12 Fisker Karmas burn to the ground after NJ Port floods

[DaveinOlyWA]

would love to hear a report on the cause. poorly sealed battery packs CANNOT be the reason. each individual module would be sealed against the elements. there is also massive reports of fires in the area like houses, etc. most likely from the compromised electrical grid.

the immersion in water is something we as Americans do thousands of times a day with the batteries in our cellphones. granted smaller but no less explosive.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Can someone please explain, why getting submerged in water should start a fire in Fisker or any other EV or ICE for that matter ? I would have thought it would exactly do the opposite..

i think some are implying that if the battery pack gets wet, it will burn and that is true for LI batteries that have a compromised package but i find that to be highly unlikely that water alone compromised the packaging. each module should be sealed against the elements so even if the pack containment system is not water tight, there still should not be an issue

 

[garygid]

If sea water can get to battery or cell terminals, or any bare
contacts or wires connected to any of them, then the
conductive sea water can cause high currents, resulting
in high local heating, and quite possibly fire, with burning
insulation, and then other combustible materials.

 

[RegGuheert]

12 of 16 Karmas burned to the ground after being flooded and submerged in water at the NJ Port by hurricane Sandy.

I wonder how deep the water got. Note that the cars are all parked neatly in their respective parking spots. That implies that they did not get inundated with water that was deep or swift enough to move them around.

 

[RegGuheert]

If sea water can get to battery or cell terminals, or any bare
contacts or wires connected to any of them, then the
conductive sea water can cause high currents, resulting
in high local heating, and quite possibly fire, with burning
insulation, and then other combustible materials.

Exactly.

Also, if the water can provide a current path to the gate of a transistor and turn it on, it can cause high continuous current to flow through paths that cannot handle continuous flow.

 

[smkettner]

The unusual discharge may have cause the lithium to be exposed to water. Lithium and water combined burn instantly.

 

[surfingslovak]

The unusual discharge may have cause the lithium to be exposed to water. Lithium and water combined burn instantly.

Yes, but we are dealing with lithium salts, not necessarily metallic lithium. Anyway, I tried to find references to lithium battery fires due to water submersion, but I couldn't find any. Below is a video showing a pouch cell being severely overcharged, and a study from Sandia Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory (BATLab).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQjudHKh-bI[/youtube]

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

there wouldnt be any. i am guessing the contacts of the battery are essentially fusible wires that simply burn open at super high currents eliminating exploding battery options.

the QC process is not perfect since none are but the percentage of cars burned makes me think it was an outside source. i notice the cars seems to be separated a bit from each other, i am guessing by load, order or whatever. i vote an outside event like shorted power lines or something

 

[RegGuheert]

there wouldnt be any. i am guessing the contacts of the battery are essentially fusible wires that simply burn open at super high currents eliminating exploding battery options.

The batteries don't need to explode to cause a fire. The LEAF battery can deliver over 80kW of energy without any fusible links fusing. There are many places you could deliver the current that would burn below that power level. The point is that the battery contains plenty of energy to start a fire. All it needs is a path for current to flow and a combustible material that will get hot enough to burn. The battery doesn't even need to be submerged for it to feed energy into a short or near-short.

 

[occ]

High voltages will short and spark in water like crazy, and if there's anything nearby that can catch fire, it will. Just look at all the downed power line footages in storms. The Fisker also have liquid flamable source nearby to help any fires along the way. ICE could concievably do the same, but the 12v battery may not have enough energy. Perhaps only one Fisker really caught fire because of its high voltage battery, but then the fuel gave it enough energy to catch the others on fire.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

there wouldnt be any. i am guessing the contacts of the battery are essentially fusible wires that simply burn open at super high currents eliminating exploding battery options.

