rear-end heavy vehicle was very oversteering, suddenly becom extremely understeering when the rear-axle woul do the dreaded “flip”. Due to the misunderstood aerodynanics and low compression engine mileage was bad and with the gas-tank directly in front of you it was indeed unsafe at any speed.
Enter Chevrolet. In genuine US fashion they made the elefant bigger by placing a heavy 6-cylinder opposed at he rear and raising top- and cruising-speed considerably., making it even more unsafe at any speed. It was not rear-end collisions that killed people, it was miserable handling characteristics caused by poor design.
Lack of development nearly bankrupted VW, and hadn’t they bought NSU and the K70, they would not exist today.
Luckily we have come a long way since then, but the EV is a misundestanding, and holds back development. It certainly is not the cure all . fix all.. Good for city-use and overhead powered city buses, and excellent for trains, but unusable for any other transport. Unless, of course, a miracle happens in battery technology.
I still have one, Sid…an orange 1973 Bug I love dearly. It’s no great asset in terms of promoting clean air, but the way I see it, for every environmental do-gooder, busy banning everything that moves, there are typically multiple-dozens of people who could care less about environmental quality…with the result that, no matter how many consumables, products habits, or behaviors are banned today, the human species will still eventually kills itself off in the not-too-distant future, LoL! And yes, I am a Schopenhauer pessimist…
Cheers, Eeyore :)))
Actually your car is overall environmentally good. The initial “investment” in materials and labor has been spread over many years. Very few cars use more energy by driving, than they use being manufactured.
One of the things we should learn is to keep things for a long time, and repair them when they break..
The best car for the environment would have a chassis of galvanized steel, alloy bodywork and a modern 6-cyl diesel, Achates if it is big enough, and automatic shift. It could with very little maintenance last for 2o years and more. When it finally goes to scrap, and why, all materials are easy to re-use., and we have an ample supply of them, mined and produced under decent conditions. The EV lives off child labor, under horrible conditions.
Yes, let the market decide between electric, gasoline powered and any other vehicle. But also, remove the subsidies and incentives that the government uses our taxpayer dollars to artificially lower the price of electric vehicles so there is real competition based on the true value of each type of vehicle.
Yes, it would be nice if cars could run on sunlight and the self-regard of their owners. But they can’t. The initial expense, short ranges, lengthy charging times, cost of replacing battery packs at 100,000 (or fewer) miles, battery and charging technologies just don’t make purely electrical cars practical for many people. They have their place and, at some point may be competitive with ICE engined cars but that time isn’t yet. The government forcing an immature technology on the population will not have good outcomes. Bet on it.
Fires? That’s “real life” stuff. The Left doesn’t worry about that. Ecars will never be banned. The elite need them as part of the plan.
I firmly believe in Man made up globull warming!
We run a salvage yard. Any electric vehicle that comes in requires that it have at least 50 ft around it, or they need to be enclosed in a concrete “garage”… Special handling necessary as the batteries can spontaneously combust, even when they are at “0” charge. This is high voltage we are dealing with.
Guess what, we get them off the lot as soon as we can..
Millions for green EVs but not one penny for sanity. (apologies to Representative Robert Goodloe Harper, 1798)
So do they want us to all drive these things and have them catch fire and burn us all up are they that willing to risk our lives over a totally fake crisis? Let them drive out of America and never return
Time to ban? How about NEVER should have passed NHTSA and DOT certifications in the first place.
Bingo! The root of the problem.
Oh boy, what a poorly written and researched article. I’m a conservative and I agree with letting the market decide and I don’t believe in the subsidies, but, statistically speaking, there have been plenty of studies showing that electric car fires are far less common than fires involving internal combustion engine vehicles. If you ask your average person on the street, they will probably think EVs catch on fire more often because that’s what we see most often in the media.
Secondly, the Corvair had handling/stability issues due to it’s swing axle rear suspension, which could cause huge camber changes during abrupt maneuvers. The rear weight bias already caused oversteer (which was hard for inexperienced drivers to handle) and the swing axle suspension exacerbated the problem. There was no issue with rear end accidents…I think the author is mixing up the Ford Pinto and the Corvair
Oh boy. A simple search would have revealed it was the Corvair.
I used to see the Corvair club at our Solo II events (autocrosses) and they did not handle poorly, they were quite competitive. This over analyzation of the Corvair by someone not qualified to do so has always been at the heart of this injustice. And by the way, I have known a great many people who had no issue with the Pinto and loved them dearly, none of whom ever had an issue with them including myself.
