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No idea on the cause of the Luton fire but most of the newer (i.e.<5yrs old) Range Rovers are mild hybrids - as are most new ICE cars these days. So will have an electric component in addition to the usual 12V system.
According to the independent: yes. (Well perhaps the 12V system of the car).
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b2429048.html
A guy on YT has another opinion; he states it was a hybrid or electric car that set off the fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=zk0MWDsueMY
Does anybody know more?
No idea on the cause of the Luton fire but most of the newer (i.e.<5yrs old) Range Rovers are mild hybrids - as are most new ICE cars these days. So will have an electric component in addition to the usual 12V system.
Does RR/LR combine diesel technology with hybrid technology?
The registration number is on one of the videos.
It’s a diesel RR, not in any way a hybrid.
Pretty sure one of the Fire Brigade chiefs stated early on, that it was a Diesel.
So the only significance of EV is how the fire spreads through any EVs and whether that is more severe than petrol or diesel.
Putting aside the tin foil hats for a moment, isn't the potential for far more serious fires involving EVs something to think about?
The evidence suggests that putting out fires in EVs is generally more problematic than conventional vehicles, and although incidents are rare, surely local authorities and emergency services should be taking steps to mitigate any increased risk?
EDIT: I see Loony Tunes deleted his post.
Last edited by Onelasttime; 13th October 2023 at 15:49.
That’s not even a guaranteed ‘thing’ either, it’s quite possible for an EV to catch fire and the encased battery pack not do so.Originally Posted by blackal
https://www.teslaoracle.com/2020/06/...y-pack-intact/
I know some people, for whatever reason, are very keen for this to all be the fault of EVs, but this one doesn’t appear to be (even if some were parked in the same car park) and I would expect a fire involving 1000+ vehicles to be all consuming and difficult to extinguish anyway. Whether it’s hundreds of plastic fuel tanks melting and creating rivers of flame across the car park, or a battery pack venting until it consumes itself, I don’t see much difference.
The Liverpool Echo Arena car park fire back in 2017 also started in a ‘regular’ car, with a similar result.
If we have transport of any sort, we can expect it to malfunction at times, I got stuck in the aftermath of two lorry fires yesterday as it happens, one on the M62 westbound and the second one on the M6 northbound. Great journey…
I didn’t see the first one, but the second had started at the cab end and had spread halfway back along the trailer. Time to ban trucks from roads, lorry parks and ferries etc? Of course not, we just deal with it and carry on.
I recall reading that if an EV does catch on fire, the best thing you can do is let it burn and contain the fire as much as possible. If you manage to put it out, chances are it'll keep reigniting again until the batteries have absolutely no energy left in them.
As for the Luton car park, chances are we won't know for sure what actually caused the fire until the cars have been removed. What started it might not be the same as what caused it to grow and spread.
Yes, absolutely, the problem is that nobody wants to seriously discuss it.
The difficulty around a battery fire being more difficult to extinguish (using the current tools available to most fire and rescue services anyway) should really be balanced against the decreased likelihood of an EV catching fire in the first place.
Fire and rescue services should be, and I’m sure they are, looking at what is required and making the necessary investments in effective solutions.
For some it’s an emotive subject, and facts aren’t allowed anywhere near the conversation sadly.
This is the line now being adopted by most of the commentators who were adamant it was an EV that started it before the fire service had even commented.
Salvage teams have been on the RO RO car transporter that caught fire in the North Sea earlier this year, and found all of the 500EVs on board ‘in seemingly good condition’, with no battery damage. The cars on the deck where the fire started were ‘fused to it’, such was the intensity of the fire. You don’t need batteries for serious heat, petrol/diesel/plastics etc will do that.
https://www.automotivelogistics.medi.../44559.article
For the Luton fire, a simple sprinkler system might have stopped it spreading as quickly as it did. I’ve not been in the Luton car park in question, not sure if the materials in the roof were flammable, but melted fuel tanks releasing liquid fuel must have played a part in the quick spread.
Any fire (ICE or EV) involving a vehicle in a packed multi-storey car park will spread very quickly due to low ceiling heights, lateral spread of flame and high radiated heat coupled to the proximity of vehicles. The flames/heat spread out in a circular area from the vehicle on fire and the involvement of multiple vehicles does not take long without intervention.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
I know you are very pro EV but, the only reason those 500 EV’s were in good condition was because they were on the lower decks along with the 500ICEs that were also in good condition.
There is a problem at the moment if EV batteries catch fire, as with current equipment they are virtually impossible to put out. Do they catch fire easier than ICE’s…I’ve no idea and I’m not sure they have been about long enough (and aged enough) in significant numbers for any data to be reliable.
There is undoubtedly some concern regarding lithium batteries for instance e scooters and bikes being banned from many rail networks “ citing the fire risk posed by their lithium-ion batteries”.
I did post above that the Luton fire appears to have started with a diesel RR.
I have nothing against EV’s but don’t believe they are the answer for personal transport needs in the medium to longer term.
Thanks Chris, and yes I was thinking of your experience when I wrote that, I know it came up in the other thread.