The batteries don't need to explode to cause a fire. The LEAF battery can deliver over 80kW of energy without any fusible links fusing. There are many places you could deliver the current that would burn below that power level. The point is that the battery contains plenty of energy to start a fire. All it needs is a path for current to flow and a combustible material that will get hot enough to burn. The battery doesn't even need to be submerged for it to feed energy into a short or near-short.

no no no... the battery PACK can deliver 80 KW because of the heavy duty orange wiring. the battery modules are sealed (or at least they should be) withe the contacts of the batteries providing the only access to chemicals inside. current thru those packs "should" be pretty limited. any short condition should burn up the wire preventing any large discharge of power as long as the integrity of the casing is not compromised.

keep in mind; even something as small as a cellphone battery packs a pretty good punch. basic safety precautions i would have to think must be pretty standard across the industry especially after all those laptop fires we had

now i have seen batteries swell up and whatnot which is NOT supposed to happen so QC could be shaky and with large # of modules involved, the close proximity of the cars parked together could have sparked a chain reaction scenario but this what?? the 4th or 5th Fisker fire event. ALL the previous events were initially blamed on the batteries but investigations proved the batteries were always intact.

maybe its the law of averages finally winning? but i have to think not

 

[RegGuheert]

no no no... the battery PACK can deliver 80 KW because of the heavy duty orange wiring.

That's my point. The pack can provide enough energy to start a fire extremely quickly.

I'm sorry, but I don't have a hard time imagining a Fisker Karma self-combusting. It could be because most of the images I have seen of that vehicle are either of the vehicle on fire or of the charred remains after-the-fact. If I were Fisker, I would not want that to be the image burned into the minds of the members of their potential market.

Hopefully such an image does not carry over to EVs in general. But it will happen if these kinds of events continue to happen.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

There's been plenty of recalls in recent years with fires starting in power window switches in regular cars. No giant EV battery required.

My perception, right or wrong, is that the Leaf had tons of engineering and testing for things like this. The Karma on the other hand is an exotic, with no such resources backing it up.

If you are building hundreds of cars and selling them for six figures you don't really have to get it right, exotics spending half the time in the shop, breakdowns are common, and the occasional conflagration is par for the course. Just tell Jeeves to tend to it. On the other hand if you are selling hundreds of thousands of cars at the $20k price point you have to be nearly perfect, or you won't make any money.

 

[EnergyNovice]

Wow Fisker cant catch a break, first the A123 system now over a half million of product. Company barley keeping their head gets drowned by the the flood!

 

[pythagoras]

For the record, there were just two Karma fires prior to this seawater flood-fire. The second was traced to a faulty engine cooling fan whose bearing could fail, short a transistor and start a slow burn. The first occured under similar circumstances (fan running after car parked) but fire consumed the car so exact origin could not be proven.

It took Fisker all of a week to do a recall on those cooling fans.

Thank Jalopnik for the continual stream of searing images and sensational exaggerations that makes it seem like there were 4 or 5 fires. Luckily the Karma's a searing beauty in the real world.

 

[ebill3]

Remember the Volt fire in the NHTSA's yard? Wasn't that caused by liquid causing a very high current discharge?

 

[mwalsh]

Thank Jalopnik for the continual stream of searing images and sensational exaggerations

Ray Wert's stock in trade!

 

[TomT]

Well, if you never actually had to drive it...

Luckily the Karma's a searing beauty in the real world.

 

[GRA]

High voltages will short and spark in water like crazy, and if there's anything nearby that can catch fire, it will. Just look at all the downed power line footages in storms. The Fisker also have liquid flamable source nearby to help any fires along the way. ICE could concievably do the same, but the 12v battery may not have enough energy. Perhaps only one Fisker really caught fire because of its high voltage battery, but then the fuel gave it enough energy to catch the others on fire.

We used to warn customers that even in a 12 volt AE system, if they dropped a wrench and shorted across the terminals there was enough current available to arc-weld (at least, before the explosion). Can't say I was curious/dumb enough to confirm it directly :lol:

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

High voltages will short and spark in water like crazy, and if there's anything nearby that can catch fire, it will. Just look at all the downed power line footages in storms. The Fisker also have liquid flamable source nearby to help any fires along the way. ICE could concievably do the same, but the 12v battery may not have enough energy. Perhaps only one Fisker really caught fire because of its high voltage battery, but then the fuel gave it enough energy to catch the others on fire.

We used to warn customers that even in a 12 volt AE system, if they dropped a wrench and shorted across the terminals there was enough current available to arc-weld (at least, before the explosion). Can't say I was curious/dumb enough to confirm it directly :lol:

batteries make pretty good arcs/ have jumped more than a few cars with wrenches and long handled screw drivers