Car companies got duped when they started making and pushing these electric vehicles. They are not practical. Having to stop and charge a vehicle is not a desired plus for most people, especially in an emergency. Many traded then in for regular gasoline engines even while on vacation,.
I heard where the head of Ford drove an electric F-150 from California to Nevada to experience what it’s like for customers. He was not happy. Hardly any charging stations once he left California. The ones he did find were insufficient providing only a 40% charge taking 40 minutes. Others were out of service or not compatible. His “saving grace” was a Tesla “super charger(?) he found somewhere. He concluded there was much work to be done to make driving an EV worth the time and money. It makes me wonder how many more billions of dollars Ford is going to lose trying to put lipstick on this pig.
“Is It Time to Ban Electric Vehicles? ” Yes ! Immediately !!!!!!!
EVs should be mandatory for politicians and government bureaucrats. One should be in every one of their garages. Do it for the nation, and the planet.
And not mandatory for anyone else.
Biden’s Pipedreams he lost his marbles
Indeed – time for someone to write “ Unsafe at any charge”
Incidentally there was some valid content in Nader’s book. The early Corvair – like VW bugs of the time -had a swing axle type rear suspension that could make it more prone to rolling if it started to spin out. Later models had this fixed with a much better rear suspension design.
By then the reputational damage was done.. I recall a Car and Driver article pointing out that by the late 60s no caring parent would buy a new Corvair for a child – but caring parents bought VWs for their children in huge numbers.
“Now let’s be honest: 13 deaths in a city the size of New York with 8 million people….”. Your comparison should be made with the number of EV’s in New York, not the population. If you do that, the ratio will skyrocket. Imagine 13 deaths out of 100’s or even a few thousand instead of 8 million. There must be a number cruncher out there that could work that out.
EV’s are all a lie any way. It takes 500,000 lbs of earth to obtain the minerals needed to make 1 battery, and that dirt is moved by gas or diesel earthmovers. Plus the Lithium and other element mines becoame a toxic wasteland to the 3rd world countries that produce it (along with child slave labor).
And then you have to drive about 60,000 miles just to break even with a gas vehicle. And that doesn’t count the fill up time and loss of power in the cold. EV’s are the biggest scam the auto industry has ever been involved in, all for the sake of trying to prop up the global warming scam. Ford’s and other auto makers lose about $50,000.00-$60,000.00 for every EV they produce, but the American taxpayer pays it all through Gov. subsidies. Hideous, evil and rotten to the core is anyone who promotes this deadly farce.
Rev. Roy………..<
Here’s another issue. When you gas up your car, you are paying tax on the gasoline. Those taxes are (hopefully) being used to maintain our highways. EVs don’t pay gas taxes to support highways, so they are getting a “free ride.” BUT that won’t last. Sooner or later, states or the feds will start charging EV owners some amount per mile driven. It will be fun to see how EV owners react to that.
They’ll probably impose a tax at the charging stations. For home charging stations, they will require all units sold to be registered and each unit will include a monitor that reports the amount of electricity going through it to some federal or state agency that will then send you a bill. They won’t allow EV owners to avoid the taxes gasoline users pay. It’s way too much money to ignore. The EV owners will pay it without a complaint because, like what they pay for the car, it’s worth it to save the planet.
I am constantly reminded , ” I live in a free country ” Why am I being forced into driving an electric automobile or cook on an electric stove, against my wishes ???
Sadly all of the world’s problems can be traced to helping out. For nearly a century the first world has generously altered the trajectory of history in the form of increasing third world population through intervention, Medical and Agricultural. People who want to control “world population” have thus far sadly failed to realize the fastest way to gain their dream is to allow the third and second world to cure their own problems. And when they can’t then many other problems will be solved by default. My Father passed on in October, he was 86. He noticed that in the 40’s in grade school, he collected to feed the starving children in the third world, in the 60’s-80’s he watched his children collect money to feed the same children! Then watched his Grand children do the same and latest, he watched his Great Grand Children do the same! He believed we caused the equivalent of an “algae bloom” in the form of a “HumanBloom” in places where such growth in human population is unsustainable. I don’t know what to think.
I would judge wind speeds in LA by how many VW Beetles were suddenly moving sideways from lane to lane. I made sure I was not downwind of one.
Even the VW van had a fast sideways move.