OK the funniest part of this has to be the section about the goddamn golf association of all entities doing this:
The Monash Health charging ban follows the National Golf Club suspending electric vehicles – including golf buggies – from being recharged at the facilities it owns, following a fire at its Eastern Golf Club in the Yarra Valley which was attributed to lithium-ion batteries.
How the hell is a golf club supposed to work without functional golf carts? Amazing work on their part demonstrating how little they under the issue given golf carts still usually use lead acid cells that don’t pose the same thermal runaway risks.
I kind of understand a hospital network being skittish about EV fires given that while ICE fires are definitely still the bigger threat those are better understood by fire fighting teams in the region and the potential issue with pack fires lasting anywhere from a few hours to days depending on how the thermal runaway occurs.
While this is somewhat extreme they do seem to understand the issue from a technical POV given they’re not outright banning EVs from parking on their sites and while pack damage can result in a fire outside of charging, pumping current through damaged cells definitely increases the chance the cell will enter a runaway state. Moreover, while the author is confused by the ban not applying to the EVs leased to the group that actually makes sense given they manage that fleet directly and presumably get regular inspections that would pick up on pack damage before anyone would try to charge a vehicle with a damaged pack.
Hopefully they’ll just inspect the existing charging stands with specialists from the FPA Australia and lift the ban. Really, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for fire codes to start mandating brine or sand tanks be placed above or near EV chargers, if nothing else just to ease the minds of the insurance companies. After all, gas stations also typically have specialized fire suppression systems so it wouldn’t be that out there of a proposal.
OK the funniest part of this has to be the section about the goddamn golf association of all entities doing this:
How the hell is a golf club supposed to work without functional golf carts? Amazing work on their part demonstrating how little they under the issue given golf carts still usually use lead acid cells that don’t pose the same thermal runaway risks.
I kind of understand a hospital network being skittish about EV fires given that while ICE fires are definitely still the bigger threat those are better understood by fire fighting teams in the region and the potential issue with pack fires lasting anywhere from a few hours to days depending on how the thermal runaway occurs.
While this is somewhat extreme they do seem to understand the issue from a technical POV given they’re not outright banning EVs from parking on their sites and while pack damage can result in a fire outside of charging, pumping current through damaged cells definitely increases the chance the cell will enter a runaway state. Moreover, while the author is confused by the ban not applying to the EVs leased to the group that actually makes sense given they manage that fleet directly and presumably get regular inspections that would pick up on pack damage before anyone would try to charge a vehicle with a damaged pack.
Hopefully they’ll just inspect the existing charging stands with specialists from the FPA Australia and lift the ban. Really, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for fire codes to start mandating brine or sand tanks be placed above or near EV chargers, if nothing else just to ease the minds of the insurance companies. After all, gas stations also typically have specialized fire suppression systems so it wouldn’t be that out there of a proposal.