Have you seen these by the way? I’ve not looked into what the UK F&RS are up to down at the fire training college.
‘Fire Cloak’
https://youtu.be/n_JINtx08iA?si=SYtaFjP5UPGEiEI2
‘Rosenbauer’
https://youtu.be/xaIAb3XgYVY?si=jDWHZ4Cx8khywUXh
Yes, the Rosenbauer kit is relatively new. The Dutch have a demountable container that they can push the car into and basically fill up with water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVUAzFzKhw8
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
I’m not ‘Pro-EV’, more that I’m pro people looking at the facts so they can discuss the topic from an informed position. It’s not like I’ve never driven an ICE before, I’ve got 30 years of that under my belt (incl motorsport), and still own an ICE and drive them in connection with my job as well. My day job is aviation, evaluating and mitigating risks is normal for me.
We should be concerned about all sorts of things automotive related, EV fires are a low probability high impact event, like plane crashes, but most people still get on a plane.
On the data aspect, yes there are credible studies around, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency has been tracking the data for years.
As of 2023, there were around 611k EV/Hybrid cars on Swedish roads, last year 23 of them caught fire.
There are also 3.8m ICE vehicles in Sweden, last year 3400 of them caught fire.
0.004% EV versus 0.08% ICE, or an EV/Hybrid was 20x less likely to catch fire.
Report is here, you’ll need Google if you’re not a Swedish speaker; https://rib.msb.se/filer/pdf/29438.pdf
There’s a YouTuber some may be familiar with (Moggy from Electric Classic Cars) who covered that report off in his piece on EV fires about 4 weeks ago. Worth a watch.
https://youtu.be/9kNIyTQ2jeM?si=4iL_CFF44x-vW58q
- - - Updated - - -
Yes, seen that one, looks pretty effective, but less likely to be an option unless access is pretty good.
In addition to the fire risks the average EV is 500kgs heavier than the equivalent ICE vehicle ... I wonder how that stacks up in a big multi-storey car park ...
Well, putting aside the fact that EVs are at a lower risk of catching fire, that 500kg figure is also a bit at the extreme end?
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/...spectively.%20...
the weight of small, medium, and large ICE passenger cars as well as their equivalent EVs was evaluated according to the method mentioned above. Tables 2 and 3 show weight comparison between various types of ICE passenger cars and their equivalent EVs. The average weight of small, medium and large petrol ICE cars are 1037, 1333, and 1827 kg, and the average weights of their equivalent EVs are 191 (18%), 313 (23%), and 433 kg (24%) heavier than them, respectively. ...
This article contains a video that apparently shows the first car on fire - it looks like an SUV but I'm not familiar enough with Range Rovers to identify it further
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/luton-air...o-latest-news/
Does the report provide the relative age and makes of the cars that caught on fire?
It's just a matter of time...
Not that I saw, it’s data that’s been collected since 2018, and categorised by transport type.
Hybrids and EVs are lumped together.
I think the point you’re about to make is that the average age of EVs is much lower than that of the ICE vehicles in Swedens fleet, which is likely true, and therefore less likely to catch fire due to that?
Here is the summary, of all vehicles, including other electric transport like scooters and bicycles.
Reading that again, I might have misrepresented the figures earlier, it’s 3400 ICE fires over 3 years in 4.4m ICE vehicles, so roughly 1100 per year, versus the 20 in EVs/Hybrids.Fires in electric vehicles in 2022
During 2022, there were a total of 106 fires in various electric means of transport that are operated entirely or partially with electricity. Most were in scooters with 38 fires, followed by fires in 23 passenger cars and 20 electric bicycles. Fires in hoverboards have decreased in recent years, while the MSB is seeing an increase among scooters.
- In this year's compilation, we have also included trucks and buses that are fully or partially powered by electricity. When it comes to trucks and buses, the majority are still powered by diesel, says Ulf Bergholm, manager at MSB in the unit for learning from accidents.
The fires in electric cars have been around 20 per year in the last three years, although the number of electric cars has almost doubled to nearly 611,000, while cars powered by other fuels are almost 4.4 million cars. During the same period, roughly 3,400 cars have caught fire, regardless of fuel (including arson).
If we look at the number of fires per car and compare it to fuel, there are still more passenger cars powered by fossil fuels that burn than those powered by lithium ion batteries in whole or in part.
You can find more about the number of fires in different vehicles and more about what has happened in the summary of fires in electric vehicles. There are the fires MSB knows about through the rescue service's reporting for 2018 through 2022.
The statistics for rescue service operations will be published in their entirety later in May 2023.
The number of EVs on Sweden’s roads has doubled in the past 3 years, but the number of fires has remained static, so there might be something in the newer vehicles equals less likely to combust point, but they would have to be a serious uptick in EV fires to get anywhere near ICE levels.
Norway has over 20% of cars on the roads as EVs now, there’s a guy on Twitter X who follows things related to this, some interesting stuff.
https://twitter.com/robbie_andrew/st...58052669575169
Thanks! That's the answer I was looking for.
Why?
Sounds like advice from Clarkson!
Unfortunately not !!
https://www.firerescue1.com/electric...4UedqIpVqc1k2/
B
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